Castle Wars, Meeting Minutes, Red Tower

October Baronial Business Meeting

South Downs Baronial Business Meeting

05 October 2022, Time: 1931

Notes submitted by Baronessa Aelia Bassina, South Downs Chronicler.

Master Mathias Blackett called the October meeting to order. Our Seneschal, Lady Raven Helmsplitter, greeted the populace joining the Zoom meeting. Raven read the Kingdom Anti-Bullying statement.

Officers Reports

Seneschal, (Lady Raven Helmsplitter)

  • Tentative meeting schedule for October – please keep an eye out on our FB group for the final schedule:
    • October 5 – Business meeting (virtual)
    • October 12 – Theodosia Colloquia, hosted by La Magnifica Justina di Silvestri (virtual)
    • October 19 – Scribal night (in person)
    • October 26 – either a  Halloween potluck or A&S class on period gems (in-person)
  • Still looking for bids for Midwinter A&S, scheduled for February 3-6, 2023. If interested, please contact Raven or Their Excellencies
  • Reminder – As a barony, we are required to submit one KLE (kingdom-level event) bid per year, so we should start looking at something to bid on for 2023. Available bids for 2023 are the following – if you are interested in submitting a bid on any of these, please contact Raven or Their Excellencies:
  • Less than 6 months out, so bids are encouraged ASAP:
    • Meridian Challenge of Arms (24-26 February 2023)
    • Events 6-12 months out:
    • Spring Coronation (31 March – 2 April 2023)
    • Spring Crown/A&S (“Artsy Crown,” 26-29 May 2023, Memorial Day weekend)
    • RUM (14-16 July)

Herald (Lady Bú Feiyan)     

  • Still looking for a deputy. If you’d like to try out Heraldic stuff Castle Wars is coming. We will need lots of voices!

Knight Marshal (Lord Erikr Palsson)

  • Red tower was good, we had three tournaments.
  • Two new fighters got authorized at Red Tower
  • This weekend there will be heavy practice
  • The next weekend we will need someone to step in as I will be at War of the Wings
  • I appreciate all the help people gave at Red Tower.

Rapier Marshal (Captain Brendan de Hay)

  • Castle Wars!
    • Plans are underway for a Friday night fundraiser tourney and melee games on Saturday
    • The re-boot of our castle is underway.
  • Practices continue, Sunday afternoons and Tuesday evenings.  This leads to…
    • My work is increasing again for the fall season.  I’ll need help making sure that our official SCA practices have adequate marshaling and gear management.  Please contact me if you are willing and able to help cover when my slack butt can’t be there.
    • I am currently expecting to be traveling almost constantly from this coming Monday until Castle War.

Live Weapons (Master Mathias Blackett)

  • No official practice was held due to Red Tower
  • The new Baronial Archery Champion is Lord Ælfric Hort
  • The next official practice will be held on Sunday 10/23.

Reeve (La Magnifica Justina di Silvestri)

  • Our Current bank balance is $9,617.52
  • We have moved to a new storage location… literally a few units down from our old one, but the cost is $407 instead of $583, so we will be saving a substantial amount. Thanks so much to His Excellency Wistric for securing that for us, and to everyone who was able to help move everything. Thanks to Mark Baron for allowing us to have the previous unit- the old unit is closed and everything is transferred.
  • The financial planning committee will be meeting on November 6th to discuss the 2023 budget and there will be a baronial vote on December 7th. Officers, please submit your 2023 budget before then, and also everyone who may have suggestions or requests for baronial purchases, let me or any of the officers know and we will be sure to discuss it in the November meeting.
  • I want to look into adding a cash advance request form to our current baronial financial paperwork to keep things tidy
  • Next barony meeting, I would like to have a quick review with everyone about budgets and how they function in correspondence with bids and the reimbursement process.
  • Castle Wars SCArs application is in- thanks for your patience as these applications go through for preregistration, they go through a lot of hands to help make things smooth, and you will be able to pre-register soon. If you don’t want to wait, you can mail a check to the barony PO box listed on the event flyer with your reservation names and contact information as well as membership numbers and expirations.
  • Red Tower #s
    • Profit: 620.97
    • 172 in attendance
    • Including 28 newcomers and 18 children

Quartermaster (Mistress Isabetta de San Marco) 

  • We have stuff and it moved!
  • We have new inventory sheets printed and ready for Castle Wars.
  • The measuring wheel is missing from the inventory. If anyone knows where it may be, please let me know. We may need to think about replacement.

Chatelaine (Lord Ogata Tarō Hiroyuki)

  • So we have newcomers!
  • At Red Tower, I met Claire Metzler who had previously contacted us over email. Although I had to run back to the kitchen, I left Claire and her boyfriend in the hands of Duchess Gwen. I caught up with them again recently and (good news!) they both had such a blast that they’ve got Castle Wars on their calendar.
  • Potentially, we’ll see more of Claire and her boyfriend at our weekly meetings once she’s finished up her midterm exams.
  • Additionally, our newcomers are taking on some pretty exciting roles in our community!
  • First, I want to tell you about Lola Eichler’s interest in archery and in teaching. These are two things I’ve always seen her closely associated with, so it was really cool to see her sign up to teach about Mongolian-style archery at Red Tower! Unfortunately, I was in the kitchen all day and Lola had to leave before I could catch up with her. From what I understand, the class went really well and she’s absolutely interested in doing it again sometime!
  • Also, Maryam al-Jawhariyya (MKA Katie Earles) stepped in at the 11th hour to serve up breakfast at Red Tower featuring a stellar bread pudding. And then she was insanely helpful for the rest of the day while I stumbled through my first feast. I can only keep so many plates spinning in the kitchen at once, but she was right there ready for anything I threw at her. Also, she gave me a preview of her historic gemology class on the drive to Red Tower, so y’all are in for a treat when that rolls around.
  • I think Lex technically lives in Bryn Madoc, but we can take credit for her as long as she continues gracing us with her awesomeness! As Lady Una pointed out, Lex put together a program on Chinese culture for the children’s track at Red Tower. Also, she was behind the Chinese Lion Dance performance at Coronation. She and Brecht performed as the Lion with Tryggvi accompanying on percussion.

Demo Deputy (Lady Bú Feiyan)

  • Nothing is currently scheduled. Still waiting for a few groups to get back to me. Will update the Barony when that happens.

Arts & Sciences (HE Rhiannon verch Madyn)

  • Currently not a huge amount going on in my area. Many thanks to Tami and anyone else who helps schedule classes! Y’all ROCK!
  • Gearing up for the first Baroness’s Challenge A&S competition that will be held at Castle Wars. I’ll be reposting my original FB posts about it as well as schilling it up in other posts. I’m really hoping some folks from the Barony will enter.
  • As always please remember to post your A&S work on our Baronial spreadsheet. Those entries help show how talented our Barony populace really is.

Provost (Seong Myeong Su Daesaseong)

  • This month’s schedule looks like:
    • Tonight (10/5): virtual business meeting
    • 10/12: virtual – Theodosia Colloquia
    • 10/19: in-person: Scribal Night
    • 10/26: In-person Halloween potluck?
  • We are looking for classes for Castle Wars. Please look for the sign up.

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. If If you have something longer, I would love that as well. It can be as simple as your most recent event experience, or your favorite memory.

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

  • Made castle war event page and we still got social media!

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

Webminister (Lady Zhelana Vovkivna)

  • Updated seneschal to Raven
  • Updated km to Eirikr
  • Updated chatelaine to Ogata
  • Updated RT page
  • Updated Castle Wars Page

Minister of Children (Lady Una Ulfrdottir)

  • Red Tower went great and a shoutout to Lex for putting it all together even though she couldn’t be there. She’s a newcomer and didn’t have to jump in this hard, but she has and it has been wonderful to have her help.

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

  • Send in award recommendations!
  • We now have 1500 baronial business cards printed and ready for you to distribute to members of the unsuspecting public! Come get some at in-person activities and spread them far and wide
  • Thank you to everyone who made Red Tower awesome. We heard “It’s like the good old days” and “it’s like the SCA is finally back” from so many people and that is a result of the deeds of the people in the barony. Congratulations to our new champions! Heavy – Mairghread Wilson; Rapier – Piers Simmons; Archery – AElfric Hort
  • We were thrilled to see the new populace award given out at feast at Red Tower. Thank you to everybody who participated in the nomination and voting process. Thank you to Raven, Iazzie, and Mairghread for deciphering the vote results. Thank you to Sabine and Red for making the beautiful regalia. Thank you to everybody who participated in the ceremony at feast – it was magical.
  • We’ll be going to Danelaw in style – day shades, banners, and all, to celebrate their Nextellencies of Bryn Madoc. We welcome you all to join us under the day shade and on a retainer shift throughout the day.
  • The baronial succession policy is 11 years out of date and no longer reflects the actual polling process. A draft updated baronial succession policy will be posted to FB and the website for feedback from the populace – please take a minute to review and point out any issues you notice.
  • We are planning to host a baronial holiday party Saturday, December 17th at our house in Clarkston. Stay tuned for more details.
  • Send in award recommendations!

SCA Business

  • Red Tower
    • Thank you to everyone that helped out. Thank you for being a fabulous team. We are back and solid. It was heartwarming to me when I was told it felt like the good ole days
    • Do you have any comments? What worked? What didn’t?
    • Tables and chairs for scribal. Cushions for troll would be greatly appreciated.
    • If more people could help with set-up it would be greatly appreciated.
    • The porta-potty company we had canceled on us two weeks before the event. One of the bathrooms was out of service, so the site covered 2 of the 4 were covered and didn’t have to come out of budget.
    • We would need new walkie-talkies because the ones we had didn’t reach from the hall to the field.
    • Maybe set up a paige program for the older youths to help with running things around the site (messages and such), and then another site runner for someone that could go off-site if needed.
    • Moving more things to the field will help with folks who have a difficult time physically (or time constraints) for the walk back and forth.
    • Having a quiet space in the hall was a good thing. The quiet space was awesome. I didn’t think I’d want it until I wanted it, and it was much appreciated!
    • I seem to remember we had an event once where there was a volunteer lottery at the end, where volunteer time earned you tickets to the lottery, and the prizes were donated by the populace.  Something like that might avoid drama about comping some people and not others, paying out of SCA funds, etc.
  • Castle Wars
    • Eirikr found bronze Roman Coins. We could give each person one when they troll in. That way as people move through time, they start in Rome.
    • Our feast is built that way as well. https://www.facebook.com/events/832349081259578/permalink/847750956386057
    • We are looking for a few people to volunteer as well. 
      • Nasty-crat
      • We need someone to do a fundraiser lunch. If you know anyone willing, please send them to Piers.
    • Piers did talk to SCARs deputy. We are just waiting on the Kingdom to approve it.
    • We can actually be on site the Wednesday before (the 16th). I would like to do the set-up as early as possible on Thursday.
    • More than likely, we will be getting things out of storage on Wednesday.
  • Zimon
    • I had asked about doing a silent auction fundraiser. It would be for the MoB for tournament prizes and to put money back in our coffers. We wanted to have a memorial shield tree for fighters that are no longer with us. I’m gathering stuff for the auction so if you have anything you would like to donate, please let me know. I’m going to start in the next week or so to put something together. 
  • Raven
    • I will post the screenshot about Gulf Wars and post it on the baronial site. The great news is that we will have Gulf Wars at the site in the years coming!

Non-SCA Business

  • Ælfric
    • There is a medieval faire in Brazelton this weekend. I will post a link on the Baronial page.
  • Ogata
    • Recently, Lola had some surgeries lately. She is strapped for cash. If you are able to help, please do so.

The business meeting was closed @ 2107

The next business meeting will be held on 02 November 2022, 1930, Zoom Meeting.