Laws

Like all other NZ groups, an NZ Principality would be subject to local NZ laws - including all SCANZ financial policies and management - and to Kingdom Law. However, it would require its own set of Principality Laws to describe, for example, how it runs Coronet selection events, how it funds its own fairly limited operational costs, what awards it might have, and so on.

Draft Proposed Law

A draft proposed law derived from Lochac Kingdom Law is in progress. It has many minor background changes to make it suited to a Principality and allow for the possibility of a non-standard selection process.  The present draft retains the armoured combat tournament language inherited from Lochac Law. A link will be provided here after it's had enough review by the Laws working group, but see the next section.

Decision Points

Many decision points that would need to be formally resolved before a final version could be made are listed below. In each case, the first option listed is present in the draft but a change to another option is relatively easy unless noted.

  • Reign length: nine months vs some other term
  • Coronet Events - investiture included in selection event vs separate investiture event
  • Coronet Event months (if nine month Reigns) - anchored on July (hence t0uching April, January, October - avoiding all Lochac Crown event months but coinciding with CF every three years) vs some other option
  • Coronet Event weeks - third or fourth full weekend of the month vs some other option - second and third likely being preferably to first and second
  • Coronet Event flexibility - limited per Lochac Crown Events vs more flexible to allow for easier combination with or avoidance of major scheduled events
  • Source of ongoing funding: Principality event levy vs Coronet Event income share vs ad-hoc fundraising - or all of the above to varying degrees
  • Coronet Travel Fund - provided for vs not offered
  • Eligibility to contest Coronet requirements - light vs more strict
  • Selection process - Traditional (Armoured Combat) vs one or more of the alternatives - this would take quite a bit of defining after any decision is made and approved - but is now mostly confined to the Selection section of Law, as language elsewhere has been generalised
  • Principality Council - membership exactly analogous to Lochac's Council of the Purse, vs "all Principality (Greater?) Officers"
  • Regent - one person appointed by Principality Council vs the pair who came second in the last selection process (not all selection processes under consideration allow for "second place", hence the current default...)
  • Greater Officers - six with some multi-role flexibility vs a different number and/or more or less flexibility - see Officer Roles and How to Staff Them
  • Lesser Officers - up to four with significant multi-role flexibility vs a different number and/or more or less flexibility
  • Minimum age for officers 18 vs 16 - NZ law for Inc Soc officers is 16 and (fwiw) for "viable contract signing" is 18; Corpora is 15 for some offices, with parental permission
  • Whether or not to have a journal of record in the form of a Principality newsletter (NZ is exempt from Chronicler policies that require one, but the value of having one is worthy of much consideration)
  • If there is a newsletter, should it be an official SCANZ publication the way that Pegasus was for SCA Ltd when Lochac was a Principality?
  • Reporting dates - these have been lightly tweaked to allow a little time for Principality Officers to receive reports from downlines and then compile their own reports for their Kingdom uplines; this is a complex area so final dates would be determined by the Kingdom Seneschal.
  • No Council of Regalia - functions handled by Principality Council in consultation with Keeper of Regalia if a separate one is appointed

Names

Some naming issues would need to be resolved before the draft Laws could be finalised. These include the group name, its newsletter name (if any) and initial award names, if any. It has been confirmed by Crux that Herald Astrolabe could return to its original usage as the Herald responsible for NZ and therefore the term would be available to describe Principality's senior Herald. "Principality Earl Marshal" is the standard form elsewhere in the SCA so is in the draft, and the draft uses "Chancellor of the (Principality) Exchequer" or "Exchequer" interchangeably, just as Lochac Law does for that office.

Other documents and systems requiring change

Several existing documents and systems would require changes to accomodate an NZ Principality. These include:

  • SCANZ Financial Policy - minor changes in 6.1.1 and 6.1.3 (2023 version), perhaps elsewhere
  • Kingdom Law - at least moving several existing NZ-specific areas into Principality Law, with explicit references to that and to other Principality requirements, including any customary privileges that may be extended to the Coronet, e.g. consultation for awards, appointments of B&Bs, etc
  • Lochac Procedures Manual - in the appointments and reporting areas, at least, possibly also officer age minimum (it says 18)
  • IT systems including the Seneschals Database, Regnumator and Appointinator, perhaps also structure and content tweaks to Canon Lore to allow for a Principality layer

 

Links to Laws for other principalities (and their parent kingdoms), as of March 2021:

 

Also see:

  • Summary of the Champion format discussion in Cluain and elsewhere in late 2023   *new
  • Lottery-Champion format - a more inclusive way forward?  *new
  • If you'd like to contribute in this area, by all means join the NZ Laws mailing list - after you join up, check out the archives
  • 2010 discussion and mockup of Laws for the very-lightly-mooted Queensland Principality of Drottingsmark (small Word doc)
  • Lochac Kingdom Law - the page also describes the precedence of the Laws and rules which controls our activities and has links to all the relevant documents (Principality Law and the Word of the Coronet would sit just below the Word of the Crown - though in a somewhat quantum location, because the SCANZ halo could mean that certain Principality Laws might be protected from being overridden by lesser entities - see Lowran's diagram below).
  • The SCANZ Rules and policies page
  • Don't overlook the SCA affiliation agreements

Below is Lowrens' diagram of how Principality Law would integrate into our existing structure:

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