Ticking along

Although things are quiet here at the hearth at the moment, our clan seems to be ticking along.

Kwakiutlcs 'Kwak' MacTavish of Whithorn has become a baker.

A recent RSA patrol composed of four MacTavishes worked flawlessly (albeit, didn't see the robber).

Clan members have been active in both local and county political scenes, with three standing as candidates at county election with UCS party, and several members providing voice to dissent with the VotP party (though not as candidates). By the way, get out and vote if you haven't done so already!!!

With a slow but steady flow of active members joining up, we remain the third largest clan in the land despite fact that Italian_Iceman and Lady_Susan no longer exist (:(

Message Board Down

The message board just went down, just as bugs struck pubs in whithorn. Hope the two aren't connected! This has been the first failure of the Message Board in nearly two months, so it is pretty reliable overall.

Building MacTavish Lodge

You may have noticed at the Hut that construction has commenced on a new building, MacTavish Lodge. This is all happening in the 'hut' site and doesn't have any (direct) consequence ingame. Nor does it require anything from anyone (except in a RP sense, if you are so inclined).

The pictures I will use are all taken from medieval re-enactment society records. When well and truly done with the building, I will lodge the originals (or at least their address) here.

For now, I must return to the lists at the Highland Tourney where I have a Campbell thundering toward me on pounding steed, deadly lance in hand.

Redundancy?

I am posting some information both here and on our Sub Forum. This duplication is because some of our kin cannot get into the forum (yet) and others can't get into here (yet). All can get into at least one of these places.

We have kept clan business going when 2 out of 3 servers crashed (3 servers = game, forum, blogger). The value of having multiple locations where we can communicate has already showed itself!

Hopefully the Hearth becomes primarily a collection of more arcane and strategic information, the forum more of day to day details (plus a bit of Role Play!). They should generally remain quite different in content.

Fireside Message Box

I have relabelled the 'chat box' a 'message box' as that seems to be its function. At a stretch I'd use it for real time communication Like, if I had to chat with someone in a different town and we therefore couldn't use a local tavern to meet and talk.

Having to 'refresh' the screen every time you want to check for new messages makes it a hassle if what you are really wanting to do is 'chat.' Pubs are so much better for chat, and one can usually find a few minutes alone.

But, always be careful who's listening in a tavern!

Things to ponder

Highland Games: Check the post on our clan subforum and see if you can get involved. As a minimum, try and visit MacTavish's Hut during the day (November 1) and leave a comment to mark the celebrations that we will hold there!

Clan Champion :We need a strong person for this. There might be a bit of a call on their time at short notice. I have asked Ragehammer if interested, as probably the strongest amongst us at present. I stand to be corrected on this, and Ragehammer has the right to say no.

Ragehammer has indeed had to decline attendance, waving his hammer towards his anvil as he did so. Who am I to argue! AND I've just been told that I can't substitute a Champion for myself in the Chieftain's fight. I gotta get me a sword somehow before the day!

Clan Membership: There are 14 of us at present, and I am expecting at least a couple more to join in next couple days. That puts us at the big end of the middle sized clans, or the small end of the big sized clans. This is a pretty good position to be in around November 1.

I would like all listed here on November 1 to be regarded equally as 'founding members'. I don't do this out of a love of titles, but for want of a title. The function of Founding Members would be to keep our clan healthy.

In terms of new members of our clan after November 1, I think the process for admission should be a little more involved than it has been until now. This is what I have thought (I'll give my reasons later, most important to get discussion going now):

1. To be considered for membership a person must be born or resident in scotland, or have been resident in Scotland when they joined MacTavish. They may not be a member of another recognised Scottish Clan (though may be related to one or more).

2. For a request for membership to be considered by the clan, they must be
a) nominated publicly (on subforum)
b) by at three clan members of who have each been a member for at least one month
(this requirement waived during November as none of us would yet qualify!),
c) at least one of the three must be a founding member.

3. The nomination would remain up on the forum for a week.
Members should feel free to post any objections or agreements there during this period.
a) If there are no unresolved objections, the person can be admitted then.
b) If there is at least one objection that is still held at the end of the week,
a poll will be held on forum for all intested in voting on the matter.
c) In the result of a tie, the chieftain has a casting vote.

4. Result is final (exception - chieftain may allow another application after at least another month has passed, provided all entry criteria met)

What do you think?

I've put a copy of the membership idea up on our subforum, please comment there.

Piper Tom

I hope you have enjoyed hearing Piper Tom and wee Roddy playing the pipes in Hut and Hearth. I have given them a bit of a break in here, too many people have visited and have stretched the down/upload limit of the site PiperTom is at.

I don't wish to harm anyone with my use of their band, so I have made it optional to hear him play 'Scotland the Brave' on this site. Just click once to activate the control on the sidebar, and again to ask him to play.

Hope this helps, Soltario!

Fireside Chat

Has arrived! Now we can talk around our fire about clan business. It stores about 100 messages of upto 200 characters each. To find it, just scroll down this screen. It's beneath the rose.

Many thanks to Balenoape for the link.

Six out of twelve MacTavishes have so far received a key.

Blog Admin

I have kept administrator position on this blog. I have ability to alter its format, edit, add and remove things, invite members, ban members etc.

I hope i never have to do any of the nasty things. But will do so if we MacTavishes don't conduct ourselves honourably.

I am NOT storing personal information people have sent me to get access, unless that is required for them to keep access (eg. email addresses). I will not pass these onto others at all, unless someone explicitly gives me permission.

While on the subject of privacy and security, you might wish to disable public access to your blogger profile, which you would have had to set up to get posting rights on this blog.

The reason I disable public access to my profile, however, had nothing to do with privacy as such (afterall, thousands have viewed my profile for my other blogs, and I trust you MacTavishes more than those anonymous people). I did it so that I don't start treating this as 'just another blog project'. 'cause it's not.

I have added two new categories ("Blog Admin" and "Clan Recruitment") and, at Balenoape's good suggestion, an index of categories on the sidebar to the right.

We have a problem with Balenoape's key, and Jayne too has so far only registered as a reader.
Telets is organising his blogger account when has time.
Wognot's put up a comment and has full posting rights.

We're making progress!

Cheers.

Five of us have a key to the back room!

Balenoape, Telets, Ragehammer and Wognot should all have received invitations to the Hearth site by now. Once registered for access, that will give us a quorum of 50% to make any decisions which require making in private. I've let the other half of the clan know.

Cheers!

Drac

Welcome guys!

Bal and Telets have both just sent me their emails so I can sign them up for this blog. Am sure looking forward to a bit of company.

We can all make suggestions (by comment or by post) and decide here around the hearth what we want to do.

It has been a bit hard making all the decisions so far myself, or speaking to people called clan 'leaders', because I don't really have a mandate as I see it. Even if I am the 'natural leader' it would be nice to know that others don't take exception to that.

There is also a time limit in my life (lucky I have a fair bit of free time before the Clans gather and we get our rights as a founding clan).

Anyway, welcome to the hearth.

Drac