Re: knowing everyone was(RE: Pearl & Dolphin)

[Beth Morris <bmorris@access.digex.net>]

Poster: Beth Morris <bmorris@access.digex.net>

> I wrote:

> > (this from someone who despite being Kingdom Seneschal *still* doesn't
> > always know everyone on a polling!!!)
> >
Rebecca replied:

> This brings up a misunderstanding between the "haves" and the
> "have-nots".  I as one
> who has neither a Pearl or a Golden Dolphin would NEVER expect one
> person to
> know everybody on a polling.  

Whoops!  I suspect a miscommunication here (and a common one).  The
polling (also polling letter, etc) is the actual list, usually made up
by the Crown, sometimes with input from the principal/order, that asks
'is this person ready or not?' Responses are returned directly to the
Crown for their action.  Sometimes (very rarely) these pollings are done
in person at events.

More often than not, these people have been on the Watch List for some
length of time, and by virtue of that, the order has had a chance to
look over their work, find out who they are, talk to people in their
sphere of activity (people who practice their particular art or
service).  

Occasionally people will be added to the polling list without having
been on the watch list - this results in people being polled for without
everyone in the order knowing who they are and what they do.  From my
observation of several years in several orders, this often results from
people making recommendations to the royalty without informing the
principals.


>That's impossible for several reasons.  

Not if the watch list system is working as it should be!  (Which, by and
large, it does!)

> My main question
> for
> those that have various polling awards is - what have you done to
> encourage others
> and what have you done to get to know others?  You can't know everybody
> but it
> is your duty to learn what you can.

Here I can only answer for myself (which I sort-of did above).  If I see
a name on the watch list that I don't know, I'll talk to people from
that area or who know them (in the Pearls at least, there are comments
with names of people, so I could go to one of them), and try to see
their work.  In the Pearls and Laurels, I'll ask people who specialize
in the same art about the work of that person (I, f'rinstance, know very
little about glassblowing, for example).

With the Dolphins, its a little trickier, and this gets back to the
original 'what's it for' discussion.  If someone is doing Dolphin-level
work (by MY STANDARDS), I'll probably already know about them - they'll
be autocratting events I attend, cooking feasts I eat, holding offices
that interface with mine, etc.  But then, I'm pretty 'well-connected' on
the office front.  And that's my personal standard, not that of the
order.

Hope this helps.

Keilyn
OL,CP,CGD etc.
=======================================================================
List Archives, FAQ, FTP:  http://sca.wayfarer.org/merryrose/
            Submissions:  atlantia@atlantia.sca.org
        Admin. requests:  majordomo@atlantia.sca.org