From: haslock@rust.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock)
Subject: Re: What is a Baron 
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - DECwest Engineering
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 18:45:18 GMT


To answer Vashti and Arval

Point 1. The right of seneschals to hold court.

At present it is difficult for an established branch that does not happen
to be a Barony to create and distribute awards. This is an 'unfairness' that is
built into our current system. I see no justification for denying a branch
the right to make local awards. Realisticly, a significant number of branches
do this, having found some way of working around the laws to do it. I would
prefer to legalize their position.

I do not want to require that every branch do this, merely make it legal
for them to do so if they wish. I agree that it breaks the medieval model
to have a seneschal create and issue awards. Nevertheless, I see a need for
branch level recognition and I would like to see laws that allowed it in every
type of branch.

As to Vashti's assertion that the seneschal cannot afford to be tied up
holding court, I respectfully disagree. The autocrat is the autocrat because
they are supposed to be able to handle all of the problems that arise
during the course of the event. If the autocrat cannot do this, then I must
believe that the seneschal is lacking either judgement in selecting that
particular autocrat, or an adequate population (i.e. there exists no
adequate seneschal within the group.

I also beg to differ about who the giver and the audience should be. I would
rather recieve an award from someone who is familiar with the work that
earned an award in front of an audience who knows me than accept it from
a noble who cannot pronounce my name right in front of a crowd, must of whom
neither know nor care who I am and what I had done. Thus, as a branch
seneschal, I would prefer to hand out branch awards at local meetings where
I had the undivided attention of the majority of the shire members. The
ability to hold court would be reserved for schtick such as arranging a war
with a neighbouring branch.

Point 2. Provinces and Baronies as accumulations of branches.

Having a monster sized branch that keeps on growing may sound like a good way
to have a pool of people to apply for every available officer position. I
choose to believe that lots of small groups allows lots of members to try out
as officers without screwing things up for hundreds of people when they
make a mistake. I also feel that this gives Baronial/Provincial officers
practice at supervision, thus training them for Regional/Principality/
Kingdom officer positions.

My hope is that my mandating a split, a branch be forced to get more
people involved in being officers, a branch will be forced into growing
in a new direction, a branch will be forced to exclude paranoia from its
dealings with at least one other group and hopefully from all its dealings.
Nevertheless, it will work to split discordant groups before they go
Barony instead of afterwards when a split would reflect badly on the wisdom
of the Crown and Kingdom Seneschal.

Point 3. One publicised event a year.

As Arval pointed out, not all Kingdoms require that all branches hold
events.

My feeling here is that every group needs financial independance and thus
a source of income. A group also needs to seen as a group by its peers. I
feel that holding an event is a simple way to achieve this. While local
meetings are also good, I do not see them allowing the group to be
recognisable by the rest of the Kingdom.

I do not agree that the main reason to add a Canton is when a bunch of remote
members want to be a part of the Barony/Province. Wanting a base from which
to try something new and different, wanting to exploit a growth opportunity
or even wanting to clone the existing structures so as to train more officers
are equally good reasons for wanting to create a Canton.

Finally, inter-branch cooperation is more than just two officers talking, it
is two branches working towards a common goal. In AnTir I have attended a few
joint events and heard about a lot more (some went well others did not). In
the East I spent over a year trying to persuade a group of branches that
they could cooperate enough to become a Principality (unsuccessfully). It is
clear to me that two officers talking are a start but little more than a
start.

Perhaps the distances between Elfsea and the Steppes are too great to allow
more than two officers talking. Such is not the case in these parts, nor is it
the case in the neighbourhood of Carillion in the East.

	Fiacha, advocating change in all directions
	Aquaterra, AnTir
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