SCRIBENOTES 8


 

30 December ASXXV (1990)

Unto: All Scribes
From: Alarice Beatrix von Thal, Lochac Provost of Scribes

Greetings!

I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season. Twelfth Night, although probably over when you read this, is a fitting conclusion to a month of partying for most of us.

Figures for this month are again promising. I'm very proud of the inroads we have made into the backlog. The wonderful contributions of every one of you out there have helped to get the situation pretty much in hand. The actual numbers are as follows:

Assigned
Pre-Printed AA's: 45
Original Leaves: 2
Original Peerages: 21

Unassigned
Pre-Printed AA's: 14
Original Leaves: 3
Original Peerages: 13

For your information, a copy of the West Kingdom Chancellor of Scribes report to the Crown reveals the following backlog figures:

Awards of Arms 419
Grants of Arms 64
Patents of Arms 289 (61 KSCAs, 79 OLs, 79 OPs, 55 Viscounties, 20 Counties and 5 Duchies)

Of all that (772 in total), 219 are assigned to various scribes. Kind of makes the Lochac portion look pretty healthy, doesn't it!

Scribe of the Month

This month's Scribe of the Month with a total of 8 points is Cristoval Gitano. Congratulations and many thanks Cristoval! It is very pleasing to see that since I started this scheme, someone new has claimed the title each time, and often there are several very close contenders. This shows that the contributions are coming from a wide variety of sources.



Armorial

As some of you have no doubt noticed, it is only recently that I have been providing a copy of the device submission sheet with assignments. I had been unable to do that until recently because many of the submission sheets had gone missing. I now have most of them and can enclose them with the assignments. They are very useful in finding out about your award recipient's foibles and also helps those of us whose heraldry is not so crash.

Unfortunately, as I have said, I don't have all of the sheets. And sometimes the sheets are misleading as the final, registered device many have changed from that originally submitted.

Some of you may recall that Mistress Rowan Perigrynne published an armorial during the reign of Reynardine and Eleanor. It contained the 90 odd devices which had been registered in Lochac up to that date. Master Richard de la Croix has now updated the armorial to include the nearly 250 devices that have been registered in Lochac. Quite a mammoth task, I assure you. At any rate, besides being quite attractive and interesting to flick through, it is an heraldry correct record of all the devices (and badges incidentally) of Lochac, and includes the correct blazons.

The new armorial has only just been completed, and as yet I am not sure how it will be distributed (probably through the Hund Pursuivant under the Principality Herald), or at what cost. Keep an eye out, however, because I would suggest that you should all try and acquire a copy. I'll let you know in further editions of Scribenotes how to go about getting a copy.



Signing Scrolls

I still get a lot of assignments returned without the name of the scribe on the back. Please remember to record who did the scroll so that a) I can keep better records, b) the recipient has the opportunity to thank you and c) I know who is doing what work and whether they are ready to progress to greater things.



Original AAs

In response to a number of queries, please be advised that if you wish to do an original AA scroll (as opposed to pre-printed AA scroll) for someone special (perhaps a close friend or relation - whatever), then you may, providing you have cleared it with me first and you are producing other original scrolls for the college at the rate of at least one a year.

It is not something I wish to encourage, because I'd rather see your time spent on reducing the College's genuine backlog, but it is an option. Of course, you may also commission a particular scribe to do your own award scrolls - just make sure I get to hear about it.



Assignments from Elsewhere

We are still part of the West Kingdom, and it is only for simplicity's sake that we do our own scrolls. However, if there is someone in particular in the West for whom you would like to do a scroll (perhaps some you met over there or who was visiting here, then contact me and I will check with the Kingdom Chancellor if it is available. Similarly, there may be someone in the West whom you would like to commission to do your own award scrolls - again, this is fine, as long as I hear about it. The West Kingdom's backlog is much greater than ours (as demonstrated above) and I'm sure they won't begrudge our assistance.

If you know someone from another Kingdom, feel free to contact the appropriate Kingdom Scribes officer to arrange assignments. Again, just let me know.



Conclusion

I have attached an article which may be of interest to scribes. It is reprinted from an issue of Crossed Quills, published in the Middle Kingdom in ASXVI.

Basically I have little to say because everyone is working quite well at the moment, and most of the work I am receiving back is of a middle to high standard. The only hold-up to the system seems to be with me replying to letters and sending assignments to willing scribes. I apologise for this state of affairs but will attempt to fix the situation as soon as I am able. (Mundane work/study etc have made life a little hectic lately, but fortunately for me January looks like it will calm down a bit).

And thus, I remain, Yours in Service
m