ES - Galen gets editorial

[baron at elfsea.ansteorra.org]

The following should be clearly understood to be a 
matter of opinion:

Ebeneezer Scrooge once said, "If I could work my will, 
every fool who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' upon 
his lips would be boiled in his own pudding, and buried 
with a stake of holly through his heart!"

And if I had my way, we would never use those much-
abused words "official" and "unofficial" in the SCA 
again.

In all-too-common SCA practice, some things are 
declared "official" so that other things may be 
designated "unofficial".  And "unofficial" is employed 
to exempt activities from the SCA rules that ought to 
govern them.

"Since it's an unofficial fighter practice," we were 
recently asked, "do we have to wear armor?"  To which 
my question is, is it a fighter practice or not?  We 
wear armor to fight at fighter practice.  Some people 
try to get around this by holding a fighter-practice-
that-isn't-a-fighter-practice, which they 
call "unofficial".

We recently heard a distinction made between official 
and unofficial deputies.  Most deputies are not 
warranted, but do they have to be members?  Only 
the "official" deputies, whatever they are.  There 
seemed to be some idea that "official" deputies are the 
designated successors of the officers whom they serve 
with.  But that ignores the authority of regional 
officers to appoint successors.  Once again, we 
see "unofficial" used to rescue someone from making an 
either-or decision.  With "unofficial", we can have it 
both ways!  When, in fact, there's no reason or rule to 
require that local deputies be paid members.  (Although 
we certainly encourage everyone to be paid members.)

Once upon a time in the SCA, we had "unofficial" 
events.  _Corpora_ defined what made an unofficial 
event and what qualified as an official event.  That 
went away about a dozen years ago, during the _Corpora_ 
re-write during my time as Kingdom Seneschal.  I 
suggested that we simply define what qualified as an 
SCA event, and take no note of things that don't 
qualify.

It's so much easier that way.  The insurance carrier 
doesn't get twitchy.  I know whether to go by "Paul" or 
by "Galen".  I have a clue what to wear.  If it's an 
SCA event, SCA rules apply, it's covered under the 
terms of our insurance, officers have whatever duties 
or responsibilities officers have, etc.

"Unofficial" is a weasel-word, used in the SCA to have 
things both ways.  But if the activity is an SCA 
activity, if people attending expect the activity to be 
an SCA function, if it was promoted in SCA forums, then 
it should be treated as an SCA event.

Let's purge "unofficial" from our vocabulary.

- Galen
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