There is (in non-pandemic times) a major event in my kingdom (AEthelmearc), Ice Dragon. A feature of this event is the arts & sciences pentathlon, which used to be the premier A&S competition in the region. It was the premier A&S competition in the East Kingdom before AEthelmearc split off into its own kingdom.

The competition is divided into several major categories, like clothing and cooking and performance. Each major category has sub-categories like pre-1400 women's clothing and bread and storytelling. You can enter things in individual categories, and if you enter at least five different major categories, you can compete for the overall pentathlon prize. An important feature of the competition, in my opinion, is the cross-entry: if an item qualifies for more than one category, you didn't have to choose only one. Embroidered gown? Clothing and needlework. Belt woven from wool you spun, with a buckle you made? Spinning, weaving, and metalwork. And so on.

I haven't been tracking the event lately (I stopped traveling for SCA events even before the pandemic, due to both changing interests and the inherent Shabbat complications). I was reminded of the event by a post I saw tonight on the kingdom blog, which referred in passing to the limit of two categories for cross-entries. I'm not sure when that was introduced, but it was not always there.

With that rule change one small but fun challenge went away: the single-item pent entry. Can you come up with one work that legitimately fits five major categories? I did this one year and had great fun trying it, and learning some new crafts in the process (which should be one of the goals, encouraging growth). I'm disappointed to learn that this small bit of the event's history is no longer accessible.

It was a book. A book of music that I composed, illuminated (like books of hours), with an embroidered cover. I performed one of the pieces. The book was a gift for my then-baroness (of blessed memory); she had appointed me as her bard and I made the book to honor and thank her. But I embroidered the cover because of the Ice Dragon pent. And I might well have bought a blank bound book, focusing on the music and the illumination (my actual skills), but for the pent.

And I'm glad I did make the book. I learned about bookbinding. I asked a curator nicely and got a private tour of a collection of actual renaissance volumes so that I could inspect their bindings (which are usually not very visible when books are displayed open behind glass). My embroidery was not very good but was full of spirit, as they say.

The single-item pent entry is not the optimal path to winning the pent (if winning the pent is your goal). You can probably make five stronger entries by focusing and avoiding the constraints of other parts of the project. I did not win the pent the year I entered the book. But I had loads of fun with the project (and apparently made an impression). And my baroness really liked the book. So, win all around.

SCA friends,

Did you just migrate here from LJ? Are you trying to find your friends?

Have you been here a while and would like to connect with our new immigrants?

Either way, please leave a comment here to announce your presence if you want to be found. If you changed your user name from LJ to DW, be sure to mention that. Let's make it as easy as possible to rebuild the SCA network over here.

And if you're already somewhat connected here on DW, please boost the signal!

(And if you know of somebody who's already doing this, please let me know and I'll update this post to point to that one.)

I met Countess Aidan ni Leir when I became Chronicler for the East Kingdom. I'd been active in the SCA for some years by then, including having been chronicler for my local barony for four years. Our barony was, at the time, somewhat isolated from the main body of the East: aside from Pennsic the bigwigs didn't come here much, and I hadn't been to much of the rest of the kingdom then. I was an experienced writer, editor, and publisher, but working at the kingdom level with its attendant quirks and politics was new. So becoming a kingdom officer had something of a feel of a kid from hicks-ville moving to the big city.

My predecessors in the job helped guide me, and there were people in the local group with more kingdom-level experience. But regular contact with the Kingdom Seneschal was especially helpful. That seneschal was Countess Aidan.

Adian had been royalty (hence the title) and had worked with royalty for years, and from her I learned how to handle them. I knew that just because a guy has a crown on his head doesn't mean what he's saying is reasonable, but that guy with the crown could also fire me. And sometimes the other kingdom officers had unreasonable expectations; I remember one officer who sent something like ten pages of advice for the space-constrained "laws and policies" issue, who didn't take kindly to my saying that that was really too much and I'd need him to cut that down to just the part that was actually, you know, laws and policies, and I was expecting more like a page or two, not ten. Aidan taught me some useful things about diplomacy -- but also about when to wield the stick and just say "no" -- clearly and politely, in a way that would survive escalation.

One of my funniest memories of Aidan is a conversation we had, oh, maybe two years into my stint as chronicler. This was an actual phone call, not email (email still wasn't ubiquitous then, though she had it), so I remember her tone of voice too. I was talking about the accumulation of different kinds of paperwork -- reports from the local groups, my quarterly reports, stuff from other officers that wasn't newsletter submissions, minutes from board meetings, correspondence of lots of different types -- and how I was having trouble organizing it usefully. Did she have any advice? She said the way she handled that kind of stuff was to make one big pile, and every now and then stick a marker in with the month and year. If you ever actually needed any of that stuff that was probably good enough, but... she left the sentence incomplete.

I in fact didn't need the vast majority of that stuff (though there were expectations of keeping records). I tried to neaten it up some before passing the office on to my successor. I also passed on the advice.

At the time Aidan lived in New York. Several years ago she moved to my barony so I got to see her more, though not as much as I now realize I wish I had. Aidan was friendly (yet did not suffer fools), highly competent, and fun to be around. I'll miss her.

More from that parlor game: Comment to this post and say you want a set, and I will pick seven things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

jducoeur gave me: Faith. Family. Communication. Study. Music. Language. Service.

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More from that parlor game: Comment to this post and I will pick seven things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

unique_name_123 gave me: computer, spirituality, laurel, rules, games, travel, artichoke.

( Read more... )

As anybody in the SCA already knows, but for the rest of you, the SCA just settled a $7M lawsuit out of court for $1.3M. Corporate liability insurance has thus far refused to cover most of this (so there's another lawsuit over that), and meanwhile the money needs to be paid. The corporation has already spent a lot of money defending this suit so they don't have it; thus they are assessing an 18% levy on all kingdoms, local groups, and major wars (which have their own bank accounts) in North America.

I wasn't sure whether I was going to post about this (the discussion is happening in lots of places already), but a few people have asked what this relatively-long-time-SCAdian thinks, so...

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Most recently from alaricmacconnal, source unknown. I've corrected some typos and grammar 'cause I'm like that. :-)
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Dear SCA Lazyweb,

(Ok, not completely; I'm doing my own work on this too.)

What are your favorite accessible, beginner-friendly resources for persona development? I'm especially interested in suggestions for specific periods. If a beginner is interested in the Crusader era or the Italian renaissance or early Celts (for example) and wants to do more than pick a name and wear roughly the right clothing, where would you send him? Aside from Google and "talk to so-and-so", I mean. :-)

(I've been asked to teach a class for newcomers in a couple weeks and want to hand out a list of sources they could try, sorted by period where appropriate.)

The interview meme is going around again, and in starting to respond to my questions from hrj I stumbled upon a way-overdue set from ichur72. Oops! And, ironically, there's some overlap. :-)

( hrj's questions )

( ichur72's questions )

The conventions ("rules" is such a strong word :-) ):

• Leave a comment asking for questions.
• I'll respond by asking you five questions to satisfy my curiosity.
• Update your journal with the answers to your questions.
• Include this explanation and offer to ask other people questions.

Fair warning: you might not get your questions from me until after Pennsic, so turn on that notification email or check back here.

Marian of Edwinstowe, more recently known as Old Marian, died last night. Marian had long been a fixture in the SCA when I joined. I met her at my first Pennsic, where she and Johan ran the Sated Tyger Inn, which was selling tasty period food long before most people were trying to cook such. That inn closed, and some years later she (and Chiron and maybe others) founded the Battlefield Bakery, where she continued the tradition.

I didn't know her especially well but I visited her bakery every Pennsic and, during the years I travelled a lot in the East Kingdom, I encountered and spoke with her quite a bit. She was gracious and friendly and always had time to spare for me and countless other nobodies (as I was at the time). I always enjoyed talking with her.

I remember when she resigned all of her awards. She made a point of telling the orders a year in advance -- so, she said, that there could be no question of whether she had done this because of some snit or disliked royalty. This was typical of the care she showed for others' feelings.

I regret that I did not get to know her well. Even so I will miss her, and her friends and family will miss her a thousand times more. The society is a poorer place today.