Southron Gaard Council Meeting - 8th June 2004 PRESENT: Roheisa, Adele, Arabella, Lorenzo, Martuccio, Emma, Sinech, Peregrine, Rose, Sebastian, Callum, Iuliana LATE: None APOLOGIES: Michael, Madeleine, Eleanora MEETING OPENED: 7:35pm LAST MEETING'S MINUTES: Accepted as stand. OFFICER REPORTS: B&B: Reporting a list o' stuff has been compiled. There is a royal visit occuring on last weekend of October (weekend before Ildhafn Crown Tourney). SENESHAL: Written report. Correspondence in: Resignation for the Quartermaster on account of his work commitments. Quarterly reports from all officers. A question from an individual member asking if we intended to restart the college n the immediate future. Replied, we did not have any plans to re-open the college as yet. On going discussion with the baroness regarding the lack of events in the Barony and what can be done about it. Discussion with my deputy Arabella on what her role as deputy entails. We discuss having her provide follow-up on any on going or outstanding projects. Information on Cluains up coming St John?s Festival, forwarded to FTT, and the mailing list. Request from the INC committee for an estimate of what the Barony owns that it will want to insure. Application for position of Herald from Lord Peregrin Note from Kingdom Herald stating her intention to appoint Peregrin. Correspondence out: To the Kingdom Herald supporting Peregrin?s application. Announcement of Kingdom Heralds intention to appoint Peregrin unless objections were received. Minutes to the mailing lists. Query to the B&B regarding their understanding on the status of fight practices and a discussion there of. Quarterly report to Kingdom. Activities: Chased people for Quarterly reports. Made new SCA marker signs as Sunday bash was rained out, again. Helped Chronicler up date addresses for FTT comps. Got a few discussions going on the mailing list. Hosted Symposium on potions and lotions. Did a demo at West Spreydon School. CHATELAINE: Written report. No events attended. Activities: I have received a request from the Barony of Innilgard to use our Newcomer's Pamphlet. Demo was held at West Spreydon School. Error in Newcomer's Pamphlet corrected. Received email from Riccarton Village Inn, offering our group meeting facilities/accomodation There is hire garb out from a previous event. Arranging to receive it back. 6) Demo request from Our Lady of Assumption School REEVE: Written Report. Barony: Money In: Interest $2.37 Money Out: Council Hall Hire $20 Paint for signs $30 Advance St. Chris $40 Ball Hall Hire $100 Advance to FTT $100 Total out $290 Total in Barony $5388.95 FTT: Money In: Subs $48 From Barony $100 Total in $148.00 Money Out: Postage $53.00 Bank Charge $2.00 Copy Print $68.81 Total out $123.81 Total in FTT $67.19 Correspondance: Nil Summary: Presented quarterly report. Still awaiting official warrant Looked into FTT pricing - $1.34 per copy seems optimistic, $1.45-$1.50 more realistic Comps ~$16.30/month - continuing to investigate FTT finances - should be OK for next month or so. Current subscription liabilities 36 subs (8 of those comps). Total liability $218.42 at current price estimate. HERALD: No objections have been received wrt. Peregrin's appointment. Currently awaiting word from Kingdom Herald to make the appointment official. MARSHAL: Written report. Seneschal received marshals pack from earl marshal, have given correct contact details to new earl marshal. Will uplift next council. Due to realisation that fighters practices not currently meeting kingdom requirements, I asked the chronicler to remove notices of such from news letter. Discussion ongoing regarding fighters practice, wether to leave unofficial or move towards official. Have agreed that notices may be printed provided they state that they are not official. LISTS: Vacant. Bastian will be advertising position. CAPTAIN OF ARCHERS: Vacant. A&S: Written Not much to report - Quarterly report sent out. Looking forward to discussing stuff with Kingdom and Innilgard A&S officers this weekend. CHRONICLER: Written report. Correspondence: Quarterly report emailed to Kingdom Chronicler and to Mistress Roheisa. General: Published FTT - Madeleine did the mailing out (much thanks). Deadline for next FTT is Friday the 18th of June - I'm making it a bit earlier to take account of any unforeseen production delays. Several subscriptions paid at last month's Council meeting, and mailing list updated accordingly. One sub just received. WEBWRIGHT: William has past current keeping of it into the hands of Madeleine who will update it once information has been received. CHIRURGEON: No report, no apology CONSTABLE: Apology received Stepped up and collected lost property from previous constable. Nothing to report QUARTERMASTER: Vacant. Need someone with storage space for approximately 2 (large) van-fulls (or 1/2 single garage) of Baronial goods. Could have one volunteer to store the stuff and another to keep track of it. EVENT REPORTS: Sunday Bash: Rained out. Twelve people turned up at Roheisa's place and event marker signs were made. Future attempts at the bash may be held once weather settles more. Symposium: Was held at Roheisa's place with an attendance of ten people. They made two kinds of soap, a Nostra precious green, and a basic balm. People had fun. UP COMING EVENTS: Rose has volunteered her place for a cooking workshop. Important note, she has four cats so anyone allergic to cats will need to be prepared for that. Her kitchen has milling space for around ten people although the bench space is limited. This will happen on Saturday 10th July. Will be advertised in FTT. Anyone who is willing to help with teaching should get in contact with Roheisa. St Christopher's Revel: Is still being planned. Games are in consultation. No advances of funds currently required. Ball: No current report but at last hearing all was going well. Heloise will unfortunately be out of town over the time of the ball but she has it well organized to run without her. Royal Visit: Last Weekend of October (23 & 24). Chrettienne is organizing to put in a bid for a two day event. The expected visitors have Viking persona's so she is suggesting an event with the theme of the victory celebrations from Beowulf. Saturday: at CSM lunch (bring own)at 3pm an A&S display (poss. with viking theme) Feast. Four courses with subtleties Sunday: tourney/archery at Abberley park if it can be done Investigating possiblity of being able to do fencing, would require getting marshals etc. authorised. Buffet style lunch. Current cost estimate is $15/head for feast, no figure yet for lunch. Those present agreed this sounded interesting. A formal bid should be ready for next council meeting. Canterbury Faire: Still no bids. Please, please think about bids and bring to council next month or we could have a annoyed Seneschal. GENERAL BUSINESS: Cluain's St Johns: There is no-one going from the barony who can return the Genuine Piece of the True Cross. It will be posted to ensure they have it in time for it's next awarding. Electronic FTT: There has been much discussion on the mailing list about this. So far that discussion has shown that some people would prefer to get their FTT in electronic form and others prefer it in paper form. Groups in Lochac that already have their group publications in electronic form include Mordenvale and Stormhold. Query: Is FTT appreciated enough to justify the effort put into making it? Comment: most of the contact and event information is available on the web page. Comment: most people these days have internet access, although some prefer paper anyway. Comment: The people/groups we are currently sending complimentary copies to generally would prefer it in electronic form. Comment: Our current Chronicler (Baroness Sinech) is quite happy with the time/effort she is putting into putting together FTT. She enjoys it and has a system that works for her. Suggestion: The other groups in NZ that we are currently sending Comps to could be offered a link to an on-line version (that they could put on their web pages). This would mean that any of their populace that wanted to read it could get access. There was a question of how much they would actually want to read it but it could be useful for people who were going to be visiting our city for other reasons and wanted to see if there was anything on they could attend while they were here. Query: If electronic version went out what effect would that have on the already unbalanced FTT budgets? Query: Would there be a charge for the electronic version? There is a possible cost involved for things like software. Action: There will be an add placed in the next FTT seeking feedback. Possibility: Steve Hoare might be able to get us access to very cheap printing for a small number of copies a month through work. It was pointed out that perhaps we should not let him (so kindly) volunteer for even more work. Comment: If we ask for feedback chances are high we will get none until after the change is implemented. After which people will probably moan about it. Action: Keep discussion open, wait for feedback. Action: Contact Aussie groups already doing this for advice. Suggestion: If we need to get software for manipulating PDF formats Rose may be able to get good rates on software through her work. Suggested Action: an online poll. Do you have an FTT subscription? If it went electronic would you take out an electronic one? How are we organizing Fighters Practices? Official or Unofficial? For a fighters practice to be official it must be approved by the Seneschal, have reports going to the Marshal, be advertised in FTT, and some additional paperwork. Until recently the only one of these conditions we were fulfilling was advertising in FTT. That advertisement has been withdrawn for now. The general fighter opinions appear to be to have unofficial practices and to advertise them in FTT as unofficial. This is common practice in many places in the known world. An official practice would be covered by SCA insurance. This isn't currently an issue for us but will be as soon as SCANZ can finish setting up all the details required for such things. Action: Practices will continue on an unofficial basis for now. It will be investigated as to whether we will be able to support the necessary paperwork in the future. How can we encourage more participation and events? Workshops have been suggested. Comment: Elsewhere in the known world groups don't need to run as many events themselves to be able to attend events as they often have close neighboring groups whose events they can attend as well as their own. Comment: We need to start recruiting again. But if you get someone interested and then there is nothing for them to attend for months they aren't going to stick around long enough to get involved. Query: Does the group want to just socialize? For example having a lightly organized revel with a potluck, some dancing, and much chit-chat. Suggestion: A few subsidized events might help get people attending/interested again. For example a potluck revel where there is no door charge and the barony picks up the hall hire cost etc. A suggested venue is where council is being held (Clarence St Methodist). Do a few like that to get people in the swing of doing stuff then put a small door charge back on? Suggestion: Workshops ending in a potluck that is also open to those not attending the workshop. Workshops are good because they encourage skill advances and pride/confidence in those skills and people getting together to do stuff. Suggestion: Similar potluck after fighters practices? Suggestion: Monthly workshops/symposiums. Comment: In recent years the group has been getting bloated with too many formal events and little to no grass-roots/informal events. Events were becoming very similar and people got used to it being that way. What now? Seneschal has been having problems finding volunteers to run events. The people who have the skills to run them have had enough and need a break while those who might be interested in having a go wouldn't know where to start and are too scared/shy to put their hands up. Suggestion: Team up experience but tired people with inexperienced but eager people and get some of the skills passed on. Try something like the informal revels for this. Adele would be very interested in having a student to teach something about running feasts etc. Comment: Need healthy group that plays together before recruiting works. Need events to attract people to. Comment: Events beget events. There was further discussion on the idea of subsidizing a few revels. It was suggested that we run a couple of entirely free but potluck ones. Then to run one with a donation or a couple of gold entry fee and a supper, Barony would subside hall hire etc. Then on to revels that break even. Note: there is around 5 thousand in the baronial funds and there is no projects currently scheduled to used that money. Comment: We would need people to run it. Returned to idea of experienced/inexperienced teams. This will be advertised on mailing lists and in FTT. Comment: The SCA is a culture of not volunteering. The seneschal will need to specifically ask people individually if they could run one of the revels. Comment: Charlene/Cat/Theodora have offered to run a (specific) revel but they haven't decided on a date yet. Adele has offered to buddy them. The seneschal will chase them. Comment from Sinech: The seamster's guild is currently moribund, only Sinech, Madelein, and Eleanora are attending regularly. It was suggested that if they were to run workshops on costuming then more people would be interested in attending. Also, for some, a weekend session would be easier to attend than an evening. Suggestion For Chrettienne: A workshop leading up to Royal Visit to prepare decorations for the event and gifts for the visitors. This could be held at Arabella's place, she has much space. Action: Another mailing list poll. Do you have the skills to run an event? If not are you interested in learning those skills? Comment: When you ask people to 'volunteer' to run events you might get more positive answers to a specific question rather than a general appeal for an event sometime, any event. Action: A general schedule of revels/workshops will be drawn up, specified to the nearest month. Then the seneschal will start looking for volunteers. Meeting ended 8:40pm MEETING CLOSED: