SR - Re: Starting a project (fwd)

[Tim McDaniel]

Sorry that this is tangental ...

This is exerpted from the SCA Heralds' mailing list.  The
writer is an long-time SCA herald, Owen ap Morgan, one of
the brothers of the Great Welsh Name Goddess, Tangwystyl.

(Boy, do I sympathize with 'a reputation for saying "No" to
all the "fun" stuff'!)

    ---------- Forwarded message ----------
    Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 17:31:24 +0900
    From: Earl P. Jones <ejones at soback.kornet.nm.kr>
    To: SCAHRLDS at LISTSERV.AOL.COM
    Subject: Re: [SCAHRLDS] Starting a project

Personally, if I were asked for advice on coming up with a
group name I would suggest that they take an extended
browsing tour of Ekwall.  [Bibliographic info on request --
DdL] In consulting I don't want to get into suggesting
specifics until after I've discussed things long enough to
get an idea of what direction to look in.  Choosing a name
and device is an early opportunity for a group to start
forming its own identity, and I'm not sure that picking
something off a list is quite the same.

        The one direct experience I've had with the process
may be relevant.  I discovered a group in the process of
forming in the area where I was living.  At the first
meeting I attended they had a list of name possibilities
people had come up with; a few even bore a passing
resemblance to period style.  My brother and I started
trying to explain the COA requirements and quickly developed
a reputation for saying "No" to all the "fun" stuff.  After
a few months of dithering, the small group that had shown a
consistent willingness to show up at meetings and discuss
things seriously settled on one choice and rounded up the
necessary signatures.  Later I discovered that others
resented the fact that they had been "shut out" of the
process and that the result wasn't "their" choice, just
something that was handed to them.  This after we had
_tried_ to include everyone in the decision; the meetings
where the options were discussed and where the final choice
was made were announced to the group and open to all who
bothered to show up.

...
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