Meeting Notes, May Crown 2007
by Giana Visconti, Guild Mistress
There were thirteen people in attendance.
We had a brief 10 minute gathering which was used for show and tell time. This is something I'd like to see us do at our meetings. We all do our forms of embellishment because we really enjoy them. I want everyone to have a chance to show off a bit and share our enthusiasms. This is also a really great into for new people. If they come to a meeting and we jump directly into the somewhat dry business end of things, they won't get to see that we're together because of the pleasure of what we do.
When we reconvened, we covered several topics. First, we agreed that we would like to see some clarification in the guild structure information. There aren't really any changes being made, but we do want to add in specific wording about historical accuracy and things of that nature. Before we make any changes public, I will post the new wording here so everyone has a chance to comment on it.
We discussed guild challenges and judges for challenges. We agreed that an additional category for acceptable judges should be added. This would be people who are known for their talent and expertise in embellishment related areas but have not received a Laurel for such and also have not yet been able to challenge in the Guild. If such a person is recommended to me by one of the Challenge Deputies, and he or she is agreeable to being a challenge judge, then we will add the person to the roster. We also agreed that we want a handbook for Challenge Deputies and a second handbook for judges. Finally, we decided that we will run a challenge at September Crown, but we are going to require people to sign up for challenges ahead of time so that we can work out a schedule for judges and the people running the challenges. I don't intend to spend ten hours of any event running challenges, and I don't want anyone else doing that, either. People should know ahead of time whether they ar e planning to challenge or not, so I believe that requiring advance notification so they can be put on the schedule should not be a hardship for anyone. This requirement to sign up ahead of time is going to be in place for all challenges whether they are at local events or Kingdom events. That way, the rules are the same across the board, and there should be no confusion.
We discussed the website briefly. It looks like we can get space in the same place where the Kingdom A&S site and the Costumers' Guild site are housed. I put Aelianora in touch with Conchobar who runs the overall site, and they are going to discuss the details.
We are also going to want to make decisions in the next couple of months on how often we want to publish the newsletter, whether we want to e-publish or have a combination of electronic and hardcopy, and whether or not only members should have access to the newsletter at least when it is first published. I will work on better questions to ask about this, and then we can figure it out.
Finally, we met the new Kingdom Guild Deputy, HL Ellen (and I've forgotten her last name, and the paperwork is downstairs--my apologies for that--I believe it is Frasier). We will be working to make the change to full guild starting with making a declaration in Court at September Crown unless I find out that, as changes are made to the rules, that is no longer the appropriate first step for us to take. I'll keep you posted as I find out more.
It was a really productive meeting even though the wind kept trying to blow all of our things away and keep us from continuing. But we prevailed! Or at least we persevered. ;) I really appreciate all of the input and enthusiasm everyone brought to the meeting. I can't tell you how happy I am to be surrounded by other people who are as excited as I am about our Guild. Thank you so much, everyone!