SR - Herveus's Principality Don'ts

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

I wrote to Master Herveus d'Ormonde, who is active in the
northern reaches of Atlantia.  TNNP is The Nameless Northern
Principality, which is in the process of forming there.
Herveus disagrees with some of the procedures and processes,
so I asked him for a list of "don'ts".  In further mail, he
said he welcomes questions and replies to his e-mail
address.  My text is in square brackets: [ ... ]  At his
request, I deleted the political speculation.

    From: Michael and MJ Houghton <herveus at access.digex.net>
    Message-Id: <199806041521.LAA07735 at access5.digex.net>
    Subject: Re: Principality Don'ts?
    To: tmcd at crl.com (Timothy A. McDaniel)
    Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 11:21:04 -0400 (EDT)

Howdy!  [His normal greeting; he's not translating into Texan.]

...

In a nutshell, Corpora requires a _consensus_ supporting the
creation of the principality.  Consensus is not something
you can rush.  The parties driving the movement have got to
understand this and openly acknowledge this.  Do not set
hard deadlines for "going principality".  Figure on spending
at least a year just giving people a chance to seriously
consider the concept before trying to settle on things like
name, arms, law, etc.  Spend a significant amount of
productive energy on building the social structures.

The "powers" behind the NNP's latest attempt have acted as
if there was some dreadfully urgent reason to get the
administrative matters settled.  They have steadfastly
ignored calls for "making haste less quickly", and have
acted as to create the appearance of a closed process.

Here, the topic first resurfaced when Dafydd ap Gwystl
raised it on the Atlantian mailing list in October 1997 ...
In December, a public meeting was called to discuss this, to
be held the week after our Twelfth Night.  The meeting was
publicized via email lists and a stack of flyers at the
troll at Twelfth Night.  At this meeting, committees were
stood up to address heraldry, laws, and polling.  A Steering
Committee was constituted with Dafydd as the chair, and the
then Kingdom Seneschal also seated, with a couple more
players to be named later.  The Steering Committee
eventually became four people, all peers, and all from the
central part of the proposed area.

People questioned the size and composition of the Steering
Committee, but the only explanation for the small size was
"to keep things moving quickly".  Admonitions to remember
Caesar's wife were met with harsh replies which indicated
that the admonished parties did not get it.

Due to the kindness of the kingdom chronicler, an
announcement of the next public meeting in February was
placed in the February newsletter.  This was the first
general announcement, and it gave recipients of the
newsletter as little as a week to decide to attend this
meeting.  At this meeting, it was initially proposed to
formally poll the populace as to whether there should be a
principality, and to also select a name and arms, and settle
on matters of a body of law.  This polling was intended to
be conducted in April.  At the end of the meeting, it was
decided that a delay of four to six weeks was called for
from the initial plan.

A single sheet flyer was mailed to all members in the area
shortly thereafter indicating that input was being solicited
on these matters and who to contact about various matters.

At a meeting in April, a straw poll attempted to refine the
set of names and arms down to five of each.  The public
meeting at which this occurred was held outdoors, under
threatening skies, in chilly weather, due to a failure
(cause not known) to successfully arrange access to the
school where this was to occur.  The meeting was truncated
by the eventual appearance of rain.

A polling was sent out in the beginning of May.  At least,
it was sent to most people.  For reasons unknown, the
mailing labels obtained from Milpitas were missing several
cities and towns with no clear pattern.  As I write this, on
information and belief, the ballots have not been mailed out
to those who were missed.

Geez...I run on at the fingers... :)

Anywho, with all this energy being spent on building the
administrative structures, there have been no social events
to attempt to draw together the region and discern the
nature of the regional identity.  It is reasonably clear
that someone (singular or plural) is in a big hurry to force
this to happen ...

My advice is to focus on the social side of group building.
Don't be in a hurry.  Work real hard at keeping the process
open in fact and perception.  Work real hard at not giving
the rest of the kingdom the impression that their feelings
just don't matter (which, in technical point of fact, they
don't, but it is not good politics).

I hope this is helpful...

yours,
Herveus
-- 
Michael and MJ Houghton   | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
herveus at access.digex.net  | White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA            | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
                          | http://www.access.digex.net/~herveus/
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