For a southern UK barony

Purpose

To amalgamate the SCA shires of Mynydd Gwyn, Thamesreach and West Dragonshire into a single group, with the status of barony.

Rationale

The three southernmost shires of England and Wales work and play together and support each other's events. Currently each shire must support a slate of local officers to maintain their full status.

Dissolving the individual shires and combining them into a single barony will lighten the burden of administration on all three shires, and bring all the members into a single group, represented to the Crown by a baron and/or baroness.

Corpora requires:

• At least 25 members.
• A set of officers acceptable to the Crown (and Coronet, if applicable).
• A name and device registered with the College of Arms.
• Consensus favoring advancement in branch status, and favoring the type of branch (barony or province) specified in the petition. This consensus is determined by kingdom law and custom. If the branch is to be a barony, arrangements shall have been made with the Crown at the time of application for baronial status to select and appoint a Baron and/or Baroness in accordance with kingdom law and custom.
• A strong record of activity in a variety of fields of Society endeavor.

Members: the three shires together meet this requirement. Membership list from Dec06 suggests that 45 paid members live within the region.

Officers: Pooling the existing officers (and not counting new volunteers who could emerge) suggests that the three groups can adequately support the requirement for

Seneschal

Herald

Exchequer

Knight Marshal

Minister of Arts and Sciences

Chronicler

Chatelaine

Of these offices, only the chronicler's office would be new. We have several experienced former chroniclers to advise us about it.

Name and device: Lord Robert of Canterbury has submitted a household name, Longwhitney to the College of Heralds. This name has excellent documentation and provenance, which is described on the LongWhitney, the Name page.

It is one option for a group name.

Ynyswynmawr (?) is a Welsh translation of LongWhitney, that could offer a variation for folks who are fond of Welsh names.

Robert is currently working on a couple of armory options, that he'll present to the shires ASAP.

See Next steps below.

Consensus: currently being sought in each group.

Record of activity: aside from regular local activities, this region has held numerous kingdom and regional events, with people from all three groups working together on them. See Master Plan page for a list.

Next steps

Discuss the questions:

• Do the three shires want to amalgamate, Y/N?
• Do we want to amalgamate into a shire, or a barony?

Assuming the answers to these questions are 'Yes' and 'Barony', we can run a poll of the paid members in the three shires, to put this consensus in writing.

After that:

• Nominate future officers
• Choose (name and) armory to submit to the college of heralds
• Start an informal chronicle for the region?
• Consider candidates to put forward for baron and/or baroness

When the name and armory are registered:

• Sign a petition stating that we wish this group, with this name and these arms, to be advanced to baronial status, to forward to the BoD.
• Ask the Crown to appoint a Baron and/or Baroness

All these activities assume the support and participation of the regional and kingdom seneschal.