[tirrigh-heralds] Some thoughts following September Coronet

[Uilliam mac Ailene mhic Seamuis]

Unto all the heralds here foregathered, plus anyone else who's hanging 
about, greetings!

Pursuant to the College of Heralds meeting at September Coronet, and 
having opened my big yap there (like anyone was suprised, right?), I 
thought I'd kick the post-meeting ball off.

One of the things I want to see put together, and which somehow I'm now 
supposed to be organizing, is a "Policy and Procedures" manual for the 
College of Heralds. The way I see it, it should be a compendium of 
knowledge regarding all kinds of procedures, policies, heraldic customs 
and so on and so forth, so that anyone who is, or is thinking of 
becoming a herald can look this stuff up.

So far, I see it comprising the following main areas:

1)  Definition of the heraldic offices, from Silver Yale Principal 
Herald on down. We don't have a lot of deputies yet, and I personally 
don't believe we necessarily need to duplicate every office that Kingdom 
has, but we do need to examine the heraldic functions and determine 
whether we want to carry those out, and whether the size of the 
principality warrants making a specific deputy, or if some of them can 
be lumped together. An example: at Kingdom, there is Lowenmahne Herald, 
a job I used to have, which was the deputy for field and town crier. 
Since I left the job, the town crier function has been split off to a 
pursuivant-level because the size of the Lowenmahne job had grown to the 
point one person just couldn't do it all. That's the sort of thing I 
mean. At our size, we probably don't need to split it off, but I would 
say we certainly need both the field herald and town crier functions.

2) Statement of heraldic policies. This section will probably be 
prefaced with a statement to the effect of "subject to Their Highnesses' 
whims", as they may decide for good and sufficient reasons of their own 
to either promulgatge new policy or change existing ones. I (being the 
opinionated git that I am) have several very strongly held opinions 
regarding heraldic policies, mostly to do with voice, ceremony and 
protocol. I've started compiling these thoughts together, and will put 
something up in a bit. I would strongly, strongly, *strongly* encourage 
every other herald in Tir Righ (and those Kingdom heralds who hang out 
here as well) to offer their thoughts and opinions. I feel we should 
debate and discuss  these things so we can then come to some agreement, 
present it to Silver Yale and get his word on it and so he can then 
present it to TH for their comments. I feel it's also worth pointing out 
again, as I did at the meeting, that new royalty may well find this sort 
of thing a "comfort zone" to have accessible, to know how the College's 
defaults are set up, if you will. That way, if they decide they do want 
to make changes, they at least know where they're starting from.

3) Customs goes hand-in-glove with the policies, but I separate it out, 
as this should be where things relating to heraldic custom and pageantry 
go. Some of this will be information which may be duplicated elsewhere, 
and I'm good with that, or else including it by reference; a case in 
point might be the Order of March for the Coronet Lists. This would also 
cover things like customs within the College, such as perks of office 
for various deputies, ceremonies of and involving the college, such as 
creating a new herald, distinctions of heraldic rank, announcing the 
College as part of the procession at Crown Lists (we didn't do this, and 
I didn't think of it until the Invocation of the Lists was underway...)

Anyway, lots of stuff, and a lot of it which will probably 
cross-reference to the Ceremonial, about which I also have several 
opinions, but I will defer to Her Excellency Bernadette, as that's her 
bailiwick. I'd like to close by saying that if anyone has any ideas for 
stuff in these categories, or categories I've missed completely, I would 
*love* to hear from you! I would also strongly encourage you to share it 
here on the list so that everyone can benefit from it.

Yours aye,
Uilliam
No office, just opinions - lots of them.