"Welcoming Newcomers" pages upgraded

In the Welcoming Newcomers section of Bright Ideas, two pages have been redone. The second one never did have scans of the letters to which it referred, and someone pointed that out. There are a couple of paragraphs and some links following that, too, from the original writings.

http://sandradodd.com/ideas/newcomers1.html
http://sandradodd.com/ideas/newcomers2.html

Change isn't really a constant

I've commandeered this blog. It was to have been dedicated to ThinkWell, but I couldn't get the address thinkwell.blogblahblahblah, so I used Duckford. That's fine, because some of the recent announcements have been my more personal stuff and I hate for a blog to just sit so quietly, so although this will still definitely contain ThinkWell news (when there is any), it will not be so limited.


Site announcements by e-mail:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Duckford/, or you can read through the older site news there.




That's me, Lore de Lorraine of Atenveldt (the former Princesss Lorene of the Outlands), and the honored Kate Holford, of Caerthe. We were watching a tournament at Grand Outlandish, the other day.

If you want to look at lots more photos of Outlandish or other recent events, go here and poke around:
sandradodd.com/photolinks

"self-reverence"

For the benefit of recent philosophy partners, I've added something to the page on mindfulness, about "self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control..."

It's not earth-moving, but it's okay. Look in the box at the bottom.



Guest Fest continues, for a while. Soon the unschooling conferences start to pile up and I'll be out of town too many days in August, September, early October.

Two anniversaries in one

Thirty years ago this Grand Outlandish (5/29 to be more precise, but Outlandish is close enough), the Outlands became a principality within Atenveldt. The same day Gunwaldt, who later became my husband, was made a Master of Arms.

Thirty years.

Cool.

I've put up a photo of the petition for the Outlands principality status here:
http://sandradodd.com/outlands/ppetition
along with some commentary written sixteen years ago.

New Students

Here's me, a few days ago, happy that I had just taken a new student, Lady Kymma Godric. Kymma is the chronicler of al-Barran and Wimble Herald of the Outlands.

In February I took Karl of Gulbjorn for a year and a day even though he was very new to the Society, because his potential and interest, courtesy and modesty stunned me.

Artan has this squire who's bursting with questions and ideas and the desire to learn, in a season when Artan is busy being King of the Outlands. So Lord Dermod of Killarney is kind of majoring in Artan and minoring in AElflaed.

I'm invigorated.

The photo is by Kymma's daughter, Sierra, and any of the links above should lead you to other photos of that and recent days.

The Wednesday night philosophy discussion series ended, as their regular Wednesday night fighter practice resumed when it got lighter and warmer. I would've mourned its loss longer had the replacement Monday night discussion not turned out to be wonderful!

Knowledge of Progress—self-awareness

Here's a list of ways one might know whether he's making progress toward being better (whatever "better" he might be headed toward, though this was in the context of practicing virtues). The came out of a philosophy discussion last week:


other people's reactions

consciousness of self

discovery [things work better and more easily than they did before]

external feedback / manifestations

reflection before and after

---

Does anyone here have other indicators to add, or ideas on these?

Bio page and Issue #6

The old TW issues are up to #6 now.

Biographies are starting to need a place to go. Several back issues contain bios current at that time, and some of the new posters who weren't involved before (and some who were) have posted bio information on the yahoo list. Here's the beginning of a collection: http://sandradodd.com/tw/bio

Anniversaries of Peerages

Eimile Seilide as Draeghean (Ansteorra) ...
Today I'm working on TW #6, October 1991 (#5 has been there for weeks but I forgot to announce it) and I found this:

CALL FOR QUICK INPUT
If you receive this issue in time to assist The Honorable Lady Eimile Seilide as Draeghean in her request, please write directly to her:
c/o Emily Egan
[an old address that's probably not good anymore...]
League City TX 775....
In TW#2 (page 17, 6th paragraph) I was charmed by the description (in parenthesis) of passing the medallion to the circle. If you or any of your friends have a copy of this ceremony, either in part or in whole, or any other suitable for a laureling ceremony please send me a copy. I need input by November 1 because on November 16 the Crown will leaf me and they are expecting to be presented with a written ceremony for their prior comments/ approval. I have never written a ceremony for anyone so I am looking for as many examples as possible to study.
—Eimile Seilide as Draeghean (Ansteorra)


Today's the fifteenth anniversary of that Laurel ceremony. I went to find her to send her an e-mail to congratulate her and point out the cool coincidence, but she's listed as inactive on Ansteorra's Laurel page.

If anyone knows her and thinks she'd be interested, though... maybe forward this to her.

---

Last Saturday was the sixth anniversary of the elevation to the Pelican of Master Balthazar Tegero, who was my student. I knew in advance. I intended to say something on the date. We were sitting at the same feast table, at a coronation. I forgot. (Sorry, Balthazar... I hope to make it up to you on a tenth or fifteenth, maybe...)

TW #4, with working links

ThinkWell #4, early September 1991

ThinkWell #3 is readable; 28 members on discussion list

ThinkWell #3, which was published on paper in late August, 1991, A.S. XXVI is available here:
http://sandradodd.com/tw/3

The file isn't perfect. There's one footnote mystery (though most of them work perfectly well), and I can clean it up later. The topics links in the righthand column were part of the default file but will be fixed within a day or two.

The text, though, is readable. Feel free to send me corrections. There's an e-mail link at the bottom, and if your e-mail hates those links, use Sandra@SandraDodd.com