Box 522
Mount Pleasant, SC 29465
15 June, 1990
Unto the members of the College of Arms and any others who may read this missive, greetings from Alisoun MacCoul of Elphane, Laurel Queen of Arms!
As we hit the penultimate Laurel letter, Laurel staff started getting nostalgic, the press of phone calls and correspondence passed to Texas, and Laurel was to snowed under with crises at work to get really let it hit that the monthly research project which is the fun part of the job is about to go away. As a further sign of the transitional period, Laurel's hard disk almost got nuked by a power surge from the lightning that hit the building across the highway. But only almost so it is clear that the transition is starting to take effect. (We can take no responsibility for any claims of computer malfunction elsewhere in the College of Arms: if they are linked to "Laurel curse", then it must have been prophylactic measures taken by Master Da'ud that are responsible for the diffusion effect!)
More seriously, the meeting of Sunday, May 27, and Monday, May 28 considered the letters from the West (1/27), Outlands (2/15), East (2/25), Meridies (2/27), Calontir (2/28), Atlantia (2/28 dated 1/27) and An Tir (2/??). For a detailed analysis of the results of this meeting, please see the analysis section below.
The June Laurel meeting was held as scheduled, on Sunday, June 17 to be considered the letters from the West (2/28), Caid, (3/12), Meridies (3/21) East (3/25), West (3/30) and Calontir (3/31).
The letters to be considered at the Symposium were selected by Laurel and her successor on the basis of manageable size and general interest. Since many of the March letters were rather massive, we settled upon letters from Ansteorra (3/7) and Trimaris (3/15). As these chronologically precede a number of letters considered at the "regular" Laurel meeting and some of the latter might in theory be affected by a decision made at the Symposium. To guarantee equity for the submittors and to ease the transition, the results of the June 17 meeting will not be published until shortly after the Symposium. Mistress Alisoun and her staff will be producing that letter under special commission from the then-Laurel. At the same time, the production of the letter for the two sets of submissions considered at the meeting will fall to Master Da'ud.
The new Laurel's first meeting will be held on Saturday, July 28. It will consider the letter dates in April, including those from Caid (1/1), Atlantia (4/4), Caid (4/6), West (4/16), Meridies (4/23), East (4/25), Ansteorra (4/27) and Calontir (4/30).
Further meeting dates and letters for consideration will be announced as Master Da'ud schedules them.
Marten Bröker, Badger Herald of the East, has moved. His new address is 111 Embury Avenue, Ocean Grove, NJ 07756. No telephone number is now available.
As previously announced, this was the first meeting held after the expiration of the grace period. Submissions which conflicted under the old rules are not being returned rather than registered. Items which have stylistic problems (e.g., lack of contrast between gules and pean) in the special letter of acceptances and returns are also now being returned.
There were 200 positive actions arising from this meeting, 70 negative actions, 5 holding names, 6 corrective actions and 5 items pended for a total of 286 items. Excluding the administrative actions (holding names, corrections and pends), this produced an overall acceptance rate of 74.07%
Frankly, the results of this meeting were rather disappointing, particularly when compared to the two preceding sessions which had significantly higher "new rules" success rates and at least one kingdom in each letter which had no returns whatsoever.
Some returns are due to the new rules. Most significant of these were a number of submissions which violated the slightly stricter rules on contrast which are now in effect. As these were one of the more widely known (and strongly supported) aspects of the new rules, this is surprising and more than a little unfortunate There are a few submissions which have been returned because they conflict under the new rules, but analysis of the acceptances showed that these were more than offset by the submissions which passed because they were clear of conflict under the new rules. A majority of the submissions which were returned would have had to be returned were they submitted this year or four year ago.
Sadly, this forces us to the conclusion that the relatively poor performance on this letter was due largely to demographics and, perhaps, the unusual number of appeals (from kingdom decisions and from Laurel decisions) that were involved in this month's discussions. Hopefully, the results of the June meeting will have a happier outcome.
Your servant,
Alisoun
Copyright © 1997 Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc.