Castle Wars, Meeting Minutes, Midwinter A&S

January Baronial Business Meeting

South Downs Baronial Business Meeting

04 January 2023, Time: 1930

Notes submitted by Baronessa Aelia Bassina, South Downs Chronicler.

Master Mathias called the January 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)

  • In-person meeting space through the end of June 2023 has been set up at Doraville Civic Center.
    • 1/18
    • 2/22
    • 3/22, 3/29 (5th Wednesday!)
    • 4/19, 4/26
    • 5/3 (in-person business meeting with a test for streaming), 5/17, 5/31 (5th Wednesday!)
    • 6/21, 6/28
  • The Barony is expecting to submit a bid for RUM to fulfill our obligations to the kingdom; we will have a second business meeting (virtual) on 1/25 to discuss and vote on the bid. Bids for RUM are due by 1/31.
  • I’ve uploaded a PDF of the photos and notes I took during Ximon’s and my site visit to Indian Springs State Park (where Red Tower 2023 will be held) to the Barony’s FB group.

Herald (Lady Bú Feiyan)     

  • Nothing to report.

Knight Marshal (Lord Eirikr Palsson)

  • Heavy practices are back on.  
  • We didn’t have any the last 2 weeks due to Christmas and New Years’ day.  
  • Practice on the 15th will be covered by THL Margheraed so no loaner gear will be available as I will be at panhandle skirmishes.  
  • I will also be looking into a substitute marshal for the 29th so I can attend war college.
  • There will also be a Regional Figher Practice the weekend of Midwinter.

Rapier Marshal (Captain Brendan de Hay)

  • HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Seems like the holiday season took a bite out of our practice routine.  Probably a healthy thing…
  • Work is a bit more manageable for me right now, but I will continue to need help making sure that a marshal is present for practices.  Anxious to be getting back in the swing of things myself.  Thanks to all of our Barony’s rapier marshals for stepping in as needed.
  • Otherwise, practices proceedeth apace, weather permitting. 

Live Weapons (Master Mathias Blackett)

  • Current plan is to have our January practice this coming Sunday, 1/8.
  • Weather may be a factor. If we are rained out, I will push it to the next week.
  • Society has started coming down with score sheets for thrown weapons. They are still working out a couple of the kinks, but I will see if we can get some interkingdom challenges going at practice.
  • If you’re interested in sharp, metal things flying through the air, please come to practice.

Reeve (La Magnifica Justina di Silvestri)

  • Not much new this time! Our current bank account has $7,581.89, but considering checks pending deposit, the balance in our ledger is $7,010.02 as of the end of December. 
  • With the new year comes a new annual budget, which we discussed last meeting, so if you have any questions or if you are an officer that has approved expenditures, please reach out. SCA-rs is now officially retired, we are back to PayPal for pre-Registration, which will be available shortly for Midwinter.
  • The 2022 “Doomsday” report (Q4 fiscal year-end report) is due at the end of this month. If you have any outstanding business with SD, it will pool over into the 2023 report. 
  • Again, please let me know if you have any questions about this process.

Quartermaster (Mistress Isabetta de San Marco) 

  • We have stuff!
  • Will work out a time with Margavati to get things out for Midwinter.

Chatelaine (Lady Ogata Mitusko)

  • I want to draw attention to just one major item of interest – Atlanta Comic-Con is happening on the weekend of February 24th at the Georgia World Congress Center.
  • In between holiday madness, I’ve been talking to the organizer, Croix Provence. She is offering us an exhibition hall at 3.5k sq ft for demos and panels, as many tables and chairs as we need, a breakout room for our volunteers, and space on the con’s promotional material.
  • I cannot understate that she is VERY interested in drawing Scadians and making this as frictionless as possible.
  • This really feels like the holy grail of face-to-face interaction with engaged nerds in the metro Atlanta area
  • However, what sucks is that many of us in the fencing community will not be in town to help make that happen because that weekend is also MCA.
  • So, I’ve reached out to a couple of other officers in the barony as well as some of our neighbors in Tir Briste and Depedale to see who’s available to participate and, most importantly, who’s interested in leading a demo.
  • From where I’m sitting and what I’m looking at, Atlanta Comic-con is looking like a very large, very accessible, and very visible empty box that we can fill with any tournaments, classes, panels, and demonstrations that we want.
  • As far as I understand, Atlanta Comic-con draws a more local crowd than DragonCon. So the vibe seems to be like Conjuration Con or Anachro Con, both of which have been historically key demo opportunities for us. This would be on an even bigger scale.
  • If you are interested in taking the reins on this demo or otherwise helping out, please do reach out to me ASAP
  • Just as a reminder, Atlanta Comic-con is the weekend of February 24th.

Demo Deputy (Lady Bú Feiyan)

  • Nothing to report.

Arts & Sciences (HE Rhiannon verch Madyn)

  • Our Midwinter A&S event is just around the corner. 
  • The Facebook Event page has been updated with a link to pre-register A&S entries. I highly encourage folks to do this as it will help with the setup of the room.
  • As usual we will have tokens, probably large beads, that will be available so the attendees can vote for their favorite entry.
  • There will be sheets/booklets available for each of the entries so that the populace can leave remarks. I’m really hoping that the attendees will take a moment to let the artisans know what they liked about each entry. Positive feedback can be so important for artisans who have put time and energy into a piece.

Provost (Seong Myeong Su Daesaseong)

  • I hope that everyone had a great and safe holiday!
  • Class this month will be a virtual Commedia class on January 25th with Master Mathias.
  • We’re looking to start filling the monthly classes for this year, so please reach out to me or Lord Ælfric if you’re interested in teaching.

Chronicler (Baronessa Aelia Bassina)

  • The newsletter, The Read Tower, will be published this month. I’m just waiting on one particular article.
  • That being said, if you have an idea for an article, please email it to the chronicler email address.
  • Tonight is my last night as your Baronial Chronicler. I have resigned to our wonderful seneschal. If you have an interest in what it takes to be the Chronicler, please reach out to Lady Raven. 

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

  • Nothing reported

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer (DEI), (Lily of South Downs)

  • I’d love to have suggestions for anything you guys would love to do. I’m a sponge for your suggestions.

Webminister (Lady Zhelana Vovkivna)

  • Created MWAS Webpage

Minister of Children (Lady Una Ulfrdottir)

  • Nothing to report.

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

  • Not a lot from our end. We are looking forward to Midwinter.
  • Wistric shared the Procedure for Succession of the Baronial Seat. The document is available on the baronial FB page.
    • Vote was approved to adopt. Forwarded to Kingdom Seneschal. 

SCA Business

  • Midwinter A&S status
    • Thank you to everyone for your patience. 
    • We’ve started taking class submissions for Midwinter, contact me or use the Google Form posted to the Barony’s FB page or the Midwinter Event page if you’d like to teach!
    • Justina is looking to get a Paypal link for pre-reg.
    • Piers has agreed to be our set up and tear down guy.
    • I have a bunch of positions already filled, thank you, everyone.
    • Rhi is running the faire. Please go sign up.
    • I’ll post positions that need to be filled on the FB page.
    • Please consider signing up for a troll shift.
    • So far we’ve got a track of Commedia classes with an Iron Commedia session with Master Mathias and a Leather Carving and Tooling class from our own Thedomir (TJ) but are looking for more!
    • There will be no food vendors on site due to restrictions. I have posted information on how to get food.
    • Schedules will be posted as soon as we finalize them. 
  • RUM Business
    • I’m currently working to put together a bid for RUM this year July 15th at the University of West Georgia, hoping to have a bid ready later this month to present to the Barony so that we can meet the bid submission deadline.
    • Please let me know if you’d be willing to help in any way for the event!
  • Post-mortem of Castle Wars
    • Thank you to everyone who helped with CW. We’ve heard so many people say it felt like we’ve finally gotten back to SCA wars.
    • All positions were filled. It was amazing. 
    • We did have one incident, it was an aggressive dog. The dog was removed by the owner. No one was harmed.
    • There was a snafu with the High Table silverware. We need to do a better job of keeping track of that. We need to do inventory. 
      • Who is responsible for setting up the High Table? Unknown who set it up. 
      • It was suggested that the royal liaison be responsible for taking things out of and putting things back into the totes.
      • An event quartermaster?
      • There is an inventory list on each tote when it’s taken out of storage.
    • Justina: One thing I strongly suggest is to have an info point near troll, but not at troll. When troll is busy, it can be too hectic if people are coming up and asking questions about things going on at the event.
      • Maybe have a board for posting updates near troll.
        • Brendan: There are also a lot of people who turn off their phones at events (If I weren’t marshaling, I’d be one of them).  Paper and voice heralds are still a thing.
      • Pocket Herald may be an option as long as there is signal at the event.
    • Myeong Su: If you took classes and want them registered for RUM, just let me know and I can check your entry and add it to the system!
    • This was the first time we used the Boy Scout camp. Their rates have increased from a flat rate to a per person/per day rate. We did not make as much money this time at CW because the cost for the site was about $1k more than it had been in the past.

Non-SCA Business

The business meeting was closed @ 2058.

The next business meeting will be held on 01 February 2023, 1930, via Zoom Meeting.