Court Reporting (was Re: ANSTHRLD - Plenary Meeting at Red Tape)

[Kathleen O'Brien]

Warning: no promises that I'm coherent.  
1) I'm still at work at this hour
2) I have a *^^&*^*&_ migraine...

Having said that...

>> As I see it, the problem with this system is that it presumes that a
>> herald attending court :
>> a) Is attending court to begin with
>> b) Has forms with them
>> c) Has a desire to spend court writting down every award
>> d) If comfortable approaching their Majesties for a signature

Well, when I was in a different kingdom, every herald was STRONGLY
ENCOURAGED (read "required-but-we-don't-want-to-say-that") to take court
reports.

But (1) the local herald and (2) the court herald were REQUIRED to take the
reports.

In fact, "non scriptum, non est" was really true.  So the court heralds
were pretty anal about getting those reports in.  Most of the time they
would prep them ahead of time.  (A black permanent marker crosses out
'weren't given' entries real well.)

Only the local & the court herald were required to get the crown signature.

>> I would propose that the College change it's policy to require the
>> Court Report to come from the Court Herald(s).  This puts resposibility
>> where it belongs, and stops the foolish practice of lecturing other
>> heralds about not reporting when they weren't the one doing Court to
>> begin with.

Agreed.  But all herald should be encouraged to do them.  For 2 reasons.
The court herald is human.  It's real easy to forget to add an award the
crown didn't tell you about ahead of time - or to forget to delete one that
didn't get given.  Additional court reports are the "check" for the one
turned in by the court herald.

Also, having everyone do one, gets other heralds comfortable with it.  That
means that if you're ever conscripted ... er ... asked to do a court, you
aren't totally lost when it comes to the report.  [No, no one's _ever_ had
to herald court on only 5 minutes warning - really!]

Encouraging everyone to do them is a Good Thing.

But the most effective method I've seen of making sure the reports got in
was a crown who was diligent about, ahem, "checking" with the court herald
to make sure they got in.  The fact that the crown also became Unhappy when
one fell through the cracks and could swing a big stick real well, had
nothing to do with the court herald's attention to detail - really!

:)

Just my $.02 worth,

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