October 2022

There will be a Seashire Althing at the Ruantallan 34th Baronial Investiture Anniversary (November 12), to present the final form of the Seashire-Ruantallan Agreement, as agreed to by the Baronial Curia. This is the document the Dormancy Committee intends to present. If you have any comments, please share them (scroll down to send comments).

Agreement Between the Barony of Ruantallan and the Canton of Seashire

The Seashire Dormancy Committee identified that there was a lack of defined boundaries between the responsibilities of groups within the Barony of Ruantallan. In order for Seashire to have a clear purpose and continue to operate, Seashire must take back responsibility for local meetings and events. We believe that once Seashire has meaningful work to do, it will be easier for the Canton to find officers who have a commitment to do that work.

Ironically, when we put out our proposal for comment, commenters identified that many of the proposals were reforms to the Barony, which had little to do with Seashire’s process. Therefore, the proposals identified below as those being acted on are those that directly relate to a division of work between the Canton of Seashire and the Barony of Ruantallan. All other proposals are passed on to the Barony for its consideration when it reviews its own governance in the coming year.

We also identified problems with communication (Curia meetings not announced, missing minutes, people doing their own thing and not working together), and with mentorship of new officers, who often take up their position with no training from the previous officer. Proposals to deal with those issues as they apply to Seashire are also included in those being acted on.

We have removed the proposal about Championships at the Canton level. While we still believe there needs to be some work around the role of Champions in the Barony, it was a controversial proposal, it would affect all the Cantons in the Barony, and therefore it needs wider discussion. There is no need for this to be a stumbling block in the Dormancy process.

The Baronial Curia has agreed that the following Proposals are acceptable, and that the Canton of Seashire can proceed to the governance stage of its Dormancy process with these Proposals in mind. Numbers refer to the original Proposal document.

Proposals Being Acted On:

1. Publicized (official) events sponsored by the Barony of Ruantallan will be limited to:
   
   a. Baronial annual events, currently defined as Twelfth Night usually in January, War Camp weekend nearest 1 July, and Baronial Investiture Anniversary (BIA) usually in October.
   
   b. Annual Baronial Championships. These may include A&S, Bardic, Rattan, Rapier, Archery, or any other champions the Coronet should deem necessary. Whenever possible, Baronial Championships should be combined with other Baronial events, or with each other, to relieve pressure on the calendar and the need for autocrat teams.
   
   c. Kingdom events such as Crown, Crown Principality of Tir Mara events such as Championships, and such Royal Presence events where the resources of the Barony are needed to support the size of the event, may be sponsored by the Barony. All other official events in HRM will be sponsored by Seashire.
   
2. All A&S meetings, marshall practices and other such gatherings in HRM will ordinarily be sponsored by Seashire, and wherever practical announced to the rest of the Barony. The exception is for meetings and practices designed to rotate around the Barony, or mini-events like Baronial Archery Practice which happen occasionally and are publicized to the whole Barony or beyond.
   
3. All Seashire Curia Meetings will be open to all the people of the Seashire. This means they must be announced by all usual communication channels no later than two weeks before the meeting (as is already policy), all interested people may attend, some means of having their voices heard needs to be arranged, and minutes and financial statements must be posted in a timely manner on the relevant webpages (as is already policy). If necessary, the Curia will appoint a recording secretary to handle notice of meeting and distribution of minutes (secretaries are period). If we are going to get engagement, transparency is an absolute must.
   
4. The Canton of Seashire will establish an Althing, held at least annually, where people of all stations are encouraged to speak about anything that concerns or inspires them.

Proposals Referred to Ruantallan Curia for Consideration

1. Baronial events will be on a rotation through the Cantons. A call for event bids will be issued by the Baronial Seneschal six months before the usual date. If a bid is not submitted by the Canton whose turn it is by four months before the usual date, other Cantons will be invited to bid. Where necessary, the Barony will provide help to any Canton to run the event.
   
2. A section will be added to the Ruantallan SOP laying out the expectation for Baronial Champions. These include swearing service/fealty to the Coronet, attending the Coronet at Baronial Courts and at other times as requested, organizing the contest for their successor, communicating with the Baronial Signet to ensure a scroll is prepared, and turning over the regalia in good order to their successor on their installation. Our official documents are currently silent on the topic of champions, and this formalizes a tradition that not everyone knows.
   
3. Since Champions belong to the Coronet rather than to geographical areas, tournaments and contests sponsored by Cantons will be styled as something other than Championships. We wish to encourage such other kinds of contests, such as prize tourneys, melee contests, focussed A&S competitions such as Cloth of Gold (look it up if you’ve never heard of it), etc., while maintaining the privilege of the Coronet to name champions.
   
4. The ancient institution of the Ruantallan Parliament will be re-envisioned as an annual meeting of all nobles and gentles to consider the state of the Barony and launch policy initiatives.
   
5. The Baronial Curia will begin a two-year process, guided by the Curia and the Parliament, of developing a set of five-year goals. These goals should foster growth and mutual support of our members, and should also consider our relationships to our wider community and also the East Kingdom and the Crown Principality of Tir Mara. There should be a broad consultation with the populace through a number of methods to determine what their desires are for the future of the Barony. The conversation should stay focussed on what is in our power to do.

April 2022

As most of you know, the Canton of Seashire is in dormancy, and we are now in a two year process to bring it back to full status.

The next step in that process is to figure out what Seashire should be doing that is different from what the Barony of Ruantallan should be doing. If we are clear about the roles of the Barony and the Cantons, then it will be a lot easier to recruit officers, and keep good communications happening, and plan events and practices, so that you and I can have a lot more fun!

Here’s where you come in: We want to talk about these things. Especially, we want to talk to you about what you love in the SCA, and how you think the Canton (and the Barony) can help you do more of that. We plan to have a bunch of talks about these things over the next few months, every time we get face to face.

The first talk (or let’s call it an Althing, that’s a nice period name) is planned for the afternoon at 12th Night, sometime before court. The Dormancy Committee will present the current proposal for the Seashire-Ruantallan Agreement (a formal way of saying how we divide up what we do), and then there will be time for you to ask questions and make suggestions.

While this is about Seashire’s dormancy, members of all Cantons are welcome to attend, as some items in the proposal (like a rotation of Baronial events) affect all the Cantons, and we’d like your input too.

We hope to see you there!

Yours in Service,
Esperanza De Cordoba
Webminister of Ruantallan
Co-Chair of Seashire Workgroup

March 2022

Sunday March 6th was a meeting for Seashire.

In the meeting Lady Esperanza (Paige Maria Aziz) and Lady Tiffayne (Teresa Davidson) were elected co-chairs over the revival process.

The website will be maintained by Oliver Peren (Tim Covell) with updates on the progress of the revival of Seashire from Dormancy.

Dormancy began January 26, 2022. We have two years to complete the revival process pending sufficient investment of interest and involvement of the Seashire populace (Halifax Country Area).

We are seeking people to join the workgroups. We are currently working on the Seashire-Ruantallan agreement – which is out for consultation and commentary now. Please send comments to Dame Sarra Graeham. Writing and preparation of the Standard Operating Procedures document are ready to begin and will be updated in accordance with the Seashire-Ruantallan agreement. We seek people to help write, comment, and improve this document. It needs to be in simple language, but also reflect our modern working methods including online meetings and social media policies. If you are able to help in this group please contact Sebastien Daundelin

Even if you are not currently involved in a group, reading the documents created and helping the process move along with your feedback shows your interest in the revival. Other work groups will be created as we move along including topics such as creating a curia, fight practices, meetings, outreach and the creation of a signature event. The moving forward of these plans for revival depends entirely on populace engagement. We encourage you to be a part of the process by sharing your feedback and helping where you can be of best help.

Future meeting to be determined at a later date.

Meeting adjourned.

Yours in Service,
Esperanza De Cordoba
Webminister of Ruantallan
Co-Chair of Seashire Workgroup

January 2022

Update: The next Seashire online meeting is March 6th at 7pm. Your vote and voice matter. We will be nominating and electing a representative to oversea the renewal project and be our liaison with the EK Seneschal during this dormancy process. We will also be reviewing our first document created, the agreement with the Barony and Seashire. I hope to see many of you there.

Details here: https://www.ruantallan.eastkingdom.org/events/seashire-meeting-march/

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Thank you to everyone who came out tonight to the Seashire Future meeting to be a part of solution creation. Thank you for your comments, your questions, and your advice and wisdom.

In the meeting regarding the future of Seashire, we discussed the current state of affairs, and three possible outcomes – dissolution, dormancy, and do the work needed. Seashire and Ruantallan are experiencing excessive overlap of curia and the duties of each are unclear. The Canton of Seashire will take a dormancy phase in order to focus on creating a clear definition of its duties to the populace, rewrite essential governing documents, and make plans for a strong revival. The populace will be informed when the dormancy phase officially begins.

Those who wish to ensure not only the survival of Seashire but the thriving of Seashire are asked to step forward and help with the work. They are invited to join the Seashire Curia Facebook group to help brainstorm and create documents, and an email list will be created for this as well to keep everyone involved, including those not on Facebook.

A meeting will be held on Zoom in March to discuss what needs to be done, what policies need to be revised and written, and hopefully assign taskforces to work together. Date and time TBD.

Our goal is to create solutions and to endeavour to solve the issue of this continuing question of Seashire’s viability.

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have further questions.

Yours in Service, Esperanza de Cordoba
Seneschal, Seashire