[Artemisia] web site question

[Kristin Gulling-Smith]

Redhawk wrote:
>   PS.. i still want to know why it takes so long..

Here is a copy of something I sent to a submitter at some point in the  
fairly recent past. While the months are subject to change, of course, the  
time spans remain fairly constant.

...
Unfortunately, it is still too early to know. It takes roughly nine months  
 from the time of submission for a decision to be made and for you to know  
the outcome. Your submission has to go through the internal writeup,  
commentary, and decision process before going to Laurel, where it then  
goes through the Laurel-level commentary and decision process, followed by  
the Laurel letter of decisions, which goes through its own writing,  
proof-reading, and printing stages. This time starts from the submission  
of *each* item, so even though your original name submission had gone to  
Laurel, the fact that I withdrew it because you submitted a different name  
started that time over.

Your resubmitted name was sent to Laurel in October, which means that the  
Laurel decision on it will be made in February. (Three months for  
commentary and response, then a month for the Laurel meetings.) The Laurel  
letter of acceptances and returns (LoAR) takes anywhere from one to three  
months to write, depending on how many kingdoms sent submissions for that  
month and how many submissions were on each kingdom's letters, as well as  
the complexity of the decisions. Once I receive the LoAR, ideally, I'll  
have notification letters out to the submitters within a month. I am in  
college, so that "ideally" is often less so, but I do have a prospective  
deputy to help me out with that issue.

Since your name will be decided on in February, I won't know what the  
decision is until at least March, but more probably into April or even  
May. Once I do, either I or my deputy will attempt to get the notification  
letters as soon as possible at that point.
...

That does not of course include the delays that have been cropping up on  
my end for the last few months, which I alluded to in my first response to  
this thread. Those I take full personal responsibility for; however, it is  
important to remember that there are delays all along the line, most of  
them due to a desire on the part of the heralds of the SCA to make sure  
that you get what you want. The fact that we handle the most paperwork out  
of any office in the SCA, and ALL of us do so on a volunteer basis, does  
factor into the times as well. (Trust me, as I've told people before---if  
I were *paid* to do heraldry, it'd be an eight-hour-a-day job for me, and  
happily so. ;)

Hopefully that will help enlighten the not-so-murky submissions process.

-Athenais

-- 
THL Athenais Bryennissa, Golden Pillar Herald
Artemisian CoH Website: http://heralds.artemisia.sca.org/
"And God said, "Let there be colour!" And there was colour. And it was  
Technicolour. And it was bright."