Fw: Re: Bards - history of college involvement in competitions

[jonwillowpel at juno.com]

Dear Lady Kyleena

I am going to answer this because I was in charge for part of this
history.
Willow

The College of Bards has gone through many changes and many different
names. The College under the name "Royal College of Bards" did not give
any help to people having competitions except for the advice and aid of
the premier bards. This wasn't too bad because the Premier Bards are a
great source of knowledge and wisdom all by themselves. The some of the
problems that led to the "Royal College of Bard" had a lot to do with
competition so the "Royal College" was under orders not to get involved
in completions.
The "Old Queen's Bards" got started in the North while we were a
principality and the northern version didn't do title competitions. In
Lloyd's first reign the Queen's Bards and The Southern College of Bards
got blended. The Southern College wanted to hold competitions for
"chairs" and that is how the title bard competitions came into being. 
A lot of the bards at that time were upset at how bardic competitions
were being held. Many of them believed that skill had no part in winning.
The nobles were giving the prizes to their friends or to newcomers or
they were giving them as " that a boys". It was decide at that time that
we would start a system of contest all over the kingdom and run them the
way we the bards wanted them. The "Old Queen's Bards" provided judging
form and "How to " papers and would arranged for judges. In fact no title
competition was considered "official" unless it was put on by the
College. This started out OK but soon problems arose. The local nobles
and officers complained that we were forcing them to had these
competitions and we didn't have the right to control them. Many of the
Bards thought that the competitions were detrimental and we shouldn't do
them. The conflict rose to a peak and in the 20th year of the SCA the
"Queen's College of Bards" went out of the competition business.  The
local groups took over the control of their local competitions.  I
stopped being the principal of the Bardic College at this time  and took
a break in my involvement. I am not sure what the policies were then but
I do know that the problems didn't stop. Whenever the local groups did
something wrong with their competitions the people involved blamed the
College. Whenever a performer behaved in a bad way or the contest caused
problems people looked to the college to correct the situation. When the
college didn't do anything they complained to the crown. No matter what
the officials of the college did people still thought we were still
running the competitions and thought we had control over them. The
rewrite of the Charter and creation of the "Royal College of Bards"  was
partly over the need to clear this problem up once and for all. We tried
to tell people that we were not creating the problems but they wouldn't
believe it. In the last period between Sutan's reign and Barn's the
Bardic College officially became just the Premier Bard and during that
time people have come to the understanding that the source of their
problems is not the Bardic College.

I do believe that there is a need for resources involving competitions.
Many a performer wins a title competition and than finds himself running
the next competition. They don't know what to do or how to get judges.
They don't realize that there are different styles of competitions and
what each promote. They need information. I think it would be a good idea
to gather data and create some resources but I think we need to very
careful not to fall into the old competition trap. 

What do you all think?

Willow de Wisp




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