Royal Warrants

 Recently, I had the opportunity to buy some customized product from Million-prints.com, and as a result of that, I started thinking about royal warrants again.

For the uninitiated, a royal warrant is a document that proclaims a merchant to be the preferred supplier of a particular product (or set of products) to the royal household. There's a great write-up on them over at Wikipedia.

Anyway, I decided to issue my first royal warrant, because I was so happy with how the bricks turned out.

The presentation of the royal warrant to Marc of Million-prints.com

This picture was provided by Marc, showing the royal warrant on the wall of his shop.

I'm so happy with how the royal warrant turned out (and Marc's response to it) that I'm thinking I may give others to local businesses I frequent, like maybe the veterinarian that takes care of our royal mouser. (I know that Buckingham Palace doesn't give out royal warrants for services, but they do their thing and I'll do mine.)

A short video clip from MicroCon 2025

 RTAM (Radio télévision Aigues-Mortes), a micronational news agency, was at MicroCon 2025, and managed to get me on video briefly...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-kfSB81pwg

It's better to give than to receive...

In my last post, I showed off the "bling" I received at MicroCon 2025 in Montreal. We also gave out several awards at MicroCon - and that's perhaps the most fun part of the event, at least for me!

Above, I am presenting Phillip of Pibocip with a Slabovian Friendship medal. The chancellor separately gave the same medal to Jenny Yan, the consort of our host, but I don't have a picture of that occasion.

Above, the chancellor and I are presenting Commodore Jonathan Miller of Molossia with the Coke Zombie award, which he has coveted for years.

Above, the chancellor assists me in presenting our MicroCon host, Emperor Eric Lis of the Aerican Empire, with the Order of Slabovia, our highest honour.

I don't have a picture of it, unfortunately, but I also gave the "King's Mark of Friendship" to Eric Szuluch (sp?) of Nolandia, who was there with a documentary crew covering his journey into micronationalism.

Other awards from MicroCon

 I've already discussed my induction into the Micronational Hall of Excellence, but I was gifted with several other awards and honours at MicroCon 2025 in Montreal.

From left to right, the 55th Anniversary medal from West Who, a medal from Queen Christina of Cyclodia celebrating the fifth year of her reign, a friendship medal from the Duchy of Faulkender (part of Westarctica), a friendship and diplomacy medal from Sylvestria, and the MicroCon 2025 commemorative medal.

We separately received several physical specimens as contributions to the MEDALS archive, including these two:

Above is the Officer (4th class) of the Order of Ladon, which is awarded by Ladonia.

And this is the Order of the New Rubix Republic (gold).

I'd like to thank...

 This past weekend was MicroCon 2025, held in Montreal, QC. There's a lot that happened this past weekend, but this post is about one thing in particular. During that event, on the Saturday night, I was very pleased to be inducted into the Micronational Hall of Excellence (MHoE)!

Award certificate and medal for the Micronational Hall of Excellence (MHoE)

His Excellency, President Kevin Baugh of Molossia presents me with the MHoE medal

There are so many people that I want/need to thank for this award. Obviously, my wife and Queen-consort, Lynne, who puts up with all of this madness, and my chancellor Rankin, who really does help and co-run the kingdom in so many useful and helpful ways - and the rest of the Slabovians, for putting up with me as their ruler while I figured out what I should be doing (and not doing)! Also Emperor Eric Lis of the Aerican Empire and his people for such a wonderful event, and Jordan Farmer for proposing and organizing the MHoE, and inviting me to join the board when it was started, and President Kevin Baugh of Molossia for organizing the first MicroCon back in 2015, and literally everyone I've met at every single MicroCon event since the first one, and all of the micronationals I've met both online and in the real world. This is such an amazing community, and I'm happy to be a part of it in so many ways!

But I'm not ready to rest on my laurels yet, and I've come away from MicroCon (as always) with some new ideas - watch this space for an announcement about something new, coming soon!

MicroCon host nation preparations

 This picture was posted over on Facebook by the host nation(*) with the caption, "How many big boxes does it take to carry a hundred or so goodie bags? Four and counting. I'm sure glad I don't have to bring most of them home again!"

(*) For reasons I won't get into here, both Saint-Castin and Sancratosia backed out of MicroCon at the last minute, leaving the Aerican Empire to finalize preparations and host the conference on their own. Fortunately, the MicroCon community is stepping up and volunteering to assist in any way necessary.

MicroCon 2025 - two weeks to go!

 We are just under two weeks from MicroCon 2025, which will be held at the Ruby Foo's hotel in Montreal, QC. This year's event is being hosted by three micronations working together, including the Aerican Empire, the Newgraviate of Saint-Castin, and the Principality of Sancratosia. I know the rulers of all three micronations, and I'm quite confident that this will be an amazing event. (UPDATED to reflect new realities that came out shortly after this was originally posted...)

At this point, there's about 44 micronations and 115 people registered to attend, shattering all previous records for both.

Slabovia is, of course, attending, and I'll be on a panel discussion with other former MicroCon hosts, and might also be giving a separate talk, time permitting.

We've also been busy preparing various things to give away at the conference, because that's always fun. One of the things I'm most amazed with and proud of is pictured below - these are custom-printed Lego(tm) pieces we had done by Marc at Million Prints. He does great work!