award stuff

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

Aquilanne <amazing at mail.utexas.edu> wrote various stuff.  However, I
think she made my point for me quite effectively.

Daniel de Lincoln wrote:
>1) X is a Good Thing.
>2) We should reward those who do it.
>3) This reward has to be a new award or order with a name and a dangly
>   and a place in the order of precedence.
>I agree with steps 1 and 2, and wholly disagree with 3.

She wrote:
> that they *do* get recognized when they do good stuff.

That I agree with -- but then she continued with

> One of the things that we mentioned that we did when we stepped up as
> Baron and Baroness in our old barony was to create a new award (wait,
> don't throw anything yet) that recognized enthusiastic/substantial
> newcomer involvement ...
> no huge piles of paperwork to kill a tree. It was strickly a local,
> baronial thing.

There *are* "no huge piles of paperwork" with awards.  There's a
one-page (for now) award report form.  You fill in the name of the
recipient on a line, and put a check mark in the column corresponding
to their Award.

But for SCA orders and (narrow-sense) awards, you'd better keep track
of who has received a Flying Newbie, or you'll try to give the same
person one again, or maybe not notice that Fred doesn't have one, or
the group historian wants to recognize everyone who done good and
won't have a list to go from.

> I think awards/recognitions are good things

Maybe it's a semantic difference we have -- the difference between the
narrow sense of award (charter, dangly, the herald reading the scroll,
the Award of the Ribbet Rivet) and the broad sense of expressing "ya
done good".  I'm probably belaboring the point to say that "award" is
a small subset of "recognition".

Another innovation that Madhi and Valeria have done is a fine notion:
calling into court those people who are at their first event, thanking
them for attending, and giving them small trinkets.  Hospitality and
welcome is both good and period, giving largess is both good and
period (how many bards, skalds, and troubadors wrote about their
open-handed lords, if only to convince everyone that being open-handed
is a Good Thing?), and *not* making the Order of the Flying Newbie is
very good!

Ash-Sheyk Da'ud sometimes talks about how he'd like to move to
Trimaris briefly.  He'd get 3 O.P. awards just for living there.  (The
only one I remember is an award for fighters over N years old.)

> If Ansteorra's list of official awards and potential places in the
> Order of Precedence is as full-to-overflowing as it kind of sounds
> to me,

It's not -- certainly not compared to the Middle and by rumor Trimaris
-- but In My Humble Opinion it's going downhill.  I've not studied the
O.P., but I think there are basically 3 tracks of award above the AoA:
- A&S: Sable Thistle (AoA), Iris of Merit (Grant), Laurel
- service: Sable Crane (AoA), Star of Merit (Grant), Pelican
- fighting: um, sorry, I wasn't paying attention -- I know there's
  Centurion (Grant) and Chivalry

In any event, it's fairly clean and straightforward.  The Sable
Thistle is inspired, in particular.  There's pressure to say
"Costuming is very important, so we need a Dragon's Needle for
costuming. ... Armoring is very important, so we need a Dragon's
Anvil. ..."  The fact that you get a "Sable Thistle in <field>"
short-circuits that pressure quite neatly.

But there's a White Scarf, partially because the Chivalry is for heavy
fighters only.  OK ...  I've heard rumors of an archery award being
mooted.  But then what about catapulters and other seige engine
operators, and knife / axe / spear experts?  That was lies
proliferation, and I think it unnecessary and harmful.  (Please, Lord,
if I've done ANYTHING good this month, don't let the "peerage for
rapier / archers / other combat" debate / flame war re-re-restart here!)

-- 
Daniel de Lincoln
Tim McDaniel.   Reply to tmcd at crl.com
tmcd at austin.tx.us is not a valid address.