[Northern] Northern Regional Warlord

[Lori Campbell]

> Hawkins wrote:
> Which nobles in the Wastelands need to be consulted?

Of course the seneschallate of the Wastelands would be
the appropriate entity to organize a "group" reply on this or
any other issue.  I'm absolutely certain the nobility there would
agree.

> I would like to put in a voice that if this comes up, I don't want
> to have to go through whichever nobility gets to claim my voice
> and maybe just speak for myself.

We definitely did *not* want to claim to speak for our entire group
on this matter.  I don't know about other groups, but Wiesenfeuer is
full of very strong minded individuals (many of whom claim longer
careers in the SCA than I).  They would have strongly resented Barn
or I presuming to speak for them (even the ones who share our
opinions).

This is precisely the reason that we did not collect ballots at our
meeting and submit them as a group.  We felt that would be forcing
people to participate (peer pressure is a strong thing).  What we
did do was offer the survey, along with the supplemental
information) and strongly encourage people to respond as individuals.

We suspected that, if their opinions had to go through our hands
first, people (especially newcomers) might not feel free to say what
they think.  We didn't want anyone to feel pressured to write down
what they thought we wanted them to say.  This was an especially
important issue to us as we've often been accused of "retaliating
against people who oppose us" and of "using our position (or titles)
to pressure people to our way of thinking."

As the Crown's representatives, we felt it was essential to maintain
as fair and open-minded a process as possible.  Some might see this
as sheilding our populace, but if that is true, then the only thing
we shielded them from was our anti-principality opinion.  We see how
we handled this survey as encouraging growth, learning and
independent response on key political issues.

Kat  >^.,.^<
Wiesenfeuer