One of the most common questions raised about forming an NZ Principality is how we staff it. That's because we'd have to fill six Greater Offices and somewhere between zero to four Lesser Offices.
The offices are:
Greater (all required): Seneschal, Herald, Marshal, A&S, Exchequer, Chronicler
Lesser: Hospitaller, Keeper of Regalia, Historian, Web Minister
A Principality could also have a Constable, Chirurgeon and its own Provost of Scribes; in each case there are fairly good reasons why we probably wouldn't.
To get an idea of what's involved for any of the above, see https://seneschal.lochac.sca.org/officer-job-descriptions
This range of offices looks challenging - until you consider some very important mitigating factors:
Why Filling These Roles Might be Easier than it Looks
1. Insulae Draconis went Principality with about 145 members and filled 12 (!) Principality offices at same time as supporting the 30-40 local officers needed to staff its ten small Shires. In contrast, we currently have about 240 members and are staffing four groups with 32 officers - plus around ten people in B&B, Kingdom, SCANZ or Society roles.
2. For 15+ years we've continuously deployed near-exact equivalents to the Principality Exchequer and Herald, plus a Web Minister/Masonry role and a Lists officer.
3. For every role, the amount of work typically required at Principality level would be noticeably less than that of an equivalent Baronial officer, and vastly less than an equivalent Kingdom officer. For example, consider that a Principality Seneschal would be providing support to just four official groups and liaising with one incorporation - SCANZ. Whereas the Kingdom Seneschal is responsible for 30+ very far-flung groups and is effectively reporting to three very different incorporations.
4. At Kingdom level, Corpora forbids one person from holding multiple Greater Offices or from simultaneously holding a Greater Kingdom office and another major role, e.g. group herald. Due to the workload differences, the same bar is not automatically in place for Principality - though we may consider it desirable to have a few extra constraints in Principality Law. (The SCA already has rules preventing Exchequer and Seneschal from being done by the same person and also preventing an officer from being their own upline officer).
5. At Principality level, it's entirely possible for one or more of the Lesser roles to be left unstaffed - defaulting to being covered by the Seneschal, as already happens for our existing groups - or be filled by one of the other Greater Officers. For example, a Principality Chronicler might be willing to take on the duties of Historian and Web Minister if there aren't keen applicants for those roles.
Role Breakdowns
For the above reasons, three of our Greater Officer roles could look like this:
1. Herald. The Kingdom Herald, Crux Australis Isabella, has indicated the Herald Astrolabe office can return to being purely for NZ - hence our Principality Herald - and continue roughly as we have done since it was created in 1999. There would be new and interesting tasks involving helping devise ceremonies and awards and being (or helping find) the Voice of the Coronet at events.
2. Exchequer - rename the NZ Deputy Exchequer to Principality Exchequer and continue this fairly-light role as before.
3. Chronicler - this would be a novel role and potentially a lot of new work. However, much time-sensitive material - official NZ event notices, Law changes, awards etc. - not only can but must continue to appear in the Kingdom's Pegasus newsletter. Therefore the publishing cycle of a Principality newsletter need not be monthly unless the Chronicler so desires. It could instead be bi-monthly or even quarterly, and the size would be modest. (For groups below Kingdom size, a non-monthly publishing cycle is explicitly permitted by the Society Chronicler).
Like Chronicler, the remaining three Greater officers would be novel.
In each case, the workload would depend on the inclinations and availability of the incumbent, with minimum requirements being fairly light. But an active office-holder could, if they chose, do a lot to help grow the Principality and support its groups.
4. Seneschal
Potentially the largest of the new roles, but still well below the demands of Baronial or Kingdom Seneschal. This position could well include the duties of Hospitaller and Keeper of Regalia, as each overlaps with core Seneschal interests and responsibilities. (This should not preclude advertising those roles, since there are certainly people who might be keen on doing them and they are good stepping-stone roles for newish officers).
The Principality Seneschal would liaise with and support group Seneschals and fellow Principality officers. They would report quarterly to the Coronet, the Kingdom Seneschal and to SCANZ. Such reports might be fairly light depending on what they, the Coronet and the Principality Council (equivalent to Kingdom's Council of the Purse) had been doing in recent months.
Stretch tasks would include encouraging officer training (more below) and effective recruitment and retention, and possibly being Web Minister, since a Principality's web presence would be pretty minor and easy to maintain compared to the Kingdom one.
5. Marshal
This would be mainly a reporting role, perhaps combined with Lists responsibilities, i.e. issuing authorisation cards for NZ members. Energetic marshals might focus on education and development of martial areas, promote Principality contests across multiple events, or perhaps launch an NZ-wide event (cf Crescent Fence in the past).
6. A&S Minister
At a minimum this would be a straightforward reporting role. But an enterprising A&S Minister might choose to encourage entries in Kingdom A&S competitions, support guilds, promote Collegia, encourag article submissions for Cocktarice or launch a local Principality-wide A&S activity, aligned with Coronet Events.
All of the above roles would feel very doable to anyone who's successfully filled the equivalent group role at any level - from Canton to Kingdom to Society. Because of our long history, that's a fairly large pool of people.
Training & Development
One major bonus of a Principality's size and compactness is the relative ease with which we could train new and potential officers. This should be happening in some formal sense at Kingdom level, but usually doesn't - both because of the sheer scale of the Kingdom and its operations, and the fact that the Kingdom Seneschal (whose core remit it is) is usually deeply engaged in more immediate demands.
Regular training workshops held at larger events or Coronet Events could greatly improve the pipeline of future officers for the Principality, in a way we really haven't seen before. They could also allow problems and opportunities to be recognised and addressed in a timely way, simply because they are being regularly shared with other folk who are in very similar situations.
This is one of the biggest structural benefits we could get from having a Principality and its layer of officers. The Seneschal role alone could have a big impact in allowing us to collectively plan, improve and together grow our game - as well as evolve to keep pace with social demands, shifts in communications and all the other challenges and opportunities of the mundane world.
In short, we'd most likely be quicker on our feet and more directly supportive than Kingdom ever can be, and much more focused on local needs and environment.