[Ansteorra-missile] Separating Combat from Static Archery

[Eadric Anstapa]

Cinaed,

If you or anyone else have problems with the way an individual marshal is
doing or not doing their job this is NOT the place to address that.

First, you should do the marshal to courtesy of talking to him or her
directly and voicing your concerns (for all I know you may have done this).

Second, if after speaking to the marshal in question you feel the problems
have not been addressed, you should talk to the Regional Archery Marshal.
(for all I know you may have done this).

Third, if you feel that the Regional Marshal is not addressing the issue then
you need to talk to the Kingdom Archery Marshal and I know you have not done
this.

The job of the Branch Archery Marshal is largely and administrative job.  It
is NOT to train every new target or combat archer that comes into the area or
to attend every single fighter practice held in a large metro area like the
Steppes.

This is little different that the job of the knight's marshals for a branch.
There may be a half-dozen practices taking place in a large metro area and
your knights marshal is not expected to be at every single one of them, no is
he expected to personally train every single new fighter that comes into the
area.  It's a community efforts with other experienced fighters, marshals,
and knights helping bring new fighters along.  It is no different for the
archery marshal.

In fact the position of archery marshal is not a required position for a
branch and it is not required that the marshal (if there is one) be both a
combat and a target archery marshal (they need to be one or the other).

It is the job of the branch marshal (if there is one) to help coordinate the
archery activities of the branch.  To assure that when people are interested
they are directed to the right people who can help them.  It is the job of
the branch marshal to assure that when archery activities happen that there
are properly authorized marshals present supervising those activities
assuming that they are activities offically sponsored by their branch (they
have so responsibilty for private or independantly sponsored practices).  It
is the responsibility of the branch marshal to assure that all activities are
properly reported to their upline officers.

The branch marshal does not always have to be present.  Any properly
authorized and warranted marshal can train, supervise, and do the things that
you are asking.  Please go to http://archery.ansteorra.org and read
the "Duties of Ansteorran Archery Marshals" document that you will find on
the manuals and reference page.

I personally know Jacques as an honrable, talented, and dedicated archer,
marshal, and teacher.  I have stood beside him both on the battlefield and on
the target range and have watched as he instructed new archers in his craft.
I have always valued having him beside me as either an archer or as a marshal
regardless of it that is on the battlefield or at the target range.  As a
branch marshal his reports are very complete with much more detail than most
officers care to offer, and he is on time with those reports.

As an archer and marshal, Jacques like the rest of us has valid opinions that
are a result of his personal experiences.  If he feels that crossbows have an
advantage over longbows for whatever reason I respect that opinion (and I can
personally argue either way on that subject).  If Jaques feels that APDs have
hurt combat archery or even just that they have hurt longbow and recurve
archers then I also also honor and respect that opinion (and can also argue
this one either way).  When Jacques made his comments and voiced his opinions
in this forum he did not indicate that he was making those as a marshal nor
did he represent himself as the branch marshal for any group, he simply made
the statements as "Jacques".

Now, having said all of that...  If there is a branch with an active Target
Archery community and an active Combat Archery community, I have no
objections to there being two separate "branch" marshals with one responsible
for Target Archery and the other repsonsible for Combat.  However, a request
for something like that would need to come from within the branch with the
blessing of the branch Seneschal, B&B, and the Regional Marshal.  I dont
think such an arrangement is necessary since as-is the branch marshal can
certainly designate any of the other at-large marshals in his branch as his
deputy in charge of Combat Archery or Target Archery.  The disadvantage of
setting up two separate offciers in the branch is that then you have two
seaprate officers that are required to report on a monthly or quarterly basis
to the regional marshal and if they dont then that is one more opportunity
for the branch to get in trouble for not properly reporting.

Now, lets gets back business we had at hand and lets please stop directing
jabs and thinly veiled personal insults or questioning the quality of work
from our volunteers.

In Service,

Lord Eadric Anstapa
Kingdom Archery Marshal, Ansteorra
archery_marshal at ansteorra.org




CinaedOHosey at aol.com said:

>  Last week Mike vented at a few people on this list over what at the time
looked to most observers to be a minor statement by Jacques the Spink. I sat
back until the waters calmed a bit to step in to this discussion. Now is the
time to say what I saw.
>  Jacques the Spink is the local Archery Marshal in Mike's area and as such,
he is responsible for both static archery and combat archery. Jacques does
great with the static archery community. He is always at their practices
teaching and helping. Unfortunately, he has never, to my knowledge gotten in
to armor at a fighter practice and shot at fighters or taught others to do
so. One can only assume he does not have time to learn to properly use the
longbow in combat archery because he devotes so much of his time to the
static archery community. That is fine, that is his choice but as the Archery
Marshal, he is the person in the area responsible for developing the new
combat archers in his area. When the person responsible for training new
combat archers can't do it himself and voices the opinion that it is too hard
for himself or others to learn we have a problem in the combat archery
community.
>  The problem, as I see it, is we have one person responsible for two
different, and at times conflicting, activities. For example at Three Kings
when HE Octavia wanted to discuss combat archery, most of the archers were
doing a static shoot. In Mike's area if someone asks about combat archery he
is sent to Jacques the Spink because he is the Archery Marshal but all
Jacques has time to do is attend the static archery practices so that person
is not developed in to a combat archer but rather a static archer that does
combat archery when he can. There are also combat archery people that will
not become archery marshals for an area because they do not want to deal with
the static archery activities of that area.
>  To take the combat archery community to the next level in Ansteorra we
need leaders whose focus is combat archery not static archery. We have too
many leaders in the combat archery community who show up under HE Octavia at
Gulf to command but who cannot be bothered to armor up and shoot people any
other time. We need to develop more leaders like HE Octavia who is always
there to shoot combat archery, always there to put combat archery and the
needs of the combat archery community first.
>  The first step to developing these kinds of leaders is to separate these
two functions of the archery marshals. I am not saying one person cannot fill
both positions but where one cannot adequately do so, as Jacques has shown he
cannot, we need the option of assigning some one else. This also makes it
easier to get new people involved because as they are sent to the right
person the first time.
>  What will it take to get this done?
>
> Cinaed O'Hosey
> Commander of the Condottieri
> _______________________________________________