[Bards] no suger coating on this

Scott Barrett barrett1 at cox.net
Wed Nov 1 14:30:14 PST 2006


Robin,

you've made your case rather passionately for the College, and I can 
see where you're coming from. Her Grace Willow has also made a few 
assertions that an official College has more power to cause change. She 
makes sense and her position is just as strong as yours, with your 
history of success, enthusiasm and activity among the performers of 
this Kingdom when the College was active. Both of you have made the 
following case as I see it...

The bardic community can be strengthened by symbols, an independent 
structure and a community composed of fellow entertainers beyond a 
mailing list and a website, a community that feels a kinship despite 
our natural individualities as performers. This has an effect not only 
on new and old performers, but those outside the community looking for 
some guidelines in dealing with the bardic arts. I can see the value in 
this. I see that as worth trying. I'd be honored to be a part of it. 
However, before I let myself get overly enthused, I think the time has 
come for someone to ask the really difficult question, the one that 
makes some people wince, the one that no one really wants to deal with. 
This is going to come up sooner or later.

What happened? Why did the College/s fail? What led two crowns to go 
out of their way to kill it?

Now, let me clarify my position to the list. My hands aren't clean in 
this issue, but my back has scars as well. I was one of those that 
never felt welcome in the College as a new player. The College never 
went out of it's way to harm me, but it's strongest defenders were less 
than cordial when I first started playing. Despite my theatrical 
confidence (trust me, folks, it's an act) I don't tend to linger where 
I'm not feeling welcome.
  I also had never heard of any of the bards in my area being involved 
in the College at all, and they were doing fine.

Imagine my amazement to learn that winning the Premier bard put me in a 
de facto position of administration for the College. The College had a 
scheduled meeting after I won,  so I went into that meeting to let the 
College know that I had no good experiences with them but that I was 
happy to hear why the College should continue, as that was the general 
focus of the meeting. If the College was actively engaged in some 
positive things, I wanted to hear them. I fully prepared to be schooled 
in just how little I knew about the College's activities. That meeting 
ended with a vote and the majority saw fit not to continue.
Robin, you were there, and you were none too happy as I recall. Seeing 
your history with the College, I can understand why. There were less 
than 20 people at that meeting, the Queen included. I didn't see a 
College brought low by Royalty, I saw a lack of interest among the 
bards of the Kingdom.

What was going wrong with the college? I didn't kill it, I never had 
that kind of power, and even if I did I wouldn't have tried if the 
College was a positive thriving community. I just called for a vote and 
let it stand. What led to that vote, that poor turn out? What happened 
that the College has had to go through three manifestations thus far? 
Were toes stepped on? Was there a  policy of the College that was 
unpopular? Why were people so turned off by it?
Why did two crowns disband this thing?

I'm happy to reconsider the College/Guild/Fellowship/ What-have-you IF 
there is a concerted effort to identify the problems of the past and 
make sure they don't ever happen again.

For those that never wanted to discuss this ever again, sorry, but I 
think we all need to know.

~Finnacan




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