[Ansteorra] Heraldic Submissions in Ansteorra

[Joseph Percer]

Greetings Ansteorra,

A fair number of our populace has name, device, or badge submissions
in our pipeline at any given time. With the internet playing as bold a
role in this process as it does today, we can now involve the
submitter more than ever in the process. This has led to a marked
decrease in items being returned by the kingdom, as we are able to
communicate with submitters during commentary. Given that, if you have
a heraldic submission, I encourage you to follow it's progress with
two tools available to you. The first tool is the Ansteorran Heraldic
Submissions Tracker (HST), which can be found on the web at
http://heraldry.ansteorra.org/hst/ . This tool will allow you to look
up any submission made through Ansteorra since 1993.

The second, and newer tool available is the Ansteorran Commentary
Exchange (ACE), which can be found on the web at
http://ace.heraldry.ansteorra.org/ . When you submit your
name/device/badge it must go through a period of internal commentary
where the heralds of the kingdom  will consider your submission and
whether there are any errors in the documentation, flaws in the
artwork, or any conflicts with previously registered items. This step
must be completed before we can send your name on to Laurel for final
consideration. I call your attention to this,  because we often find
that an item is not drawn in an identifiable fashion, or that there is
a conflict which was missed during consultation. With names, we might
have a problem with a certain spelling not being documented, or we
find better,more period documentation and would like to present it to
you. When the submitter is watching the commentary, we are often able
to solve some of these simple problems without a return of the item,
thus saving the extra time it would take to resubmit. While this is
never a guarantee that returns will be prevented or avoided, it has
resulted in a decrease of the amount of returns we make in kingdom
allowing us to send your submissions on to Laurel for that final
consideration.

The catch is that I cannot contact every submitter every time there is
a problem with a submission, there are simply too many submissions to
do this. Where you, the submitter, come in is in being proactive.
Please read the commentary on your items. If you notice that there are
problems being cited, feel free to contact your consulting herald,
your branch herald, your regional herald, or the Bordure Herald. Both
your regional and the Bordure Herald have their contact information
published in the Black Star. I would like to point out that we ask
that you do not take offense to anything cited in commentary. The
heralds commenting are in no way attacking submitters or their
submissions, but do sometimes use strong imagery or humor to get their
points across. Most are very helpful and will often offer suggestions
on how problems can be fixed if you contact them.

In short, if you've got a heraldic submission in process, please take
the time to follow it, and we'll do our best to keep it on a straight
and true path to registration!

To recap, those links are: (ACE) http://ace.heraldry.ansteorra.org/
                                        (HST) http://heraldry.ansteorra.org/hst

For a brief overview of the submissions process, check out:
http://heraldry.ansteorra.org/docs/whathappens.php

Yours in Service,

Andrewe Bawldwyn
Bordure Herald

-- 
Joseph M. Percer, AAS, LP