Unto the members of the College
of Arms,
from Baldwin of Erebor, Laurel
King of Arms.
My lords and ladies,
I am enclosing the letter
of acceptances and returns from the Laurel meeting of October
21. Submissions were processed at this meeting for Calontir (7/4),
Caid (7/17), West (7/17), Atlantia (7/21), East (7/22), East (7/25),
Middle (7/26), and East (7/28).
There are several ways to
determine the pass/fail rate for a given month's submissions,
depending on how (and what) you choose to count. I tried two
different methods this month. By the obvious route (counting
the number of entries in each section), this letter contains
145 approvals, 45 returns, and 2 pending entries, for a 76% rate
of approval. A more accurate percentage can be obtained by counting
items (in this case, names and devices/badges/etc.). By
this approach, there are 198 approvals, 50 returns, and 3 pending
items, for an approval rate of 79/0. You may take your
pick.
(The above figures, it should
be noted, are the product of a single pass through the letter,
with no doublechecking. No guarantee of accuracy is expressed
or implied, nor can I promise that I was consistent in the way
I counted such anomalies as Laurelofficeinitiated
reblazons. Caveat emptor.)
SCHEDULE
My next meeting is scheduled
for November 11. The letters to be processed in November are
West (8/5), Middle (8/9), Atenveldt (8/11), and Caid (8/22). (Ansteorra's
letter of 7/24 is in limbo; the forms have not yet arrived.)
I will also be acting on the Laurel letter of 9/30, and on the
various pending issues.
The December Laurel meeting
will be on the 16th. Letters of comment are due by December 1.
We will be processing letters of intent from the East (9/9),
Caid (9/12), West (9/13), Middle (9/25), and Meridies (9/26).
(I have not received the Ansteorra LoI of 9/27.)
The January meeting has been
scheduled for the 6th, with the 20th as a fall back date.
(The contingency plan is because my wife and I are expecting
our first child in midJanuary.) The letters scheduled for
the January meeting are Atenveldt (10/2), Atenveldt (10/3), Calontir
(10/9), East (10/22), Caid (10/24), Middle (10/25), and West (10/26).
Given the holiday mail crunch (not to mention the problem of
scheduling work parties at this time of year), you should probably
plan to get your comments to me by December 22.
As you have doubtless noticed,
the November and December workloads are quite light. January
and February (the postPennsic Blazon Boom) are horrendous.
This is an excellent opportunity to get ahead on letters of comment.
MAILING LIST
Star Principal Herald has
moved. Lord Anebairn's new address is P.O. Box 180166, Austin,
TX 78718. Aten Herald also has a new mailing address: P.O. Box
4812, Albuquerque, NM 87196. Mistress Keridwen will be invested
as Princess of the Outlands on November 17. During her reign,
the office of Aten Herald will be held by Master Mark Lasie of
Westminster (Mark Schander), who will be using Mistress Keridwen's
post office box. Device submissions will be handled during this
time by Solar Herald, Mistress Marta as tu MikaMysliwy.
Please remove the following
people from the list of corresponding heralds: Geirr Bassi Haraldsson,
Rhonwen y Llysieuyddes, and Lincoln Herald (Eyesham of Tweed).
BOARD MEETING
At the October board meeting,
the proposed Corpora changes concerning Names and Royal Peerages
were referred to Laurel for review and comment. I have been requested
to look over the correspondence on the matter and return my recommendations
to the board (preferably for the January meeting). The board
also reviewed the latest draft of Alison von Markheim's demographic
survey and reaffirmed the official geographical and temporal scope
of the Society. The precise wording of all of the above will
be published in the meeting minutes.
PROCEDURES
Principal heralds: If you
alter a submission significantly in order to approve it, please
make sure the Laurel office receives a copy of the new emblazon.
The form you send us becomes the permanent file copy, and may
be pulled many years hence for comparison with a potential conflict.
It only confuses matters (and may lead to an unwanted and incorrect
reblazon) if the "per fess nebuly Or and azure" we are
supposed to be looking at is actually tinctured "gules."
AFTERTHOUGHTS
Although my correction to
the name of Giovanni dei Fiori (September, p. 1) was correct,
the explanation wasn't. In Italian, degli is the form
used before a masculine noun ending with "sconsonant"
or "z" or beginning with a vowel. (I said "ending.")
Dei precedes a masculine noun beginning with a consonant.
On the return for Elphin
Alan Moray (p. 17), I stated that the name Elphin would
appear to be acceptable "so long as the device does not contain
any of the symbols commonly associated with elves." This
is a more restrictive statement than I had intended; "reeking
of eldarin symbolism" is more like it. A single compass star
doth not an elvish stench make.
ET CETERA
The new edition of the Corpora
and ByLaws is now available. Copies may be ordered from
the stock clerk for $3.00.
Volumes I and II of Precedents
of the S.C.A. College of Arms were mailed from Albuquerque at
the end of October. I received about twenty orders, which was
fewer than I had anticipated, so the venture was financially a
flop; instead of breaking even, I ended up about fifty dollars
in the hole. Oh, well at least I finished the project.
Please believe me to be,
Your servant,
Baldwin of Erebor
Laurel King of Arms