Meeting Minutes

DECEMBER BARONIAL BUSINESS MEETING

South Downs Baronial Business Meeting

06 December 2022, Time: 1930

Notes submitted by Baronessa Aelia Bassina, South Downs Chronicler.

Lady Bú Feiyan called the December meeting to order. Our Seneschal, Lady Raven Helmsplitter, greeted the populace joining the Zoom meeting. Lady Raven read the Kingdom Anti-Bullying statement.

Officers’ Reports

Seneschal, (Lady Raven Helmsplitter)

  • Discussion of how many in-person meetings we should have in 2023. Each meeting space rental at Doraville Civic Center is $100 (for 2 hr rental). The financial committee recommends keeping our current schedule and revisiting it in June once we better understand our financial situation.
    • 2x/month (current schedule)
    • 3x/month (all except business meetings)
    • 4x/month (as in the before times)
  • SCA business
    • Post-mortem of Castle Wars
    • There has been some interest in submitting a bid for RUM 2023 (14-16 July), which is great as we need to submit a bid for a KLE for 2023.
    • We have reserved Indian Springs State Park for Red Tower 2023 (8-10 September). So if you’re interested in event stewarding Red Tower, you don’t need to find a site.

Herald (Lady Bú Feiyan)     

  • We have a bunch of people that got awards recently. Unfortunately, my list is still packed up in my Castle Wars stuff because I went back to work. I would like to be very happy about all the people that got awards. 
  • I would like to know what everyone would like to learn about heraldry so I can try to drum up some classes for us.
    • Master Mathias suggested a class on how to make your own personal heraldry and/or voice heraldry class. Or, showing the different ways to display heraldry. 
  • I am still looking for a deputy.

Knight Marshal (Lord Erikr Palsson)

  • We’ve been having a lot of practices. Last practice, we had 3 new people in loaner armor. The time before that we had 2. This month we will not be having practice on Christmas or New Year’s Day.

Rapier Marshal (Captain Brendan de Hay)

  • No report was provided.

Live Weapons (Master Mathias Blackett)

  • Sharp pointy things have been flying through the air. The next practice will be held this upcoming Sunday, depending on the weather.
  • Live weapons at Castle Wars went very well. We were able to get a bunch of people qualified for second-class Weapons Master. 

Reeve (La Magnifica Justina di Silvestri)

  • No report was provided.

Quartermaster (Mistress Isabetta de San Marco) 

  • Nothing to report

Chatelaine (Lord Ogata Tarō Hiroyuki)

  • November was absolutely packed for activities
  • We had a ton of newcomers attend Castle Wars!
  • This is mostly an extended thank you to everyone who helped our newcomers feel at home that weekend in November
  • At the moment I’ve lost count of the exact numbers, but I know it was definitely over 8 because that was how many feast kits we gave out. Shout out to Mistress Andriette for providing us with those melamine feast kits for newcomers. And a special shout out to Seong Daegam for being ahead of the curve in that regard and for just being a really well-organized camp lead.
  • In the weeks before Castle Wars, I had been closely monitoring our Gold Key inventory to make sure we had enough cloaks…and then about 7 newcomers came out of the woodwork in the week before.
  • I would like to thank our neighbors in the Shire of Tir Briste for loaning us a surplus of cloaks to ensure our Gold Key was well-stocked for the day. If you see Dikon de Stokke, thank him because he handled that really well at the last minute.
  • I have made a budget request, which was approved and which I used to purchase a small roll of fleece. I’ll use this to make new cloaks and reinforce some of the lighter ones we have on hand, just in case we get slammed by newcomers at next year’s Castle Wars.
  • Interestingly, we had one newcomer from Tir Briste who had been trying unsuccessfully to establish contact with her local group and the kingdom chatelaine. And then her post kind of blew up on an unofficial known worlde discussion page on Facebook. Although we did not meet personally during Castle Wars, rest assured I caught up with her online and she reports that she had a really good time and everyone was nothing but nice to her the whole weekend. She has since been put in contact with her local group and she has the correct email for the kingdom chatelaine.

Demo Deputy (Lady Bú Feiyan)

  • I am working on finalizing the date in January. Once I have that, I will post it to our Facebook pages to find out who is available. That is the only demo I am working on right now.
    • Raven made a suggestion to request people from some of our neighboring groups.

Arts & Sciences (HE Rhiannon verch Madyn)

  • This month at Castle Wars we held the Baronesses Challenge A&S competition. We had a pair of beautiful entries. Both deserved recognition and we awarded prizes to both. The theme of the contest wasn’t really met, but we’ll keep trying until Meridies catches on to the format of the Baronesses Challenge.
  • Midwinter is just around the corner and I’m really excited since this will be the first in-person Midwinter since Covid.  I’m hoping South Downs shows up in a major way for both the A&S competition and the Faire. At Magna Faire this last weekend there was a category for “Anything Tudor” and I’m looking to do the same type of thing. So whichever bid is chosen, I’ll be reaching out ASAP to find out what the theme is so I can start schilling it up. Also, I’d like to encourage folks to teach a class if you’re interested. It’s a great way to share your Art or Science as well as help South Downs shine.

Provost (Seong Myeong Su Daesaseong)

  • No classes this month for the holidays! Hope everyone has a great holiday and we’re looking to start taking class sign-ups for next year. Master Mathias has offered a Commedia class for the January class night, so be on the lookout for more details.
  • I’d like to give a shout-out to THLady Isabella Parr for teaching two classes this past weekend at Magna Faire: Tudor History 101 and Gable Hood & Codpieces: Navigating the World of Tudor Fashion! Both were wonderful classes and her first time scheduling classes at an event!
  • If you took classes at Magna Faire and would like RUM credit for them, please let me know! I have a Google Sheet that I’m collecting the info in so I can update the RUM website.
  • Midwinter business:
    • Going to start taking classes for Midwinter soon, so think about what you’d like to teach!

Chronicler (Baronessa Aelia Bassina)

  • Exciting news! The Read Tower will be back for the 4th quarter of this year. Please consider writing an article, even if it’s only a paragraph. Your contributions really do help.  It can be as simple as your most recent event experience, or your favorite memory. As of right now, I have two articles.
  • Please remember to get your officer reports to me prior to the start of the meeting. If you can’t provide it before then, please get them to me as soon as possible. It is often hard to understand everyone in a Zoom meeting, especially being hearing impaired. 

Social Media Minister (Lady Isabella Parr & Lady Agnes Halydaye) 

  • There’s been some renewed interest in having a discord group. I should have that set up shortly. Other than that everything is going well.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer (DEI), (Vidushi Mewadi Margavati Bai & Lily of South Downs)

  • Nothing to report

Webminister (Lady Zhelana Vovkivna)

  • Updated Seong Myeong Su’s page
  • Updated Raven’s page
  • Updated seneschal page links
  • Updated Castle Wars Page
  • Update from HE Piers
    • Distribution lists have been created for events so we no longer need to use personal email addresses.
      • Redtower@meridies.org 
      • MidwinterAS@meridies.org 
      • Castlewars@meridies.org

Minister of Children (Lady Una Ulfrdottir)

  • Castle Wars went well. We didn’t have any kids in the morning. (It was cold and I wouldn’t have wanted to get out of bed either). The adults outnumbered the kids in the afternoon, but we all had a lot of fun anyway.

Their Excellencies, (Master Wistric Oftun & Mistress Sunneva de Cleia)

  • We don’t have much to say. We’ve had a great event season. We’re very excited about how Swift’s Heart has progressed. 

SCA Business

  • Discussion and voting on Midwinter bids – listed in order of receipt:
    • Piers and Aelia
    • Margavati and Sabine (this bid won!)
  • The Castle Wars post-mortum will happen next business meeting
  • If you are interested in doing a demo at the Atlanta Comic-Com, please let Ogata know!
  • Party at Their Excellency’s house for the Baronial Holiday Party.

Non-SCA Business

The business meeting was closed @ 2059.

The next business meeting will be held on 04 January 2023, 1930, via Zoom Meeting.