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Title
1. This act shall be cited as the Wintreath Holidays Act.

Holidays
2. “First Day of Eternal Winter” is on the seventeenth (17th) day of October. It recognizes the date when Wintreath’s history began, thus, the first day of our eternal winter.
3. “Constitution Day” is on the twenty-fifth (25th) day of December. It recognizes and remembers the date when the Fundamental Laws of Wintreath were ratified, and as such saw the enactment of a Constitution for our region, community, and people.
4. The Monarch may, at his/her discretion, declare days and times of Festivities and Thanksgiving provided such declarations do not conflict with any Holiday described within this act or any other relevant laws.
5. New holidays may also be established by amendments to this act.

Celebration
6. In a desire to promote the celebration and festivities of these dates, the standard operation of the Storting will be suspended. The Underhusen and Overhusen will agree to delay the introduction of new bills, the commencement of voting, and any handling of any non-important legislative matters granted that they had not begun before the holiday. The Chairman of the Overhusen and Speaker of the Underhusen are given discretion on these matters.
7. On declarations of Festivities and Thanksgiving by the Monarch, the Speaker of the Underhusen and Chairman of the Overhusen may declare such suspension of activities as if it were a Holiday but are not required to do so.

Just something that crossed my mind earlier.
I'm introducing this for debate, but please note this the first draft, and a very rough one at that.

This bill was introduced by Chanku during the 28th term but saw no discussion, and I thought it might be a nice idea. I've reintroduced it here with grammar and wording corrections as necessary.

I like this, the idea of holidays is a nice one. I would not be opposed to this.

Editing - Punctuation.
Editing - Tense.
Editing - Other
Editing - Suggestions (as such, has not been modified in the quote).
Subject Matter - Thoughts

Spoilered for length

Title
1. This act shall be cited as the Wintreath Holidays Act.

Missing period.

2. The “First Day of Eternal Winter” is on the seventeenth (17th) day of October. It recognizes the date on which Wintreath’s history began, and as such is the first day of the beginning of its eternal winter.

Passive verb form and future tense.
Conciseness. Possibly: "the (date/day) when."
Redundancy (first & beginning) plus overuse of "of."
Perhaps specify what is actually important here. "...is the first day citizens were welcomed to (Wintreath/the region)", perhaps?

As an aside, "first day of the off-site forums" is also an option for celebration, which we can add to/replace the other possible holidays.

3. (The?) “Constitution Day” is on the twenty-fifth (25th) day of December. It recognizes and remembers the date on which the Fundamental Laws of Wintreath were ratified, and as such saw the enactment of a Constitutional form of Governance for the region, community, and people.

Inconsistency. Why is there a "The" for the previous holiday, but not for this one?
Passive verb form and future tense.
Conciseness. Possibly: "the (date/day) when."
Conciseness/Subject. Possibly: "...Fundamental Laws of Wintreath were ratified, and as such the region, community, and people saw the enactment of a Constitutional form of Governance." ...No, that's still too cluttered. It's "the enactment of a Constitutional form of Governance" that's giving the sentence too much baggage

4. In a desire to promote the celebration and festivities of these dates, the standard operation of the Storting will be suspended. The Underhusen and Overhusen agree to delay the introduction of new bills, the commencing of voting, and any handling of non-important legislative matters, granted that they had not begun prior to the holiday. The Chairman of the Overhusen and Speaker of the Underhusen are given discretion on these matters.

Conciseness (is to be - will be).
Concept-per-sentence reduction (suspended, with the - The), (agreeing - agree), (delay introduction - delay the introduction),  .
Word order (and handling of any - and any handling of) to match other determiners in the list.

6. New holidays may be established by the amendment of this act.

Clarity. Possibly: "by amendments to this act," as it opens the option of multiple amendments.

I also suggest the "ways to celebrate these holidays" go before the holidays themselves, with part 4 modified accordingly ("(...) these dates" to something like "to promote select dates of Wintreath history," something like that).

Just to mention, anything written in blue in the quotes have not been modified as they're mostly style quibbles. I'm also unsure about part 4's modifications but I've been doing this since almost I woke up today. I'll give it a second pass later, might do something with the blue bits after a little more research.

5. The Storting suggests that the Monarch prepare festivities or events for these holidays.

Hmm, perhaps we could gather a small committee to help @Wintermoot plan the holiday festivities each year?

5. The Storting suggests that the Monarch prepare festivities or events for these holidays.

Hmm, perhaps we could gather a small committee to help @Wintermoot plan the holiday festivities each year?

As the original Author of this bill, and the author of a prior bill on this much earlier in our history, the main issue is that we are not really allowed to specify how the Monarch goes about these things for the most part. That would be undue interference of the Storting within the Monarchy. As such we simply delegate the authority and responsibility to the Monarch, which makes it an executive duty, after which the Monarch can decide how to best execute it.

I don't feel strongly about this proposal either way. At worst it's fluff and we end up not doing much with them, but it's possible that someone with some vision could turn the holidays into big events.

I don't feel strongly about this proposal either way. At worst it's fluff and we end up not doing much with them, but it's possible that someone with some vision could turn the holidays into big events.

How does the rest of the OH feel? Would they be opposed to this act?

Passive verb form and future tense.

Not sure where you got this. When I went to edit, it was already mostly in the future tense and it didn't match your excerpt of the legislation.

Perhaps specify what is actually important here. "...is the first day citizens were welcomed to (Wintreath/the region)", perhaps?
As an aside, "first day of the off-site forums" is also an option for celebration, which we can add to/replace the other possible holidays.

Thinking along with this note, I noticed that even though the region was founded on the 17th of October and the Fundamental Laws were ratified on the 25th of October, the first Citizen was approved on the 21st of October, right smack in the middle of those two dates. Perhaps we should consolidate those two holidays, especially considering they're already only a week apart.

I also think we should add a Christmas or December Solstice holiday, like Yule, or maybe make Summersend an official holiday. What do y'all think?

Well, we could consider simply giving Wintermoot the authority to declare a holiday instead of writing the days our self.

Well, we could consider simply giving Wintermoot the authority to declare a holiday instead of writing the days our self.

It defeats the purpose of the legislation. He hasn't made a holiday in all these years, why would he now?

Edit: also not a fan of blindly giving the Monarch power. We are a monarchy, but we're a constitutional monarchy.

The blind power to declare a public holiday? Not exactly game changing power. Plus, while Wintermoot has not made a holiday before that does not mean that he would not if he could.

Passive verb form and future tense.

Not sure where you got this. When I went to edit, it was already mostly in the future tense and it didn't match your excerpt of the legislation.

Perhaps specify what is actually important here. "...is the first day citizens were welcomed to (Wintreath/the region)", perhaps?
As an aside, "first day of the off-site forums" is also an option for celebration, which we can add to/replace the other possible holidays.

Thinking along with this note, I noticed that even though the region was founded on the 17th of October and the Fundamental Laws were ratified on the 25th of October, the first Citizen was approved on the 21st of October, right smack in the middle of those two dates. Perhaps we should consolidate those two holidays, especially considering they're already only a week apart.

I also think we should add a Christmas or December Solstice holiday, like Yule, or maybe make Summersend an official holiday. What do y'all think?

Actually it was the 25 of December that the Fundamental Laws was ratified (which is in the text of the bill itself). However the First Day of Eternal Winter is specifically to celebrate the founding of the region. As to the creation of the off-site forums, I don't know about the exact date, and I don't necessarily think the creation of the off-site forums was as important as the founding of the region IMHO. 



As for the other things, perhaps we could give the Monarch the ability to declare days of 'Festivities and Thanksgiving', provided it does not conflict with an established holiday? He technically has this power already (Summersend and all that), but it would allow him to declare specific days.

Actually it was the 25 of December that the Fundamental Laws was ratified (which is in the text of the bill itself). However the First Day of Eternal Winter is specifically to celebrate the founding of the region. As to the creation of the off-site forums, I don't know about the exact date, and I don't necessarily think the creation of the off-site forums was as important as the founding of the region IMHO.

I think the founding of the region isn't important if it wasn't doing anything in the first week or so. Even its provisional government still in the drafting stages by the 21st and so I would base the holiday off of the beginning of Wintreath as a true, functioning state with citizens and a government.

As for the other things, perhaps we could give the Monarch the ability to declare days of 'Festivities and Thanksgiving', provided it does not conflict with an established holiday? He technically has this power already (Summersend and all that), but it would allow him to declare specific days.

I wouldn't be opposed to that. I can add that a clause if you wish?

Here's a draft section  I wrote

4. The Monarch may, at his/her discretion, declare days and times of Festivities and Thanksgiving provided such declarations do not conflict with any Holiday described within this act or any other relevant laws.

This preferably goes either in the Holidays section, or in the Celebration Section.

I would also amend the current Section 4 to read as follows:

In a desire to promote the celebration and festivities of these Holidays, the standard operation of the Storting will be suspended. The Underhusen and Overhusen will agree to delay the introduction of new bills, the commencement of voting, and any handling of any non-important legislative matters granted that they had not begun prior to the holiday. The Chairman of the Overhusen and Speaker of the Underhusen have discretion over such matters. On declarations of Festivities and Thanksgiving by the Monarch, the Speaker of the Underhusen and Chairman of the Overhusen may declare such suspension of activities as if it were a Holiday, but are not required to do so.

Feel free to modify this though Katie (or anyone else)

Passive verb form and future tense.

Not sure where you got this. When I went to edit, it was already mostly in the future tense and it didn't match your excerpt of the legislation.

I... I'm not sure what you're saying here.

Passive verb form and future tense, in the highlighted circumstances, is not appropriate, hence why I edited them out in the quoted sections. Mostly the future tense. It is only the blue parts that are highlighted with no edits.
 - The parts that talk about "how will the holidays be celebrated" can be in future tense.
 - The parts that make the holidays an official thing need to be in present tense. You don't say "Christmas will be on the 25th of December," you say "Christmas is on the 25th etc." Sure, you can say the former, but it's less natural and implies in this case that these holidays are still in development.

My confusion comes from me thinking... yes, of course the quotes are different. I edited them. Could you rephrase what the problem is? I think I've misunderstood something. I'm quite sick so my reading comprehension's gone down, so, I'd appreciate a rephrasing.


Another option is to Monday-ize the founding, if so many important dates happened in so small an area. Say, "the Monday before X date." And on X date, a particular event is celebrated.

...Even after typing that I'm opposed to my own idea, but someone might get an idea from it.

4. The Monarch may, at his/her discretion, declare days and times of Festivities and Thanksgiving provided such declarations do not conflict with any Holiday described within this act or any other relevant laws.

Could use a comma between these words, but that's a personal style choice on my part so feel free to ignore this one.



What order are you thinking these should be in, @Chanku? You've implied that it is this:

4. The Monarch may, at his/her discretion, declare days and times of Festivities and Thanksgiving provided such declarations do not conflict with any Holiday described within this act or any other relevant laws.

5. In a desire to promote the celebration and festivities of these Holidays, the standard operation of the Storting will be suspended. The Underhusen and Overhusen will agree to delay the introduction of new bills, the commencement of voting, and any handling of any non-important legislative matters granted that they had not begun prior to the holiday. The Chairman of the Overhusen and Speaker of the Underhusen have discretion over such matters. On declarations of Festivities and Thanksgiving by the Monarch, the Speaker of the Underhusen and Chairman of the Overhusen may declare such suspension of activities as if it were a Holiday, but are not required to do so.

6. New holidays may be established by amendments to this act.

Is this correct?

I also think section 5 should be divided for ease of reference, but my head is pounding so I'll leave off for now.