Another Yarn....
Sep. 29th, 2010 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
femkes_folliesOr at least turning the skein over and over - looking for the end so I can start pulling.
When it comes to Principality development, most seem to trace their beginning to a committee. But this begs the question - Who appoints the committee? Is it no more than a group of interested individuals who take the task on themselves? Where then comes their authority to speak? Or is this committee appointed by the Crown? Which seems unlikely for the Mid, where Principality formation generally has to get to the point of inevitability before the Crown will concede the point and let it happen.
I'm going to post some tidbits out of An Tir's Wiki on the formation of Tir Righ - with that text in red and my own maunderings in regular ol' black.
We talked about principality a *lot* before the movement actually began to get underway. The concept wasn't a surprise to most people. We also had Avacal and Summits to point to and say "we think we should be like them".
OK, the idea of Pentamere as a Principality has been around for decades. The only people it might be news to, one way or the other, are those relatively new to the Society. Unfortunately, it's been long enough since Northshield became an independent Kingdom that there are a fair few Pentamere residents who don't know what's it's like to live in a Kingdom that has a principality. And frankly, don't even know what a Principality is. The rest - have heard the notion more than once.
We had a committee of wildly divergent people who represented most of the populace. In nine people, we had men and women, peers and newcomers, core and hinterlanders, officers and partiers, supporters and opposers, and fighters, artists, and servers. Early on we set a tone which valued and respected each others' honest opinions. That respect and consideration got us through a lot of heated... uh, discussions.
We come back to the question of who appoints the committee? I can think of a list of people I'd like to have on one. Given that they're willing to do so. But how does such a thing become sanctioned to perform the task?
We got the people involved. We had a registered badge that anyone could wear. We recruited many people to be on sub-committees (Regalia, Laws, Ceremonial, US/Canada Concerns, ... there were others). A lot of discussion was held on our regional/principality mailing list. We made a concerted effort to hold our regional events in remote branches as well as downtown principality.
I think it's way premature to be doing this. We need to talk about if and structure before we start gilding the Lily, so to speak. The only part that maybe ought to come up is name and device - strictly because registering those items takes time and we can't move past a certain point without them.
We stayed on good terms with the Crown and Kingdom Officers. We consulted with them and drew on their expertise.
This one is only 1/2 within our control. I anticipate a degree of knee-jerk empire-protecting resistance. What I am unsure of is how much and from whom, precisely.
Keep your old newsletters. You're going to want to track officers, events, and champions.
This one might be served with a note to the Regional Chronicler. It's possible the .pdfs could be dumped to a CD and added to over time. All in one, handy-dandy location.
The logistics of getting the ball rolling is actually harder to work out than the logistics of actually constructing the structure of the Principality-to-be!
*grump*
When it comes to Principality development, most seem to trace their beginning to a committee. But this begs the question - Who appoints the committee? Is it no more than a group of interested individuals who take the task on themselves? Where then comes their authority to speak? Or is this committee appointed by the Crown? Which seems unlikely for the Mid, where Principality formation generally has to get to the point of inevitability before the Crown will concede the point and let it happen.
I'm going to post some tidbits out of An Tir's Wiki on the formation of Tir Righ - with that text in red and my own maunderings in regular ol' black.
We talked about principality a *lot* before the movement actually began to get underway. The concept wasn't a surprise to most people. We also had Avacal and Summits to point to and say "we think we should be like them".
OK, the idea of Pentamere as a Principality has been around for decades. The only people it might be news to, one way or the other, are those relatively new to the Society. Unfortunately, it's been long enough since Northshield became an independent Kingdom that there are a fair few Pentamere residents who don't know what's it's like to live in a Kingdom that has a principality. And frankly, don't even know what a Principality is. The rest - have heard the notion more than once.
We had a committee of wildly divergent people who represented most of the populace. In nine people, we had men and women, peers and newcomers, core and hinterlanders, officers and partiers, supporters and opposers, and fighters, artists, and servers. Early on we set a tone which valued and respected each others' honest opinions. That respect and consideration got us through a lot of heated... uh, discussions.
We come back to the question of who appoints the committee? I can think of a list of people I'd like to have on one. Given that they're willing to do so. But how does such a thing become sanctioned to perform the task?
We got the people involved. We had a registered badge that anyone could wear. We recruited many people to be on sub-committees (Regalia, Laws, Ceremonial, US/Canada Concerns, ... there were others). A lot of discussion was held on our regional/principality mailing list. We made a concerted effort to hold our regional events in remote branches as well as downtown principality.
I think it's way premature to be doing this. We need to talk about if and structure before we start gilding the Lily, so to speak. The only part that maybe ought to come up is name and device - strictly because registering those items takes time and we can't move past a certain point without them.
We stayed on good terms with the Crown and Kingdom Officers. We consulted with them and drew on their expertise.
This one is only 1/2 within our control. I anticipate a degree of knee-jerk empire-protecting resistance. What I am unsure of is how much and from whom, precisely.
Keep your old newsletters. You're going to want to track officers, events, and champions.
This one might be served with a note to the Regional Chronicler. It's possible the .pdfs could be dumped to a CD and added to over time. All in one, handy-dandy location.
The logistics of getting the ball rolling is actually harder to work out than the logistics of actually constructing the structure of the Principality-to-be!
*grump*
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-30 07:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-30 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-30 08:10 pm (UTC)I'm sort of trying to avoid the knee-jerk "stomp" effect that usually greets any talk of a Principality where the Kingdom is concerned.
I might look at starting a Yahoo-groups list that I can moderate pretty tightly at first while we work on building interest.
John said something interesting to me, that I'd like your take on:
None of the precursors to Principality are, technically speaking, allowed to Regions: champions, events, even the officers are nothing more than deputies of their Kingdom superiors. So all of this, and most of all any committee devoted to promoting the Principality would be, essentially seizing authority where none really exists. Which is precisely what the three previous mid Principalities did - with varying degrees of conflict. The trick appears to be to go quietly just as far as you can until the higher ups are forced to recognize that which already exists.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-30 08:34 pm (UTC)You already have a regional A&S fair (granted I realize there are isssues there) and regional fight practices so changing them to Principality is really just a name change. The officers will remain just deputies of the kingdom officers even if you are a principality. That leaves champions, for me at least the Baronial or Kingdon Champion is just a champion to their particular royalty. It's a relationship between them so I'm not sure what a champion for a group does w/o a shiny hat to represent.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-01 01:10 am (UTC)Some good ideas all around, largely because you're not operating with the local blinders on. Thanks!