[Bards] Just a few words (really good words

[Alden Drake]

On Nov 8, 2006, at 12:44 PM, Jay Rudin wrote:

> ... As near as I can tell, {Michael}, Alden and Finnacan
> are upset with me because:
> a. You're afraid it will be too exclusionary, and
> b. I  don't want to give final answers without talking to more people.
> C'mon, guys, it can't be both.
>

I'm not upset at all.  We all have different ideas of how to make things work.  In the end, we all have the same desire of making something work successfully.

Through all these discussions, what I would propose doing is forgetting about the college for a moment, and addressing directly things we need to do

1)  Improve bardic visibility and usage;
2)  Make better use of the resouces we have available to us now (elist, webpage, publication);
3)  Increase bardic activities (both performance and discussion)

What I gather to be the desired effect of creating a college is simply to strengthen our community.  So let's simply call it "The Bardic Community".  It already exists, we just need to make it better.

Suggestions to do it.

Regarding 1) above: wear bardic sashes, talk to branches about inter-branch bardic champion challenges, work with nobility/royalty and event stewards to schedule performances, as a bard simply be more visible - put yourself out there.

Regarding 2) above: continue good dialogue on this elist, submit compositions, class notes, articles, links, resources, etc. to link on the website, contribute stuff to Voices of the Star.  Do we want to create a newsletter?  

Regarding 3) above: hold more circles, start local guilds, teach more classes.

The onus is on US to do more, and by doing more, we'll improve the connections we have to eachother, thereby strengthen our sense of community.

Alden