principalities

[Lenny Zimmermann]

Ok, I have noticed several very vocal dissents against the breaking
the Kingdom into principalities, but I'd really like to see what the
Pros are.So I will try to make and, admittedly, feeble attempt at
seeing what the sides are.

Let me define part of this discussion by following-up with Sir Kief's
posting on the Crown's words. I will assume that we are talking "Full
Principalities" voted on by the populace with Coronets and a fair
level of autonomy. I will also assume that the Kingdom would break
into these Principalities for the sole reason of become 3 separate
Kingdoms. (I really can't see much use in breaking-up into
Principalities just to break up into Principalities, please let me
know if I'm missing something here.) We must also realize that there
are no official proposals for this, which is why I'm defining what I'm
trying to discuss.

With those assumptions it would seem to me that we must deal with the
cons of:

Personal feelings being hurt by the break-up of the whole.
Administrative difficulties for initially setting these up.
A LARGER event calendar, initially, to cover Kingdom AND Principality 
	level events, as well as local ones.
Arguments over who gets the name "Ansteorra" (I say if it happens, 
	don't let anyone have it. ;) Doesn't really matter to me, 
	though.)


And the Pros of:

The ability to travel within a smaller Kingdom more easily.
An easement on the event calendar on the local level in the long term.
The ability to better define our regional differences. (Sir Kief would

	apparently view this as a con, since he claims our differences 
	make us stronger. I have only seen this cause greater grief, but 
	I've only been in the SCA for a year, so what do I know.)
The ability to experience a different Kingdom culture more easily
The ability of regions to band together more easily, better defining 
	their own culture and allowing for new areas of diversity. (Could

	be seen by some as a con.)
Alleviation of personal feelings being hurt by some Crown from some 
	"furin'" region ruling the Kingdom in ways your region doesn't 
	appreciate.
Better chance for smaller events to get noticed and be attended within

	a smaller Kingdom. (Goes along with the calander easement above.)

Hmm... so far I appear to lean in favor of the breakup. PLEASE comment
on these and add to the lists, as those of you with more experience
can help enlighten some of us to concisely lay out the pros and cons
of this decision before we write to TRM. So far I think if we have a
good level of autonomy as Principalities we could quickly move to
being Kingdoms (don't see why we don't just go to being Kingdoms,
actually) and create a greater feeling of community. Let's face it,
for a good deal of us driving 8 hours on a weekend to get to a cool
event on the far end of the Kingdom is very rough when balancing it
with our professional careers and (for some of us) night school as
well. Personally I think I'd have more of an excuse to drive that far
if it was out of Kingdom, because then I could really experience a
completely different "culture". Besides, we'd then have more borders
to have "wars" over . >;-)

Honos Servio,
Lionardo Acquistapace, Barony of Bjornsborg
(MKA Lenny Zimmermann, San Antonio)
zarlor at acm.org