The Knights of Saint Michael and Saint George
Quest Board
A man’s household comes first. The Order serves his vocation to his family, not the reverse. A Quest that cannot be carried by a husband and father in an ordinary week is scoped wrong, however good the work is.
Beneath the board
Know who lives in the place the parish is set over, and what they need. Attend to the life of the town. File what you see. The Watch tells this board which households and which needs. You can’t serve what you can’t see.
A second board, kept apart from this one. It holds two lists: what each man is willing to give, and what each man needs done but lacks the time, skill, or motivation for. When the parish needs a roofer, or a brother’s widow needs her taxes filed, the Table knows who to call. Nobody keeps score. It begins among the brothers and widens to the parish, and then beyond it.
The altar, the door, liturgical roles. Cleaning, general maintenance, setting up and clearing away. The building, the grounds, the shut-ins.
Small Game — one man, and it finishes. Nothing recurring once done.
Big Game — many hands, or it never really finishes. It needs a team, a schedule, and someone tending it for years.
No one commits the Table to a Big Game sight unseen. First a plan; then the Table knows what it is taking on. Every plan is itself Small Game. A man can sit down, write it, and be finished.
A Quest gets onto this board one way: proposed at the Table Meeting, deliberated by the Table, authorized by the Captain.
Once it is on the board, no one is assigned it and no one is talked into it. A man reads the board and picks up what he is called to — because he has the skill for it, the season of life for it, or simply the desire.
If a Quest sits untaken, that’s information, not a failure. Fix the plan. Don’t lean on the man. Better an empty column than a reluctant volunteer.
This board is kept short on purpose. What the Table has approved but cannot carry yet, and what it has set down, is kept on the Reserve. Nothing there is refused.
Every Quest has one man’s name on it, because work owned by everyone is owned by nobody. His part is to keep the Table informed and to say where the work stands. He is not there to be blamed when it goes badly.
How the work is done is his. He chooses the method, the order, and the pace, and does not come back for permission on small things. The servants were handed the talents and left to trade with them as they judged best; the one who failed was the one who buried his, because he was afraid (Matthew 25:14–30).
Big Game does not begin until every volunteer is named and every rota is filled. Before he goes to war the king sits down and counts whether ten thousand can meet twenty thousand (Luke 14:31). Interest is not commitment, so ask each man plainly whether he will take his turn and get his answer before the work begins. If the names are not all there, the Quest waits.
For every active Quest the Table gives prayer, counsel when he asks for it, and hands when he needs them. No man carries a Quest alone.
Man-day — eight hours of one person’s labor, summed across everyone who works it, not calendar time.
Sustainment — steady ongoing effort after setup, indefinitely. Small Game has none.
Forms — the practical skill the work builds. Scan for something you can already do, or want to learn.
Purse — the Almoner releases money against the plan. No man is out of pocket for a Quest.
Speak to — the man who knows most about this card. Go to him with a question or an interest; you need not wait for the Table Meeting.
The rule at the foot of a card is where a man puts his name. A card may be signed at any station. Only under Needs a Man does an unsigned one show a blank line.
Figures are 95% confidence intervals from Fermi estimates, not vendor quotes. Big Game on an unplanned card is a prediction. Confirm it once the plan exists.
Nothing has been carried through yet.
A Quest is reported on when it is finished. What lands here gets written up and sent out on the Wire, so other Tables can use what worked.
Keep it, even while it is bare.
Taken up, with a name on it.
Write the one clear answer to “why join us,” and the other — “why we do any of this” — short enough to recite and firm enough to be held to.
Forms Plain writing under constraint.
Finish the Order’s dress code (the daily pin, the Knight’s tippet, and the Companion’s chain) and put it before the bishop.
Make a short reading list to hand a man on his first day.
Give rides to the Holy Eucharist to parishioners who cannot drive themselves.
Put this Table’s voice out where men who’ve never heard of us can find it.
Forms Audio production. Interviewing.
Fully scoped. Pick it up today.
Read the draft Rule and Charter, gather the men’s feedback on it, and put it before the bishop.
Outline the Order’s rites and ceremonies, and work out a strategy for them with the Chaplain.
Set the plain local rules — meeting night, the hall, the food, the money, the records — that keep us honest and orderly under the Charter.
Forms Writing procedure.
| Plan to write | Man-days | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Church sign — sketch, quotes, location | 0.5–2 | $0–$30 |
| Church cross spotlight — fixture, aiming, ground mount, power run | 0.5–1.5 | $0–$20 |
| Street apologetics — location, format, training approach | 0.5–2 | $0–$20 |
A man who writes one of these has done real work and committed the Table to nothing.
Authorized, but Big Game and not yet scoped. The plan for each of these is a card of its own under Needs a Man — half a day’s work, ready today, committing the Table to nothing.
Raise a sign so well-made that anyone driving past knows, at a glance, that this church is reverent and alive.
Forms Fabrication. Getting quotes.
Light the cross on the antenna so it stands over the town after dark — visible for miles as a sign we haven’t gone quiet.
A ground-mounted fixture on the property, aimed up at the cross on the side of the cellular antenna.
Forms Outdoor wiring. Trenching.
Make the case for the Christian faith in public, outside the church.
Everything above this line has been talked through at a Table Meeting and approved. Everything below it is proposed and not yet approved. The Captain gives the approval, and he gives it in front of the Table, never alone.
Nobody has said yet whether the Table wants any of this. All of it sits on parish land, so all of it needs the rector and the vestry.
| Quest | Tending | Plan | Once planned | Sustainment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fruit Trees Plant what we may not taste | Seasonal, spiky. Deep watering weekly through the first three summers or they die — 16 inches of rain a year is not enough. Dormant pruning, late-frost protection, harvest. | 0.5–1.5 md | 1–5 md · $150–$800 | 0–4 hr/wk by season · $50–$200/yr |
| Vegetable Garden Grow food, don’t discuss it | Near-daily, May–September. Watering, weeding, harvesting at peak or it bolts and rots. Nothing October–April. | 0.5–1.5 md | 3–8 md · $300–$1,800 | 3–8 hr/wk in season · $150–$500/yr |
Five approved Quests held back until this board has room for them, and five more the Table set down, each with the reason and what would bring it back. Read it at the Reserve. A man who wants one of those brought up says so at the Table Meeting.