[Sca-cooks] the idea of a Kingdom Cooks Guild

[Susan Laing]

>Well, it looks like we're getting organized here in Atenveldt. Do you folks
have suggestions on >maybe what not to do in setting up a guild, so we can
avoid problems?

>Cecily

Hi Cecily!

Up until May of last year I was the Administrator for the Lochac Guild of
Cooks, and am still am active member so I have a few ideas of the structure
you're looking at forming.

I can send you a copy of the current Guild's charter if you would like
(please email me privately as I'll need to send it from my work account
whence the document is electronically stored).

A Ranking system is currently in place in our Guild - it's flawed and
difficult to monitor and it's restructuring is listed for discussion for the
2003 AGM (as per the 2002 minutes).  As it stands a person only needs to
have a dish made & presented at their local SCA event or meeting (must be an
advertised SCA meeting - not a private household parties/dinner) and obtain
feedback from 3 attending & munching fellow Scadians (not necessary for them
to be Cooks Guild members) and then they need to send the paperwork
(including recipe & source documentation) to the Admin for registering of
effort & increase in rank. This works okay - in my term as Administrator I
didn't see any submissions of work that included negative feedback and some
that contained very good pieces of advice to the cook.

The difficulty lies in ensuring that each rank attains a certain average
level of skill and knowledge before proceeding to the next level and since
there are no rules/regulations on how to achieve this we currently have a
very mixed bunch of people - those that use basic texts such as "Plyn delit"
for all submissions and those that track down the original, translate it,
transpose it to modern amounts & weights and then cook & present it; those
that understand what is meant by "and cook until done" and those that won't
touch a recipe that doesn't have the exact cooking time listed...  So
consider Standarization carefully before installing a Ranking system (and
look at introducing Mentoring as a means of ensuring that the basic skills
of each level are meet).

In my opinion the ranking system can work & work well *IF* checks and
balances are introduced from the very beginning.  Trying to introduce them
later results in wonderful "discussions" between those that want to go that
extra step and those content to coast along at the lowest level allowable

Just my penny's worth

Marion de Paxford
Kingdom of Lochac (Australia)