I have been able to take part of something that I have had the most wonderful Honor on helping to get started.  This process has been ongoing for a few years and seeing it from rough status to completion is been rewarding, frustrating at times, and wonderful over all.  But first a little back story on this project.

Several years ago, Lord Boden Henebry came up with an idea of ways to honor those that have worked hard, played hard, given it their all within their local group, however for one reason or another, (for example can only come to say Great Northeastern war, or just Harvest Moon) have fallen short to be written in for their Award of Arms.  These would be people that are what we like to see within our community and by a group “thank them “for playing and wish them to continue to play with us.

So, after the original discussion was brought forth a committee was formed to sit down and discuss the process and come up with honors to present to the local group that we may hand out to those that we wish to honor.  There was many catagories and some back and forth discussion on the words (and for the most part a lot of that meeting escapes me with the exception of the feeling of being part of something new.)

First series of ideas was brought forth to the province and the motion was carried to continue on with this, however how to go forward.

Sadly, this was the begin of a slight pause.  And where I will not hold any blame to anyone, when you have a group of volunteers there are some thoughts and many ideas that get shifted while other things need to continue onward, as long as the idea wasn’t forgotten, which is far from the case, it would be picked up and continue onward.

So came the time to brush it off and go over the concept.  Original ideas were brought up and badges were thought of.  I will have to make an acknowledgement that here I have been lacking in my record keeping so a lot of the original notes were misplaced so the first draft to bring before the province was not met with a resounding acknowledgement.  Reasons for this is that the wording where rough was set before the province was not excepted and the question of having our Moon as it is the primary charge on each badge.

Let me diverge from here just a slight bit and acknowledge that my armory skills are not quite up to snuff as many out there, so I cannot just look at a concept see the rule book in my mind, find either the loop holes or the acceptance in manner of seconds very difficult to me, as well as with something just sticking the moon or any charge for that matter is what I call “bad heraldry” by meaning with it to me and only me alone that it takes something away from the presentation.  And from what I have seen from some territories their primary charge is not a constant on their awarding structure.  However, with this I am not the only herald in this, as well I am by far not the better armorial as another in the community, there happens to be another and this is a team effort.  This is where I thank Master Alexandre Saint Pierre, he was able to look over the concepts and design badges to suit our purposes.  I have to say im good with personal heraldry at times however badges become a tricky situation, however that is a story for another time.

This time the badges were presented to the province and the wording was flushed and reworded and polished.  The province loved them so we got that part set.  What’s next

Working with my own personal blog, and the province website has been an educational tool and I needed to find a way that people from our community can go to our website, and recommend people for the honors.  After trying a couple of ideas, a section as able to be set up where I wrote up the badge descriptions and the honors they represent, that was step one.  Step two that was the slightly trickier part.  Taking a page from the Kingdom awards recommendation page, I opened up one similar page and questionnaire on our own site, where the results funnel to me and the seneschal and then once all the kinks ironed out, I will remove the email notification from myself and just the seneschal and any deputy that person wishes to include.

I can say I have learned a lot about how something like this can be established, the importance of team work and delegation, and never be afraid of failing the first time around for you can learn from mistakes as well succeeding.

Provided the link below of the final page
http://malagentia.eastkingdom.org/main/?page_id=1546

As always in service to this wonderful dream