From: helm@garnet.ucdavis.EDU
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: awards recognition
Date: 2 Sep 92 06:05:15 GMT
Organization: The Internet

In response to what Catrin just posted, about the implicit "thank you"
for awards, I have a couple of thoughts.  First, it is certainly true,
regrettable so, that many worthy individuals are slammed in polling 
orders for poltical incorrectness (for lack of a better term), because
someone didn't like them, their manner, or the company they kept.  It
is unjust, but it is the way life is sometimes (life in general, and not
just the sca).  I myself find it destestable; I at least have always 
tried not to let a person's manner obscure the contribution they have 
made to the sca when I am considering a candidate.

The other thought I have is about the value of awards vs. the value of a 
thnk you.  Why wait, I ask you all, to acknowledge the work of an 
individual?  I have tons of awards, but they mean less to me than the 
simple thank yous I have received.  Let me illustrate: at Estrella 2,
my friend Heale and I showed up from Caid, to find that the Aten heralds 
had a consultation table going, but no one had organized any field 
heraldry.  Heale and I talked to the royalty, and the autocrat, and took
it on ourselves to do something about it.  We busted our chops, finding 
heralds, organizing some shouts, doing a lot of shouts ourselves.  When 
we got home, we both got a thank you note from the kingdom seneschal of
Atenveldt.  I still have it.  It means a lot to me.

I coordinated and wrote a lot of the newly published corporate 
chirurgeons' handbook.  It was hell, two years of it.  Two months after 
it was finally all over, I got a letter from the chairman of the board,
thanking me.  It was the only thank you I got.  I tacked it to my wall.

I did a small favor for a group in An Tir recently, running the 
paperwork to get permission to conflict with some group names down here
(under the current heraldic rules, any adjective-mists combination will
conflict with the Mists, principality and province).  Black Lion sent me 
a thank you letter.  I was tickled pink, so to say.

That's it: three thank yous that I can think of, but memorable ones 
because someone took the ten minutes to write them.  So little effort 
for so much joy!  So if you think someone has done a wonderful thing for
your group or your event, write them a thank you.  I think they'll 
remember it and treasure it, more than any award can ever express.  It 
is such a small curtesy, and yet it has so much power.

When I ran the town crier organization for TYC, I heeded the lesson I 
learned from that kingdom seneschal of atenveldt (whose name I have 
since forgotten).  I wrote 66 thank you notes to all the people who did 
cries at TYC, at the airport in Houston waiting for my plane back to 
Hartford.  I posted them from the airport.  Those people remember me to 
this day; I run into some of them from time to time, and without 
exception they remember me as someone who remembered to say thank you.

Look, this is important stuff, and not just for life in the society.  
All it takes is a piece of paper and a stamp, and ten small minutes.  
Think on it.

You know, one of those people was the late Mistress Cher of Trimaris.  
Have you heard about having regrets that you never said something 
important to someone before they died?  People write poems and novels 
and songs about regrets like that.  I'm glad I have no reason for 
regrets.  I only met her that once at TYC, but she wrote me 
occassionally before she died - she always remembered that I paid her 
the simple kindness of being thankful.

You know, awards are nice, I suppose, but simple kindness and curtesy, 
person to person are so much better.  I try to practice what I preach.  
Sometimes I fail, and I always regret that.  But I keep a box of thank 
you notes always at hand.  I know where it is right now, dispite the 
fact that my new place it strewn with unpacked boxes from packing.  You 
all probably have the idea by now that this is important to me...

I have this damned albatros called a pelican for my sins.  I never wear 
the fool thing, unless it's one of those dress up events where the 
stealth duchess will wring me out to dry if I don't wear the regalia 
appropriate to my order.  I much rather people meet me, and not my 
peerage.  I could live without my peerage; sometimes I think of 
resigning, for the sake of my integrity and soul.  Those thank you 
letters, on the other hand, they'll live on forever.  How fuller my life 
is for them.

Therasia (Twcs in serious mode)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca