What is the Hall?

The Hall is a representative body chosen from our Senior Membership that provides advice to the Board of Directors on membership and philanthropic issues. Each Ajah and Company chooses two representatives from their group to represent them for 6 months.

The current Hall is able to see the threads of the Hall previously in session. Threads for sessions before the last are archived elsewhere and are not accessible by Hall members. The threads from the previous Hall are left so that the current Hall might peruse the past discussions and obtain a sense of how the Hall generally runs, observing factors which may have caused applicants to be approved or disapproved. This is useful especially for those who have never before been members of the Hall.

All with access to the Hall of the Tower are bound to respect the utmost privacy of the forum. Information learned within the Hall is not allowed to be discussed outside the Hall with anyone, including the applicants themselves, past Hall members, and future Hall members. If any additional information is needed, the appropriate administrator will obtain it; Hall members should not take it upon themselves to do so.

Who has access to the Hall?

Those with access to the Hall are the current members of the Hall (which change every six months), Mayor of Tar Valon, Mistress of Novices, Captain of Recruits, Mistress of Accepted, Captain of Soldiers, Director of Community Outreach, Director of Membership, Executive Assistant, and the Officers. Only the appointed members of the Hall have voting privileges, though the voting is, in actuality, a formalized process in order to give or withhold recommendation to the Board of Directors. The other positions are there to provide information and participate in certain processes related to their positions.

The Director of Technology, the Master of the Watch, and the Director of Moderators have access, due to their having global mod privileges in all forums. However, they do not enter the Hall of the Tower unless specifically requested.

Membership Issues

The Hall votes on every level of advancement within TarValon.Net’s membership structure and on any bans placed before it.

The Mayor presents applications for entrance into the Tower. This application consists of the candidate’s application and the recommendations from the applicant’s two sponsors.

The Mistress of Novices presents the applications of those who wish to advance from Novice to Accepted, and the Captain of Recruits presents the applications of those who wish to advance from Recruit to Soldier. These presentations include the candidate’s application, a recommendation by the person’s mentor (or someone suitable if the applicant’s mentor is unavailable), and the personal recommendation of the Mistress of Novices/Captain of Recruits (determined by gender).

The Mistress of Accepted presents applications for those to be raised to Aes Sedai. The Captain of Soldiers presents applications for those to be raised to Gaidin. This consists of an application packet put together by the Head/Commander of the Ajah/Company to which the person has decided to Aspire, which often includes impressions of one’s Ajah/Company mates. The Director of Membership may also include his or her own personal recommendation.

Each application includes a poll. The Sitters vote upon whether to approve the candidate’s raising. If any voting member decides to cast a ‘no’ vote, he or she often posts the reasoning for doing so inside the applicant’s thread. A number of Hall members will often post in order to add their own recommendations to those in the application. Others might post with questions/issues to be clarified before making their decisions, which are resolved within the thread.

Occasionally the Board or Officers will place a membership ban before the Hall.

Philanthropic Activities

The Hall helps determine a recipient of the annual Robert Jordan Memorial Scholarship.

Once the application deadline for the Robert Jordan Memorial Scholarship has passed, the Director of Community Outreach removes all identifying material from the applicants and then posts the major and essay from each applicant in a poll in the Hall. Members of the Hall vote for the applicant they think should receive the scholarship award based on the essays. The major is included to give context to the essay, and is not considered in the actual decision.

If there is a significant number of applicants, a nomination round may precede the final decision vote. If this happens, Hall members will vote on their top five choices to determine scholarship finalists. The essays receiving the most votes will be reposted in a finalist poll, and Hall members will then vote for the single applicant they think should receive the scholarship.

The applicant with the most votes is determined the recipient for the year.