Lady Tamsyn Northover was Rocket Herald July ’06-’08, in charge of receiving and processing submissions of names, devices and badges.  Here is her advice on the topic of what not to do.  By avoiding these pitfalls, a submittor rises above the pack and increases their chances of getting everything registered in minimum time.

Use the right forms. Only forms dated Laurel v. 2.0; Lochac v. 2.0 (Laurel Approved [18 Jul 2006]) can be used. All submissions on earlier versions of the forms will be subject to administrative return.

Include all relevant documentation. Copies of all documentation not listed in Appendix H of the Administrative Handbook are required with submissions. Many submissions are citing articles from the Academy of Saint Gabriel, orAryanhwy merch Catmael’s site. These are both excellent sources, but neither is listed in App. H so copies must be included. Please check that any submissions that pass though your hands have the required copies. Not providing copies of documentation is grounds for return. I’m about annoyed enough to start doing so…

STOP PRESS: Academy reports are now on Appendix H.  That means you can use them as documentation by just referencing them.  Woot!  

Wikipedia is not an acceptable source for documentation. Most articles give modern normalised forms of names, which are not useful for our purpose. Also, due to wikipedia’s collaborative nature the accuracy of the articles can be highly questionable. Please see the Dec 2005 LoAR cover letter for further comments on this matter – the dingo reference is good for a giggle.

The name documentation section on the forms should be filled out. Please provide a summary of the documentation for the name, be there copies attached or not. “See attached” is not a summary. “Emailed to Crux” is also not a summary. One recent example “found in a book”, with no copies is beyond useless! Should all other pieces of paper be lost we ought to be able to reconstruct your submission from what’s written on the form. Past copies of CAMeL or LoIs are good places to look for the type of information required.

Use upper and lower case letters. I was guilty of this one myself – Please don’t send in name forms with the submitted name in all capital letters. We have RTF editable forms available online, so writing in all caps to overcome terrible handwriting should no longer be much of an issue. Many languages have specific capitalisation rules, others are variable. Please fill out the form with the exact capitalisation being submitted.

Outlines are outlines. It is preferable to not colour in the sable/black portions of device and badge submissions on the outline copy.

Staples are bad. Each copy of a submission is eventually sent to a different place, so stapling them together isn’t helpful and an occasional tetanus hazard! Please use paperclips, plastic sleeves or similar.

Use sensible inks. Gold and silver pen are also bad! They turn to glue with age and make a great sticky mess of the files. Other colours should all be clear heraldic tinctures. Basically, this means primary or secondary colour wheel shades only. Variations such as pastels or indeterminate toned shades can be grounds for return on an otherwise clear design. Lochac has had a ban on submissions using colour printers, copiers and crayons for many years, and as of the December 2010 LoAR any submissions recieved using crayon or other wax based medium will be destroyed. Note: Colour printers are now permitted in Lochac heraldic submissions.

Provide the right documentary evidence. If submitting a name under the mundane name allowance, please ensure that proof of the submitter’s name is included. This means a photocopy of their driving license, birth certificate or similar legal document. Certification by a J.P. is not necessary.

Please save trees (and postage)! If a name being documented only occurs on one page of an article, there is no need to copy and submit the entire thing. The title and relevant page are all that are required.  2-up printing is greatly encouraged, though double sided is not.

Tamsyn adds:

That’s really quite enough from me, except to give thanks to all who’ve assisted with commentary; scanning, filing or in any other way. I truly could not do this without you. Keep up the good work guys!