[Namron] March 2011 Officer Meeting Notes

[Jacq Ball]

Why do we need to shorten it? That may be perhaps an unfortunate
choice of words. One of the things that was discussed in the meeting
was that sometimes, as an officer, one ends up feeling like one is
saying exactly the same things at each meeting:

"Hi, umm, I'm the Rapier Marshal and we practiced at the same place we
did last month and the month before at the same times, did pretty much
the same things..."

In my opinion, the main duty of a Rapier Marshall is to show up and
hold regular practices, so doing the same thing month after month is a
good thing, but it doesn't exactly make for gripping oration.

This caused us to wonder if we might not be able to spend our populace
meeting time on more valuable activities. In other words, if my report
consist of exactly the same thing as last month's, does the populace
really want to hear it again or would they be more enriched by
learning a period dance or even just talking with one another?

As it happens, I think I will have some new things to say at the next
meeting, so next month, I would probably speak even longer than
normal. That's basically the idea: that when we say something, it's
because we have something of value to share, rather than simply
speaking to take up space.

Incidentally, I think the idea to include activities came from a
non-officer in attendance at the meeting. I can't swear to that as I
wasn't really evaluating what was said based on whether the speaker
was an officer. I think what happened was one of the officers
suggested we might shift the focus of populace meetings toward social
interaction and then the gentlemen, not an officer, suggested games or
other activities. Then someone else suggested a dance class, and so it
went.