ANST - Alexandrian vs Dance

[C. L. Ward]

Patrick Michael said:
>It really is a shame that the Kingdom Dance event  hosted by La Marche 
>Sauvage will be going against an impromptu event hosted by Gates Edge and 
>Bjornsborg.  I would hope that a Kingdom event would get better
recognition.  
>Hosting an event across from a Kingdom event is not unheard of but usually
it 
>is done in separate parts of the Kingdom and not set up to draw the very 
>people that may attend the Kingdom event.  It appears that perhaps a bit
more 
>forethought should have been put into this decision.

Bjornsborg has absolutely nothing to do with the Alexandrian Symposium.
The Alexandrian Company, an organization with members in several kingdoms,
is co-sponsoring the Alexandrian Company Symposium on Religion in the
Middle Ages on August 21 with Gate's Edge.  Yes, a couple of Alexandrian
Company members live in Bjornsborg.  But other Alexandrians live in Houston
and Austin, as well as others outside the kingdom.  By no means is the
Alexandrian Company a Bjornsborg club.

And the Alexandrian Symposium is *not* an "impromptu" event.  This is our
third symposium, and we started planning it a year ago, when we met and
decided the theme.  Some people have been working on their papers for
presentation at this symposium for most of the year.  Yes, indeed the
Alexandrian Symposium conflicts with Kingdom Dance -- it was the date we
were able to get on the calendar.  Our original site (and weekend) fell
through, necessitating a new site and therefore scheduling as possible for
that site.

None of our instructors was planning on going to Kingdom Dance in any case
with a single exception -- and in that case we will probably get the paper
from the gentleman in question and have one of the Company members present
it so that he can attend Kingdom Dance. The Alexandrian Symposium is also
not a huge draw -- it's not like having Steppes Warlord or Namron
Protectorate opposite your event.  We average 80 to 100 people attending,
tops, and that *includes* the instructors.  We're going for quality, not
quantity -- and a bunch of those people will be coming from the West,
Central, and Northern Regions to attend, so there's very little real impact
at all on attendance at Kingdom Dance.

And no one needs to get their knickers in a twist about which event to go
to -- by and large, the people I've talked to who have been planning to
attend the Alexandrian Symposium had said that they had no plans to attend
Kingdom Dance at all in the first place.  Secondly, if someone is torn
between the two events, well, they can go to Kingdom Dance and buy a copy
of the Proceedings from the Symposium later -- I understand that Radegunde
should have the proceedings from the first two Symposia .available for sale
by Aug 21, and the current symposium proceedings should be ready pretty
quickly as well.  If you have the articles in hand, you won't miss out.

Lastly, I sure don't hear anyone squawking about the fact that we have two,
three, or even more events colliding on the same weekend all the time all
over the kingdom and have done so for years now -- this is certainly not
some random isolated occurance.  Are you going to complain about the fact
that Pennsic is opposite Kingdom Dance and therefore is drawing attendance
away from the event?  Actually, Pennsic is likely to hurt attendance much
more than the Symposium will.

What every one of us has to do is to set our priorities and decide which
event we will attend -- whether that decision is based on how close the
event is, what the activities at the event will be, political needs, or the
greatest concentration of one's friends, we have to make these choices half
a dozen times each year.  Deciding between Kingdom Dance and the
Alexandrian Symposium is just like all those other decisions about "which
event to attend".  


Wæs Þu Hæl (Waes Thu Hael)

::GUNNORA::

Gunnora Hallakarva, OL
Baroness to the Court of Ansteorra
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Ek eigi visa þik hversu oðlask Lofstirrlauf-Kruna heldr hversu na Hersis-Aðal
(Ek eigi thik hversu odhlask Lofstirrlauf-Kruna heldr hversu na Hersis-Adhal)

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