ANST - Meetings and Volume at Steppes 12th Night

Nan Bradford-Reid ad-4na at mail.utexas.edu
Wed Jan 14 06:59:54 PST 1998


At 09:43 PM 1/13/98 -0600, Daniel wrote:

>having conversations in normal voices.  Hypothesis: if all
>the people who can't hear start to talk normally, then the
>people who can just barely hear can't hear any more.  If
>*they* start to talk, the people in front of *them* can't
>hear ... I suspect that talking reduces the number of people
>who can hear in a big way.
>

Agreed.  We *are* a conversational bunch, though and it's hard enough to
suppress comments within hearing range <chuckle> of the court.

>I don't have a good solution that satisfies everyone.  I do
>think that asking people to sit largely quietly for several
>hours *is* what we have to ask for, or ask them to consider
>going elsewhere to minimize the impact of their talking --
>go out, go into a side room, go up to the balcony, whatever.

I've tried this in the past and for short periods of time, it's okay.  There
are a few problems, one is seating.  I don't know about others, but my back
limits the amount of time I can stand around.  If there's clean carpet, I
don't mind sitting on it, providing my costume allows it.  At some sites,
for instance the old Stargate Yule site, there just wasn't anywhere to go
other than outside and the last couple of times I've been there, it was cold
and raining!  Of course, at 12th night, a number of people did go up to the
balcony and other places, those places can only safely hold so many.


>I have to get a "smart remark" out of my system.  I belive
>"crying children are like good intentions -- they should be
>carried out as soon as possible".  (Alternative: "crying
>children are like good intentions -- the road to Hell is
>paved with them".)

Eh-HEM!!

>Seriously, crying wasn't a problem, as far as I heard.  And
>probably my not being a parent affects my opinions strongly.
>However, I think it's the parents' responsibility to make
>sure their children do not affect others in a major way.

I don't remember any cryers, either and the kids that were on the main floor
seemed to be only doing perfectly normal, acceptable kid things, like
working off boredom and excess energy pent up during the feast.  Once
William gets to the age where it's difficult to keep him in one place, he
will most likely be at a sitter's for daytrips to court events.  However,
some people can neither afford, nor want to part with their kiddos for that
long (I don't really, either), so it's something we have to take into
account.  Even if there aren't any MOC activities, a place could be set
aside for those with children--they're a fact of life for a lot of us and
people should not be condemned for having them, only letting them be
disruptive.  I noticed a lot of locked doors around the hall.  Usually a
place like that has several meeting rooms, would it be possible to pay just
a little extra to have access to one of them for children during a court
event.  They could nap and play in there during the day and during court.
Jes' a thought.


>
>An idea that just hit me (*wham* OW!): perhaps we just have
>to say "only major business in major events' courts".  No
>awards below GoAs, say, or some other more-or-less arbitrary
>cutoff?  The courts get substantially shorter, and each
>piece of business is of interest to more people.
>

Now, that's an IDEA.  B&Bs could hand out AoA level stuff and local
garbledy-gook at a smaller, baronial-level event, rather than one that half
the kingdom is going to attend.  Hmmm.  Room for thought here, yah.  Also,
something Conor and I have discussed for a long time is having gifts and
presentations to the Crown, unless from a group (Barony, Shire, etc.) made
during feast or some other time.  Those really slow down a court as well.
Quite frankly, there are really two events where it is expected a lot of
business will take place during court, and during the entire event, and
those are both kingdom-level: Crown and Coronation.

Catherine  

============================================================================
Go to http://www.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.



More information about the Ansteorra mailing list