ANST - Landed Nobility...

[Lori Campbell]

Sorry, actually I liked this set of questions.  It's just that 
sometimes I get in the middle of other things and forget to send what 
I thought until it's way past the point of interest....

I've never been landed nobility, though I expect to come into quite 
a bit of land in the near future:-).   However, I've lived in a 
Barony since it's creation and seen it through three and a half sets 
of landed nobles.  

> > does the "group" expect the next people to live up to and behave
> > the way the previous Landed Nobility did?

Based on what I've seen, I'd feel pretty safe saying that any new 
baron and baroness is expected to live up to the good things about 
their predecessors.  They are also expected to fix things that people 
felt were problems under the previous leadership.  

As H.E. Caterina said, it's usually impossible to meet such high 
expectations because each set of nobles are different people and 
everyone reacts differently to circumstances.  I've seen new landeds 
react to a situation in a totally appropriate manner and be called on 
the carpet because "it's not how our last Baron/ess would have 
handled it"... It can be extremely difficult when predicessors were 
especially loved and respected.
 
>  > I was wondering more about the day in day out functioning 
> > of the group. Do they take leading roles in the business 
> > meetings, event plans, etc?

Of the three sets my barony has had, all have taken a more
"hands off" approach than I've seen in other baronies.  Some 
felt that attendance at populace meeting wasn't really required 
while others felt their attendance was manditory.  All have 
followed the basic corporate guideline of "the buisness meeting 
should be run by the seneschal" (forgive my somewhat 
paraphrased quote - I can find the actual page, paragraph #, etc. 
if anyone is especially curious).  This is not a typical way of 
handling business meetings.  Many groups I've seen run their business 
meetings something like a court, with the Baron/Baroness actively 
controlling the meeting.   

In Wiesenfeuer, our most recent set of landeds gives their 
officers a pretty free rein, preferring to take a more motivational 
role. They encourage members to apply for and hold offices and 
autocrat events.  Both of our landeds are experienced office holders 
and event autocrats (which *reallly* helps).  They don't really 
help autocrat events or run offices because we have some extremely 
good workers, but they are great at "gentle reminders" about the 
important things (like getting site contracts, purchasing toilet 
paper, etc.).  

Among their more "official" duties, they interact with the Crown to 
see that their needs are met at Wiesenfeuer events.  They coordinate 
courts and schedules for our group's events.  They help with 
Demos and act as spokespeople to local media, if necessary.  They 
work to get to know their people so they can accurately represent 
their opinions to the Crown and the rest of the Kingdom.  The best 
thing about Wiesenfeuer's nobility is that they try very hard to 
serve as the eyes and ears of the Crown.  They pay a great deal of 
attention to the contributions made to our society by the members of 
their barony.  They also work to recognize folks from other groups or 
areas that don't have the advantages that landed nobility provides.  
Wiesenfeuer's Barons/esses, as well as the landeds for other northern 
groups, have often held court for smaller groups' events when the 
Crown couldn't attend.

Well, that's an opinion from this end of the kingdom.  From what I've 
heard off-line, some of these things are typical to most baronies 
while others aren't often the case.   I really figured that more 
people would speak up on this subject.

HRH Kat    >"<
*******************
Lori Campbell
lcampbel at ossm.edu
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