[Ansteorra] Nepotism and Award Value

[C. Weed]

A question was brought up that spurred my mind to a sweaty gallop:

>1. How do you feel about Significant Others or close friends
>  reccomending awards for their partner?

Are you really doing your loved one a favor by putting them in for an award?
(Don't answer that; it's rhetorical.)

Our awards in this club have value like all other things in any given
economy: they have value because we all *agree* they have value.  The only
difference in the dynamic of value of, say, an Iris of Merit and a dollar or
a shovel or a bird dog is that the value is counted in units of respect.  If
you've been given an Iris of Merit for making authentic left-handed gilded
medieval bun-scratchers and everybody with an itchy left bun from Northkeep
to the Marche has thanked you for it, you've gotten award that retains it's
value everywhere within the area it was *designed to have value in*.

If, on the other hand, your loved one's bun-scratchers are of the same fine
quality but the only folks who've ever had the relief it provides are local
friends and family, the award depreciates as you leave your local group.

Here's a rule of thumb that combats the Respect Inflation Index: AoA level
awards should hold firm value within the immediate group, Grant level awards
should hold their value within their region, Polling Grants should hold
their value within their Kingdom, and Peerages should hold their value SCA
wide.  By 'holding their value' I mean that _anybody_ within the area
specified should be able to either answer outright or make a *darned* good
guess as to why the person in question got his award.

"...but the award is for the person who RECIEVES it... it only has to mean
whatever it means to *them*... it's a magical loving gift from the crown..."
[end whiney lame rebuttal mode]

Bologna.  If that were the case then there wouldn't be award charters with
standards.  There wouldn't be levels of awards within the club.  There
wouldn't be required titles of respect.  There wouldn't be outward symbols
for us to carry around for everyone to see.  If you want the person to
receive a "magical gift from the crown that means whatever the recipient
wants it to mean"  go to Wal-Mart and pick up a Mystic 8-ball... Spray paint
it metallic bass-boat pink and give it to the crown along with a request
that they present it to your friend in the next local court.  Everyone will
know it's special and it'll get TONS of attention.  Don't inflate the
established economy of everybody else's award by trying to sweet
talk/beg/cajole/petition the crown into giving your loved one an award
outside the economy of respect their efforts have achieved.  Using the
crowns inability to be everywhere at once is a broach of trust.

Everybody can think of a time when the crown has extended an award to
someone who blatantly wasn't deserving.  The sad silence of a collective
"why?" has found it's way into too many of our courts.  It really erodes the
fun in the game.  We remember the occasions when it's nepotism on the crowns
behalf, but the number of times that their judgment has been swayed by
well-meaning friends and family largely goes unnoticed.  Don't be a part of
the problem: if your loved one is truly deserving of membership in the
Esteemed Grant Level Order of Pegasus's Bloodshot Eyeball somebody *outside*
your household will notice eventually.  Feel free to point your friends
merits out to others abroad- even ask them if they'd write a request- but
save your ink for instances where your intended recipient won't be a "why?"
when he's away from home.

My wife told me I should know better.

Sir Dieterich