**PLEASE READ Re:UBAG**

["smith, jason h" <SMITHJH@ed.concord.wvnet.edu>]

Poster: "smith, jason h" <SMITHJH@ed.concord.wvnet.edu>

Unto all at the Merry Rose does Ciaran MacGhobhainn send greetings...

    *sigh*
What is that old saying about good intentions and the road to hell...

    I am a relatively new member to the SCA; I have been in for only 
three short years. Within that time I have always had political 
"stuff" follow me, even from my FIRST day (no joke) in the Society. I 
hope this clears up this string about UBAG. *gulp*

    OK, to begin with, I am the SECOND member of this group called 
UBAG. The first will go unnamed by me, to try to protect his 
anonimity. When the first and founding member approached me about 
doing a voluntary assassination thing at events to raise money for 
the Kingdom and local chirurgens, I was all for it! My thinking was, 
"...how good would this be to do a period assassination thing and 
rasie money at the same time. It would encourage the folks 
participating to be in persona (which is someting Black Diamond is 
SORELY missing) whic might cause others to do the same..."

    ...OK this is what I *thought* would happen if it was done 
properly...

    Well, the event "Field of Gold" came, and me being Co-Autocrat, I 
brought the idea of this assassination thing to the Aoutcrats' 
attention to see if she minded a test run. She did not mind and so 
the proverbial ball began rolling. We (UBAG) established set rules 
about conduct and who would be targeted and how. We made a rule that 
no sitting Royalty would be asked to join in (for obvious reasons) so 
they were not (nor would ever be) targets. With these and many other 
rules in place, everything began. All who participated in the 
assassinations voulenteered to participate. I as one of the 
'hired' assassins, I was given a list of my targets. My targets knew 
who I was and they knew my intentions. The assassination thing went 
off w/o a hitch, and I considered it a success. ***Understand this 
being a test run, NO money was paid for participation.***
    UBAG's leader wanted to do another assassination trial run at my 
and my lady's SCA wedding. Well, needless to say I put the kibosh on 
that, and nothing was done.(Well truth be known, my lady was the 
first to say 'no' to it. But I was against it, too. She beat me to 
it!) I began my research into period assassinations and maybe gruops 
or sects. Well so far my research has turned up nada. But I feel my 
role in this group (UBAG) is to establish a period precedence for 
UBAG's existance, and to proceed CAREFULLY from there. 
    
    I wanted to proceed so carefully that many who were at "Field of 
Gold" did not even realize anything out of the ordinary was going on.
    The all of a sudden there came this posting on the Rialto about 
'offing' someone. I immedately thought it was some person using a 
bastardized version of the thing I was affiliated with, but alas I 
was wrong. It was a member of UBAG who took it upon himself to speak 
for all of the members. Not only was it wrong to do, but UBAG was not 
to have been know about until we were sure it would be accepted.

..so here I am today, reading letter after letter about how this is 
wrong about UBAG and how the other thing is wrong...
    Probably the thing that kills me the most is I see postings from 
people condeming UBAG. Many of these are people who I personally was 
going to talk to about how to properly go about introducing this into 
the Kingdom. I hope to still talk to these folks and get some help.
If you have any questions regarding UBAG please ask me. No one else 
in the Merry Rose has ANY clue about it...

In service to Fair Atlantia,
Ciaran MacGhobhainn



















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