Building a shire, one revel at a time
Thamesreach's most recent revel was last weekend, the first to follow WorldCon where SCA had a display table.
exmoor_cat followed up the contacts made at WorldCon, and as a result, we had 6 (SIX!!) newcomers to the SCA at the revel, plus one new arrival from An Tir.
I don't think I've ever seen 6 new people at one event. I'm impressed all to heck and really hope they come back.
Dame Oriane and Lady Emoni and I had planned a heraldry and banner-making revel. As it turned out just one person had a personal banner to work on, so we charged ahead on the shire bunting instead. Earl Paul and Lady Anne brought their mate Mark along and formed a jolly group to support the day.
Newcomers willingly worked on painting and sewing and pressing new armory and the familiar Thamesreach device to add to the collection.
I'd rustled several tunics from TE Vitus and Isabel, so we had clothes all round and everyone sat for our potluck dinner.
Milord Marx's lady Victoria brought not one but two Persian dishes, in part I think to ensure she would have veg-friendly food to eat, and Robert's frumenty was also veg-friendly this time round.
Having Paul, Anne and Mark there meant the dancing was more focused than me just yelling at folks and we danced about 2x as long as usual, because the newest folks were very keen and very happy to take part.
The hardest part was getting folks to pipe down so we could explain the steps. :-)
A real joy was the setup and cleanup; with several new people looking to be helpful, both these stages flew by in a flurry and we had probably the swiftest and most efficient setup and cleanup I can remember in ages. Hurrah!
Today (Wednesday) I throw myself on the grenade of teaching rapier 'properly', like following a teaching plan and doing it systematically. I have 3 interested participants to date. The goal is to reach authorisation stage in time for Yule Ball.
I'm shamelessly using someone else's handout (on Marco Borromei's website) as a guide as to what to cover, and what order to do these things in. I'm hoping we generate just as many authorisations as there are fencers.
Periodically I get a dose of nostalgia for my first homeland. And at this point, I remember that I was not interested in local revels in Caldrithig, that I had no time to attend and support new people because I was busy going to events out of the area.
buttongirl was all over this, and I just wasn't in tune at the time; why go to a local revel when you want to attend a major event?
I also remember that I had no time for fencing. Now I'm the local marshal, and about to teach others.
Feels like I've turned around completely; it's all about local revels, and all about building a group; it's about historical rapier combat which puts me on the field again (vs armoured combat that was always an uphill struggle for me).
Part of the change is because travelling 2/4 weekends a month isn't an option anymore, not in Drachenwald.
Part of it is because I want to build the SCA I enjoy, and the stuff I enjoy is going to events, and Making Stuff (TM), and having tournaments (whether armoured or rapier).
exmoor_cat followed up the contacts made at WorldCon, and as a result, we had 6 (SIX!!) newcomers to the SCA at the revel, plus one new arrival from An Tir.
I don't think I've ever seen 6 new people at one event. I'm impressed all to heck and really hope they come back.
Dame Oriane and Lady Emoni and I had planned a heraldry and banner-making revel. As it turned out just one person had a personal banner to work on, so we charged ahead on the shire bunting instead. Earl Paul and Lady Anne brought their mate Mark along and formed a jolly group to support the day.
Newcomers willingly worked on painting and sewing and pressing new armory and the familiar Thamesreach device to add to the collection.
I'd rustled several tunics from TE Vitus and Isabel, so we had clothes all round and everyone sat for our potluck dinner.
Milord Marx's lady Victoria brought not one but two Persian dishes, in part I think to ensure she would have veg-friendly food to eat, and Robert's frumenty was also veg-friendly this time round.
Having Paul, Anne and Mark there meant the dancing was more focused than me just yelling at folks and we danced about 2x as long as usual, because the newest folks were very keen and very happy to take part.
The hardest part was getting folks to pipe down so we could explain the steps. :-)
A real joy was the setup and cleanup; with several new people looking to be helpful, both these stages flew by in a flurry and we had probably the swiftest and most efficient setup and cleanup I can remember in ages. Hurrah!
Today (Wednesday) I throw myself on the grenade of teaching rapier 'properly', like following a teaching plan and doing it systematically. I have 3 interested participants to date. The goal is to reach authorisation stage in time for Yule Ball.
I'm shamelessly using someone else's handout (on Marco Borromei's website) as a guide as to what to cover, and what order to do these things in. I'm hoping we generate just as many authorisations as there are fencers.
Periodically I get a dose of nostalgia for my first homeland. And at this point, I remember that I was not interested in local revels in Caldrithig, that I had no time to attend and support new people because I was busy going to events out of the area.
buttongirl was all over this, and I just wasn't in tune at the time; why go to a local revel when you want to attend a major event?
I also remember that I had no time for fencing. Now I'm the local marshal, and about to teach others.
Feels like I've turned around completely; it's all about local revels, and all about building a group; it's about historical rapier combat which puts me on the field again (vs armoured combat that was always an uphill struggle for me).
Part of the change is because travelling 2/4 weekends a month isn't an option anymore, not in Drachenwald.
Part of it is because I want to build the SCA I enjoy, and the stuff I enjoy is going to events, and Making Stuff (TM), and having tournaments (whether armoured or rapier).