Taigh Moran Chat
RR 2, Northside Road
Wading River, NY 11792
8 June, 1988

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!

The May Laurel meeting was held in a marathon session over the Memorial Day weekend. (One wag, noting that half the College was spending the weekend at Lily Wars, Rose Wars, etc., referred to this meeting as Laurel Wars!) The letters considered during that period included Calontir (1/1A), Calontir (1/1B), Atenveldt (2/1), Caid (2/7), Middle (2/7), West (2/10), Middle (2/14), East (2/20), Meridies (2/20), Atlantia (2/21), Outlands (2/26) and Calontir (2/28). Of the 421 actions taken at this meeting, 334 were positive, 81 were negative and 6 involved pended armoury for an overall success rate of 79%.

At the Symposium in Calontir the College will consider the letters from Trimaris (2/29) and Ansteorra (3/11). The following weekend's meeting will deal with Atlantia (2/27), Atenveldt (3/1), Middle (3/9), Calontir (3/15), West (3/16), Caid (3/18) and Meridies (3/18).

The July meeting is slightly less tentatively scheduled for 16 July. At that meeting we will consider the letters from Atenveldt (4/1), Middle (4/3), East (4/7), Caid (4/10), Ansteorra (4/12), Calontir (4/12), West (4/13), Meridies (4/23), An Tir (4/24), Outlands (4/25) and Middle (4/29) as well as the Laurel Letter of Intent.

The date of the August meeting is still somewhat fluid at this time as mundane business travel and Pennsic plans are still somewhat up in the air. However, at this point we are aiming for a Laurel meeting on the first weekend in August. Letters to be discussed at that time include Atenveldt (5/1), Caid (5/1), East (5/13), Meridies (5/15), West (5/16) and Ansteorra (5/18).

Aten has requested that you add Marcus le Silex, Solar Herald, to your list of commenting heralds (Mark Chittenden, P.O. Box 80035, Phoenix, AZ 85060.

Principal Heralds and their submissions deputies are reminded that with the beginning of A.S. XXIII the new "performance standards" for letters of intent are in place. Every kingdom will be expected to produce a letter of intent (and mail out for comment!) at least once each sixty days, i.e., two months. In other words, at the beginning of July, the Principal Herald of any kingdom from whom I have not received a letter of intent since the end of April can expect a request for an explanation and some concrete plans for resolving the problem.

Speaking of concrete proposals, I have previously noted, both in letters of acceptance and return and in personal conversations with members of the College of Arms that input on the specific measures to present to the Board at their third quarter meeting would be appreciated. After all, the College was very adamant that it was capable of "dealing with its own problems" and many members of the College strongly resented the imposition of solutions from outside (specifically, the "independent heraldic jurisdiction").

Less than a month from now, the deadline for the "concrete proposals" requested by the Board are due. To date, virtually all suggestions that I have received have been in the context of the Rules, not in terms of education, diminution of workload, etc. Most have been proposed as matters of principal (e.g., the rules draft circulated by Kraken); some as matters of practicality in counting difference, etc.. More have been theoretical than immediately practical. (This is not to say they were not valuable, for they were, but that they did not address directly enough the demands laid upon us.)

At this point, the only totally concrete suggestion made to the Laurel Office for meeting the "perceived problem" raised by the Board, i.e., overwork of the heralds, was a suggestion that we no longer register or protect names or armoury at the national level at all, i.e., that this should be left to consortia of local heralds and be non-prescriptive. There are obvious problems with this and every herald, at whatever level, to whom I have mentioned this option has had a strong negative reaction, but that is the only coherent formal proposal that I have received. (No, I do not seriously think that path would be acceptable to the bulk of the members of the Society who have become accustomed to the registration services that the heralds offer at the interkingdom level.)

Some members of the College, despite my frequent reminders to the contrary, seem to be under the illusion that issuance of the "rules" is all that the Board expects of us and that the whole issue will go away, if only the Laurel Office issues new and simplified guidelines for submissions. The Board desired the revision to be more or less done by the end of my first warrant and that will be the case. Draft guidelines will (God and the printer being kind!) be available for discussion at the Symposium and hopefully will be "play tested" over the summer, going into effect some time after the War.

However, this is not enough to meet the requirements laid on us by the Board. This has been made amply clear in the Board minutes for the second quarter meeting:

That this proposal is a thing apart from a simple submission of simplified "rules" to the Board is clear not only from the formal public statement in the Board minutes, but also from the commentary from the Laurel Ombudsman on these statements. After commenting on the forthcoming rules and the expectations of some Board members in that regard, he moved to a new area entirely:

Of course, I have ideas and have proposals which I can make to the Board. However, with all the articulate administrators in the College, more discussion of the administrative end of this problem (e.g., training, burn out of senior officers, access to resources, etc.) would have occurred over the last ten months.

I have asked Habicht to specifically add time at the Symposium for discussion of these issues (in some respect they are more important than the "rules", since we have been talking continuously about the latter issues for some six years!) and he has agreed. Since scheduling conflicts and mundane constraints prevent many of you from attending the Symposium, I would ask that you contact me by telephone or letter as soon as possible, if you to have ideas on these issues and wish your input to become part of our proposed solutions. I will have to complete my Board Report and the proposal(s) from the College within the week following the Symposium so I ask that you be prompt in contacting me. Time has now run out on this particular issue and you must "speak now or forever hold your peace"!

Your servant,

[Alisoun]