Meeting Minutes, Events

April Baronial Business Mini-Meeting Minutes

South Downs Baronial Business Mini-Meeting, Coronation Post-Mortem

10 April 2019, 7:30pm

Doraville Civic Center – 3744 Central Ave., Doraville GA

Notes submitted by Lady Raven Helmsplitter, South Downs Chronicler.

THL Lucien d’Artois called the meeting to order. Our illustrious seneschal, THL Mark de Wytteney sez “Welcome! If you did not sign in, please sign in!”

(Baroness Irina, Tir Briste’s Reeve, called in to listen on speakerphone)

Coronation Post-Mortem

  • Since Tir Briste has Fools’ War coming up in 2 weeks, it is important that we get feedback from Coronation to help make Fools’ War run smoothly
  • Parking issues
    • We underestimated how much parking we needed and set up
    • We should try to set up handicapped parking near the feast hall to accommodate anyone who needs access
    • There were problems with people insisting on parking illegally, especially near the feast hall; this was dangerous because the cars blocked the one main road around the site
      • HRM Sebastiannos has volunteered to strong arm obstinate parkers
      • Rude people need to be escalated to the local seneschal – this is not acceptable.
  • Signage Issues
    • Definitely need more signage, more ropes, directions
    • We underestimated how dark the site got at night, especially roads and paths; it was difficult to get around and find things
    • We should reconsider using the interior road/not roads, since they weren’t marked on the map – either don’t use them or really mark them well
    • Signage should be reflective – reflective tape on signs?
    • It was suggested that we could get inexpensive/dollar store solar lights to add to the posts along the road? There were concerns about how long they would last, but definitely something needs to be done to make the roads/paths more visible at nightJuliane – parking was a big problem and was compounded by the fact that it was a new site so we didn’t know how to expect overage. There are also mobility issues for the site.
    • A large sign “STOP – GO TO TROLL” would be helpful
    • Quantity and quality of signage needs to be reconsidered – many more, larger. Bu Feiyan offered to host a sign session over at the maker space (not on Wednesday)
    • Lady Emelina also offered to print signs at her studio – and we can then get them laminated?
    • Can we mark parking spaces to make the space more efficient? Hard to do, but what really is needed is help guide cars into parking. How to do this with the resources we have
    • Logs around site (to sit on?) in camping/parking areas are impossible to see at night – someone ran their car up on one and it took 3 hours to get the car off.
  • Troll Issues
    • Having designated people at troll to direct people to parking would be really helpful
    • Troll location was fantastic but once the parking lot was full, we couldn’t see the pavilion. We should set up a few temporary parking spots near troll (like at Gulf Wars) – if the spots are full, you wait. This would help encourage people to troll in, since there will be nearby spots open (or opening up quickly) near troll
    • There are significant liability issues if attendees don’t troll in and then something happens – we have no way of knowing if or where you are onsite
    • THL Lucien added to the trolling issue – we realized we didn’t do this after the fact, but we need to have index cards with contact info for all the cars, in case a car has to be moved etc.
    • Duchess Gwynhwyfar asked if there could be an entrance less easily accessible that would help manage traffic. Given the layout of the site, this would not help
    • It was also suggested that if you don’t like to wait at troll, preregister and you move through troll much more quickly!
  • Ranger John was AWESOME!
    • He gave Lord Brendan the keys to the ranger truck to haul garbage
    • The rangers really appreciated how reasonable we were as a group; he had never been complimented so much by a group
    • Pine cones – really need to rake before event
    • The way the contract is setup currently, it will be hard to make a sufficient profit (price per head, no limit). Ranger John mentioned that if we could help rake pine cones and mow the field, we could get a discount. Everyone was enthusiastic about following up with this idea for the future
    • Even though staff sprayed for ants, there was still an ant issue. However, Ranger John has supplies and is more than happy to continue spraying ant hills that we let him know we find.
    • THL Mark is writing a letter to Ranger John’s boss – letting him know how great he was for our event
    • Mark let Baroness Irina know that this Saturday (13 April), we’ll be bringing 8 of the castle walls down to the site (with Ranger John’s blessing). They are allowing us to store things on site leading up to Fools’ War, which will make their setup and our post-event cleanup so much easier.
    • Maybe we can get permission to get a storage box on site for our gear (like we had planned to do at one time at the Shrine)?
    • We really want to try to keep this site, so whatever we can do to encourage that is good
    • Mark said that Ranger John would love to see us do some demos for the Boy Scouts there; there was also much enthusiasm for this idea, both from our group and (as commented by Baroness Irina, the populace of Tir Briste)
    • Tir Briste has been doing work along those lines (as they’re much nearer), and we want to help with that
  • Volunteering Issues
    • Mistress Margavati asked if we could subsidize registration for those who are willing to volunteer to manage parking, outside of the event budget; this, however, would be difficult if not impossible to do
    • We seem to always have problems coming up with volunteers at events – it’s hard to justify paying to attend then not enjoying the event
    • How to encourage volunteers? raffles? discounts? subsidized feast?
    • Bu Feiyan mentioned that when she volunteers with cons, the volunteers get a doohickey that recognizes them as volunteers. People like having extra bling.
    • How do we account for all the unofficial volunteers?
  • We need to approach these large events like the large events they are
  • HRM – Sharing sites with other groups (Tir Briste/Fools War, etc) makes things go much more smoothly, since both groups become really familiar with the site.
  • Irina will be addressing the parking issues (see what can be done); they’ll be putting up reflective tape throughout site to help make things easier to see. Possibly move equestrian elsewhere to add parking
  • They’ll have a popup tent at the top of the troll parking for preregistered attendees to help move things along
  • Duchess Gwynhwyfar keeps an “oh shit” book for every event she goes to, where she marks down anything she thinks “oh shit – that shouldn’t have happened”
  • Need to control limited bathroom access in the hall and the kitchen – a lot of people didn’t know the kitchen space had a bathroom, but enough people at the event knew and made a rather crowded kitchen (during feast prep) more crowded
  • Kitchen space was fairly large, but not well arranged – actual work space was really small.
  • Pietro asked – was there anything else good to share?
    • The ranger
    • The site space was great and fairly compact

Next business meeting will be held Wednesday, 1 May 2019, at the Doraville Civic Center.

Thanks!

–Raven