RE: scribe win (long)

[Becky McEllistrem <beckymc@MICROSOFT.com>]

Poster: Becky McEllistrem <beckymc@MICROSOFT.com>

Oh joy... The promissory debate again. Not to knock Anarra personally
but I do cringe every
time we have an inter kingdom court and someone says "Why don't WE have
permanent
scrolls handed out during court?"  The truth of the matter is, we DO.
Logan and Arielle are
especially great at trying to get scrolls completed for court rather
than handing out promissories
when They can.  My compliments and my gratitude are ALWAYS with Them
over this.  Countess
Bera received an exquisite Lady of the Rose scroll and the Countess
scroll made for that day
was especially great.  Countess Brigit did all King's Award
of Excellence, Queen's Order or Courtesy's and Undines that she gave out
during their reign.  
The true of the matter as Mistress Celynen points out is that this IS
done in Atlantia when
possible but several factors amount to whether it CAN be done or not.
Most of them mentioned
arleady.

As a former Midrealmer, my Award of Arms scroll was a scroll handed to
me completed with no
name and device passed.  It's a good thing I kept with the name that I
was thinking of from my 2nd 
event on (especially when many folks told me - and tell me to this day
that I should change it).
As Rhiannon mentioned, for armigorous awards given, while Atlantia has
one of the larger
percentages of folks with passed devices, rarely is the device passed at
the time the person
receives their Award of Arms, etc.

Also keep in mind this is COURT BUSINESS.  This is CONFIDENTIAL.  While
some kingdoms
manage scrolls the way Mistress Celynen proposes, it is difficult to
keep that confidentiality
when large scriptoriums in a local group hear about so and so getting
such and so a week before
hand.  It's better to have a set of scribes (which Their Majesties have)
rather than large groups 
knowing what is happening in advance.  Confidentiality is very difficult
to keep in large local groups.

Also I know what Mistress Celynen means about personalizing.  It can be
done but will be
close to impossible unless you send court business to local
scriptoriums, thereby risking
confidentiality again.  There has been one change in the backlog
process.  As I assign backlog, the
names you see me posting are my attempts at contacting folks who are
getting things assigned.
With email such a common form of communication these days it HAS become
easier to find
info about recipients so things can be personalized.  How do you find
info about folks out 
ahead of time without again sending the awards to local scriptoriums?
Just asking someone
that knows the individual how to spell their SCA name fully is enough to
set the rumors flying.
Even if I'm just asking for my backlog database often rumors at events
become "... the Clerk
of Signet was asking for her full name!  It must be something special!".

Course then you have the OTHER debate - is it fair to have someone get a
scroll while
others have waited 5 years.  That one I don't worry about.  I just want
to get the job done.


The other real issue with having a local scriptorium doing a scroll
ahead of time is that most
groups just don't have them. Scribing is one of those "other" things
that people do when there's
nothing else to do.  Course a royal order always helps to encourage
activity, after a while it's
still something that folks burn out on quicker than most, even if it is
a royal request.
 I remember the gentle who said "I'm too busy to stop by and see scrolls
or A&S projects on display.  If I'm not on the field I'm in the kitchen.
Too busy to take 20
minutes to look at an A&S table?"  That's also par for the course for
getting current scribes to
get stuff done.  They have other lives as well and it always seems that
except for a select few,
scribing is always that OTHER activity that I might make time for.
Because of this and other 
issues, we don't have organized scriptoriums in every barony much less
every shire or canton which still means that strangers could end up
doing current scrolls.  

It's also a LOT of legwork for scribes when names and devices are on the
verge of getting passed.
Take Countess Bera's Lady of the Rose scroll for example.  Her device
passed laurel a week before
it was given and while I dearly enjoyed my conversation with Mistress
Jaelle I really hate bugging
someone so busy over whether something had passed.  Unfortunately
regular communication 
channels might have lost valuable time for the scribe (Not to knock
Herveus or Rhiannon of 
course - they're always available but the standard process would have
lost valuable time for the scribe).

These and other reasons I haven't named are why this is such a great
debate.  
Course what all Atlantians forget is that you can always privately
commission your scroll.
I'm not even going to go into the cost of the items.



Rebecca

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