All posts by Wistric Oftun

Announcements, Polls

Award of the Swift’s Heart Nominations now Open

It is time again for the populace to Award the Swift’s Heart!

For those unfamiliar with the Award of the Swift’s Heart, this is the award bestowed by the populace, given to those individuals identified by the populace who have shown true kindness, and are helpful, considerate, and inviting. It was created last year to take the place of our previous gendered populace awards, the Heart of South Downs and the Chivalry Award.

The award is given no more than once per South Downs event, preferably at the event. The ceremony for the awarding is arranged by the previous recipient(s) in consultation with the baronage. We have three baronial events, clustered from Sep/Oct to February, so at most three awards per Anno Societatis.

Voting for the award(s) is conducted annually, prior to Red Tower, and the granting of the award(s) spread out over the event season.

There are two steps to the process, Nominations and Polling.

STEP 1: NOMINATIONS (the thing starting now)

Nominations are now open and will continue through Wednesday, August 23rd (to give people at Pennsic time to participate).

Every member of the populace may nominate up to 3 other members of the populace. Previous recipients of one of the South Downs populace awards are ineligible:
Chivalry Award Recipients:
Swift’s Heart Recipients:
Justina di Silvestri, Ogata Mitsuko

Use this form to submit nominations:

If you’re unable to use the form, email the seneschal (sen.southdowns@meridies.org).

The results of the nominations will be received by a committee formed of the seneschal, incoming baronage, and at least two previous recipients of a South Downs populace award – if you’d like to volunteer to serve on the committee, please do so. (Wistric will be present to provide technical support since he came up with this probably over-complicated process).

STEP 2: POLLING

The committee will compile the nominations into a ballot. If you submitted a nomination, the ballots will be emailed to you at the email address on the nomination form. If you do not wish to nominate anybody, but do wish to receive a ballot, you can either submit a nomination form with the nominee names blank, or email the seneschal to let them know you’d like to participate in the voting.

Ballots should go out on or around August 28th.

Ballots will be emailed out to all who request them. Voting will be ranked choice (indicate 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc).

The committee will review and count the votes cast to determine who the populace wishes to see awarded, and the next recipient of the Award of the Swift’s Heart will be recognized by the populace at Red Tower.
Society ANNOUNCEMENTS

Conjuration 2019

Greetings to everybody we got to meet at Conjuration! Thanks for stopping by to talk arts and watch the fighting.

Check out our “About Us” page to find links to our Facebook groups, other nearby SCA groups, and the Kingdom of Meridies website where you can find your local group wherever you are in Alabama, Georgia, the Florida panhandle, and eastern Tennessee.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

Society ANNOUNCEMENTS

A Letter From the Baron and Baroness

In this week’s letter, we will be talking about the Royal University, populace badges, and ways you can get more involved in the Barony.

Greetings from your Baron and Baroness!

It has been a busy time lately in the South Downs, as we prepared to host the Royal University of Meridies. The event ran very smoothly, and it made us very proud to see so many of our fellow South Downers working hard to make it a great success. Even though there was a lot of work to do, we saw smiling faces all around.

We saw our fearless event stewards, Lady Veronica and THL Maire, constantly circling around the event, solving problems as they arose and never losing steam. It was inspirational to watch them, and we thank them and their team for putting on a great event.

A couple of people stood out over the course of the day, both by their work and their demeanor. Veronica’s husband David seemed to be everywhere, doing what needed to be done and always with a grin that lifted our spirits. We were excited for the many-talented Zofia to attend her first event, and expected her to be ensconced in classrooms all day to soak up knowledge. What we did not expect was to find her working the registration table, setting up court, and always eager to find other ways to help out. These are the examples of service that we strive to emulate, and we are deeply grateful.

We love to see all of our populace at events, and for others to be able to know and recognize them as South Downers. To that end, we have been discussing recently coming up with a new populace badge so that all can show their Baronial pride. We have a couple ideas already, and encourage anyone interested to send us your thoughts. We will be presenting these at the August 3 business meeting for discussion.

If you would like to get more involved in the Barony but aren’t sure how, there are a variety of options available to you. We have a couple of events coming up in the fall, and the event stewards, THL Mathias (Red Tower) and Master Wistric (Castle Wars) have a number of opportunities for volunteering. If you have free time at any event that we are attending, we would love to have you join our retainers and be part of the Baronial presence. If you’re interested, you can talk to either of us or Lady Justina. We also plan to up some group projects at the second Wednesday meetings, so keep an eye out for more information on those.

We value the opinions of our populace; if you could fill out this short survey it would be most appreciated. Also, if there is someone in the Barony that you feel needs to be recognized for their contributions, we have a handy award recommendation form.

In Service,
Lorenzo and Adela

Announcements

Baronial Champion Tournaments

At this Sunday’s rapier/melee practice, we will be choosing our Baronial martial champions. Our current rapier champion (Master Wistric) will hold the field against all comers to determine his successor. Those who wish to vie to become our heavy champion will issue and receive challenges from those who wish to test them. We will choose the new champion based on the prowess and chivalry displayed in those combats.

Announcements

3/16 Meeting Venue Change

Since many people are gone for Gulf Wars and there is another meeting at the Rec Center that may make parking even more difficult than usual, this week’s meeting (3/16/16) will be at Lorenzo and Adela’s house. Bring some food to share (the grill will be available if you want to bring meats) and come hang out.

Address: 3911 Rivaridge Ct., Marietta, GA 30062