ANSTHRLD - Not - Grant question

R. Smith superboy at lsh.org
Fri Oct 15 14:34:49 PDT 1999


On 15 Oct 99, at 14:59, jruble wrote:

> So has the college adopted an official plan of action to cover the remove 
> of the requirement for the office of herald in shires, cantons, etc.?

I haven't seen one.  I'm curious, though, how many shires, cantons, 
etc are likely to abandon the notion of having a herald because of 
the change.

> To wit, is there going to be more open consultation tables, 
> herald-at-large wandering training sessions, and a new policy of 
> registering arms only through the branch herald?

The first two are logical responses; I'm curious, Master Ulf, what 
your thinking behind the third is.

> Finally, is there anyway to encourage folks to want to become heralds? 
>  Tadgh and Daniel just went after each with verbal knives.  If either one 
> of them met a sudden untraceable demise or otherwise stopped playing, they 
> would take a large quantity of knowledge with them.  And those are only 
> two examples, though I can only think of a dozen or so that rank as highly 
> in heraldic knowledge.

But this was true before.  As someone (I'm sorry, I forgot who) just 
noted in response to you, the requirement has often made heralds 
of people who didn't want to be heralds anyway.

> It is a tough field of study, offering little recognition and fewer 
> rewards.  And yet it adds so much to this hobby of ours.  Its absence or 
> degradation of quality would be felt and reflected throughout our kingdom. 
> But who wants to study an arcane, impractical science?

Well...not to be argumentative, but heraldry really is very visible in 
the Society (if not, in fact, intrusive, in the view of many); how well 
it is rewarded depends on what you consider a reward (in the 
sense of kingdom awards per se, for instance, it appears that 
heralds do all right).

As to "who wants to study" -- I think Master Tadhg has it nailed.  
Those who, well, want to study it, regardless of being rewarded or 
lauded or what have you.  Really, the same as most things.

> Yes, I disagree with the decision.  But it has been made.  Now how to we 
> use it for growth?

I have two notions that I am pursuing at the moment.  Neither are 
original.  Neither are connected to this change.  But they apply to 
what you've been asking about, so I bring them up here.

Firstly, with all due respect to my predecessor who is a good friend 
and colleague, I came into this office with little knowledge and 
experience.  This is a shame; I am trying as hard as I can to find a 
'protege deputy' to specifically train to replace me starting as soon 
as is reasonable.  It is a juggling act not to burn someone out on 
the job before they actually apply for it, to be sure, but on the other 
hand, maybe they won't burn out the month they start it if they are 
comfortable with the details.

A valid question is whether it is fair and reasonable to train only 
one person.  If I ever run across two people who want to replace me 
when I finish my term, I'll worry about it. :P

Secondly, I hope to set up classes for the general populace of the 
Shire to enjoy on various heraldic topics; not nearly so much so 
they can learn the gory details, but so they can have any idea what 
it's about in the first place.  The SCA, in my experience as a 
newbie (quite fresh upon me, to be sure), can be quite 
impenetrable when you want to know what things are and how they 
work and what people do.  I would sooner people were given an 
overview that might excite them to pursue heraldry than to spend 
the same time beating them senseless about their ridiculous 
device ideas.  Easily.  (Unless I made a boffer staff...well, anyway.)

Master Tadhg has a good point on this topic, too; it's maddening 
that it falls upon the occupant of the herald office to, inaddition to 
doing the heraldry, spend time getting other people to want to do it 
in the hopes that when, someday, he or she steps down, it will be 
with a clear conscience (well, this may not exactly have been 
Master Tadhg's point, but anyway).  But I can't do anything about 
that, fundamentally.

So these are my approaches.  They both point in the same 
direction -- that after I am done being the Shire's herald, another 
educated and genuinely interested herald can take my place, and 
the Shire will never have reason to consider dropping the office just 
because now they can.  That is my goal.

Chandranath Mitra
Herald, Shire of Mooneschadowe

============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.


More information about the Heralds mailing list