[Bards] First Principles.

[Alden Drake]

Hmm...I think you might be forecasting a bit much into my suggestion.  Being a guild/college that reports to the KMOAS in no way necessitates bureaucracy any more than a local guild reporting to a local A&S Minister does.  It is just scaled to the point that a kingdom guild reports to the Kingdom A&S Minister.  It needs no other organization than identifying the guild/college principal whose duty it is to report on a periodic basis.  I'm currently the local bardic guild principal.  I don't have a heirarchy of offices within the guild.  I'm the only person with a responsibility to report to my local A&S Minister, and my local A&S Minister leaves me to run the guild as I see fit.  We're looking to create a guild here, not an offshoot branch of offices within the A&S Ministry.

Further to my thinking, if we are going to identify this college as being "the Ansteorran...." or "...of Ansteorra", then we are saying that we have been sanctioned by the Crown to be the official body of bards for the kingdom.  Hence why kingdom guilds require a kingdom charter signed by the Crown?  If, as per Robin's and Willow's preference, the bardic community wants to be a co-op, by and for the bardic community, and not associate itself with the A&S Ministry (or the Crown), that's definitely another way to approach it.

Alden





----- Original Message ----
From: Jay Rudin <rudin at ev1.net>
To: Ansteorran Bardic list <bards at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Monday, November 6, 2006 8:07:01 PM
Subject: [Bards] First Principles.


Alden Drake wrote:

> Personally, I would argue that if we are going to be an organization (be
> it a college or a guild) that is associated with the Kingdom of Ansteorra,
> that our group should exist under the authority of the Crown, via the
> Kingdom Minister of Arts and Sciences, and/or his/her appointed deputy.
> It should be through that existing organizational channel that oversight 
> of
> the college's adherance to Corpora, Kingdom Law, and the best interests
> of the kingdom should be maintained.
>
> I think it would also serve to better incorporate bardic representation 
> with
> the A&S community as a whole by keeping as close a connection to the
> KMOAS as we can.  We should want to improve our relationship with
> other artisans, not further distance ourselves behind the walls of a 
> college.

Thank you for a clear-headed insight.  I've been getting nowhere in these 
discussions lately, because we're arguing over how to say something, when we 
haven't yet agreed on what we're trying to say.

Michael Silverhands described it very well as the "as-yet only vaguely 
described target ".  I think we should spend somne time considering the 
target, and try to describe it first.  Our current approach is too close to 
"Ready, fire, aim!"

I'm going to abandon the discussion of how to phrase things and try to get 
us to discuss the first principles instead.

The biggest issue that several of us seem to disagree on is what the 
organization should basically be.  You categorized one point of view as "our 
group should exist under the authority of the Crown, via the Kingdom 
Minister of Arts and Sciences, and/or his/her appointed deputy.  It should 
be through that existing organizational channel that oversight of the 
college's adherance to Corpora, Kingdom Law, and the best interests of the 
kingdom should be maintained."

If that's what people want, then I won't get in their way, and I'll stop 
arguing about what the charter should read, because I would have no interest 
in that organization.  I have no desire to add to the kingdom bureaucracy.

Certainly, if Gwyneth and her deputy Ihon want to set up such a group, they 
can.  Being nice, generous people, they would undoubtedly even ask some 
bards for input on how to set it up.  But they would do so out of choice, 
not because they needed to.  We would have no inherent right to input on how 
the kingdom structure is expanded, any more than we had a direct say in 
whether there would be a deputy for performing arts.  (I'm not claiming 
there was anything wrong with it.  On the contrary, I'm maintaining that the 
KMOAS has every right to set up her office as she thinks best.)

By contrast, I hope to set up a co-op -- a group of people agreeing on their 
own to band together for mutual support.  This would not be something that 
the kingdom gave to us; it would *be* us -- owned and operated by bards, for 
bards.

Before we can begin to discuss how a charter should be written, we need to 
address this specific issue.  Michael's and my disagreement on whether the 
kingdom deputy officer should be an officer of the college is clearly merely 
a consequence of this crucial decision.  If it's a part of, or directly 
responsible to, the KMOAS structure, he's right.  If it's a group of bards 
choosing to band together for mutual support, then I'm right.

So how about it?  I'm asking everybody here, and I will spend the next 
couple of months trying to ask the much larger group of bards who aren't 
here: Do you want a group that will "exist under the authority of the Crown, 
via the Kingdom Minister of Arts and Sciences, and/or his/her appointed 
deputy" with "oversight of the college's adherance to Corpora, Kingdom Law, 
and the best interests of the kingdom" maintained through this "existing 
organizational channel", or do you want to join together in a co-operative 
venture of bards?

Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin

[Note that I am using somebody else's words to describe the vision I don't 
share, to avoid the temptation of characterizing it unfairly.]


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