SR - Mirage longs for important Principality Work

[Dennis and/or Dory Grace]

Constance wrote:
>Frankly, I think the "not much more work" people and the "loads more
>work" people both have points.  Some offices will, and some won't need
>much change.

She's right, you know. We were around when Artemisia became a Principality.
Lyonel was Principality Herald just shortly after the first coronet list,
and I founded the Principality scribe's office at the start as well.
Different jobs also inherantly entail different levels of work, whether
it's at a regional level or a principality level. The amount of work put
into *any* job will vary from officer to officer as well. 

I think what the whole "some jobs will be some more work" issue boils down
to is that there will be people who are willing to put the extra work into
making the transition from region to principality, and some who won't be
willing to do the extra work.  That's alright. The people willing to do the
work an office requires will do the work, and the people not willing to do
the work the office requires, won't. That's pretty much the way it is
always has been. And like I said, that's alright. 

>Why do I say this?  Because I was a Princess of Ansteorra.  I was also
>principality reeve for one reign.  And we had a monthly newsletter.  And
>we had six Principality events per year - two coronet lists, two
>coronettings, an A&S event, and a warlord.  And I venture to say that
>the light fighters and the princesses will want a princess's champion
>each reign.  If that's the case here, we add at least 8 events each year
>to an already overcrowded calendar.

I don't see any reason why a championship tourney couldn't be held the day
of investiture; it works pretty well. In any case, I don't know that the
"overcrowded calendar" concern is as big a problem as it can be made out to
be. Yes, I can look at the calendar in the back of the Blackstar and see 11
events listed for the month of April, but some of those events I just don't
have a lot of interest in for one reason or another, and some are farther
than I care to travel (I personally don't usually want or plan to go to
more than one long-distance--ie over 2 to 3 hour drive--event per month;
though we frequently go to 2). While a principality would add a few more
events per year to the calandar, I don't see this as any huge problem.
People will choose to go where they want to go, period. As long as we don't
schedule official principality events like coronet list and investiture
against kingdom events, we're fine. 

Speaking of which, has anyone given any thought to the concept of setting
"kingdom weekends"? Sorry to lead in with a "back in such&such, we did
this...", but in Atenveldt, the first weekend of the month was kingdom
weekend (reserved for kingdom events), and the second weekend was
principality weekend (reserved for principality events). If a kingdom or
principality weekend was open and someone wanted to hold an event on that
weekend, all they had to do was petition the appropriate seneschal (ie,
write a letter asking for the weekend). It was very simple and worked very
well. Not that we'd need to designate 1st or 2nd (or whatever) weekend
specifically, but I've noticed that most kingdom events are already on
second weekends; that would make it easy to do something like that. Just a
thought.

 >And there's a reason why we don't
>crown people the day after the tourney.  There's a lot of stuff that
>goes with the office, and the new coronet may not have the space to haul
>it home from the event.  And may not have a clue what the office entails
>- hence the breaking in period.  It's not as if we require a new ruling
>noble to have been a deputy.....

I really have to agree wholeheartedly here. Not only does a breaking in
period give the new coronets a chance to familiarize themselves with the
key to the clue box, it also helps to minimize the chaos of having a major
office vacated days before/after the list/investiture. I wouldn't want to
be in the position of stepping up the day of or after coronet list only to
learn that I would be working with an inexperienced
seneschal/treasurer/herald/etc. Talk about clue-angst. Boy.

>And Randall and I tried really hard not to overdo the awards thing - and
>we only got one awards recommendation during our reign - and the first P
>& P were from our group.  But different strokes for different etc..... 
>We had a proliferation of needed awards, plus lots of others, including
>a load of non-armigerous ones.  All in just three reigns.

I don't see any reason why we would need to follow any traditional pattern
for creating principality awards. I tend to agree that it would be nice to
recognize service to the principality, but outside of that maybe we could
recognize stuff that doesn't normally get recognized. How about that
"scholar" idea? We could have a Principality Scholar, someone who's done
outstanding work in research. We could have a chivalry award for folks
exhibiting outstanding chivalrous behaviour (not just for fighters!). We
could have an award for best punning and for half-naked male dancers. The
possibilities are--while not necessarily endless--pretty varied and numerous.

Just another handful of change.

Aquilanne



Dory Grace--The Inkwell
denouncer of Tytyvylus & warrior crone
amazing at mail.utexas.edu
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