Golden Rule Aftermath

I'm tired. Being the autocrat of an SCA event just takes the energy right out of you.

The event did come off pretty well, though. Final attendance was 134, which is more than I expected for the first time we've had an event on this date (we should have the last weekend of April as a regular date going forward). I also had several people tell me that they had a really good time, which justifies the mileage I put on my body getting it together. This is a testament to all the citizens of our shire who put in a lot of hard work to make the event possible and to the many volunteers who put in their time to help out.

Renting a dance tent turned out to be a good call, in my opinion, since we ended up with a dry, non-gravelly place to dance even though it rained for a couple of hours before dancing opened. We wouldn't have been able to dance if I hadn't gotten the thing,even though the cost of it means that, financially, the event was probably break-even at best. I'm not going to worry about that, though; we are a non-profit organization, after all.

The card games in the tavern after feast turned out to be a big hit, and I would like to very publicly thank my Lady Fjorleif for thinking of it and Lord Sean for running the tavern. I think the games definitely need to become a regular feature of our events. It was nice to see all the attendees stay at the hall after feast to socialize instead of scattering away to their own camps to chat around their camp fires.

The weather was mostly cooperative for fighting. During the day it was calm, mostly cloudy, and cool, which is ideal weather for SCA combat. We had three heavy fighting tournaments during the day, and I'd like to say a special thanks to Sir Griffin and Baron Malachi for arranging them. I didn't see much of the smiting, but it looked like they were having a good time beating up their friends over there. I'd also like to thank Lord Schreck for arranging a Youth Combat practice and tournament. I'd like to see Youth Combat activities take off even more at our events. Finally, with regard to Fencing, I'd like to thank Lord Corbin and Lady Ysabel for being all set to implement my hare-brained chess match idea. There was a surprising lack of fencers at Golden Rule, and they efficiently turned what I thought would be a big tournament into a small practice.

I think all the fencers must have gotten lured away into Her Ladyship Lora's archery tournaments. We had twenty-seven people sign up for archery activities. That's quite extraordinary, I think. It's also a testament to what entertaining archery activities she came up with.

Additional specific thank-yous go out to His Lordship Reinmar, Mistress Stephanie, Her Ladyship Fionnabhair, and of course Lady Fjorleif for handling troll, the hall, A&S activities, and the feast, respectively.

I would like to have included pictures in this report, but I don't think we even remembered to take the camera, and I certainly never thought of it while I was there. I shall have to get in touch with Sir Jean-Claude, who I know was taking pictures, so I can get some visuals both for the Saga and for the shire website.

Ciao