[Ansteorra] Late Night Court

[Fitzmorgan at aol.com]

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        I've been discussing the decline in good bardic circles with other
bards for a while and someone almost always brings up the fact that Courts
run so much later than they used to.  It seems like courts running till 11:00
or even later are not at all unusual.  Don't get me wrong.  I love court.
It's an important part of an event for me.  But 11:00?  I think even 10:00 is
too late for court.  It seems to me that we have scheduled so much fun into
our events that we haven't left much room for spontaneous fun, a bardic
circle, a good party or just hanging around with our friends.
       A typical event seems to have activities scheduled until 3 or 4 in the
afternoon with feast starting around 7:00, or sometimes 6:00.  Feasts often
run 2 hours or more.  So feast starts around 7 or so and if you are lucky
court starts by 9:30.  Again don't get me wrong, I love feasts.  They are
often some of the best eating I get.  I rarely skip a feast.  Personally I
would prefer to have feast over and done with in an hour, but I realize
that's not very likely.  An hour and a half would be great.
       What can be done?  If we could start feast promptly at 6:00 and be
done by 7:30, start Court by 8:00 and end by 10:00 that would be a huge
improvement.  If we must start feast later than 6:00 or if they have to run
for hours then do court before feast.  I've suggested this several times
locally and the cooks hate the idea.  The response is that court will run
long and delay the feast.  It doesn't have to.  If feast is going to be at
7:00 then I see no reason we can't have a 5:00 court with an absolute ending
time, finished or not, of no later than 6:30.  If we're not finished then we
can have another, shorter, court after feast.
       I realize that things are not going to change unless a lot of people
want them to, but I've run across a lot of people who are not happy with how
late courts are running.  Are there enough of us who think this is a problem
to do something about it?

       I mean no disrespect to those of give of their time and talents to
prepare our feasts.  The skill of our Ansteorran cooks is amazing.  Perhaps
it's unrealistic of me to expect that feasts should run faster.  I've never
prepared one and probably have no idea how much work is involved.  It looks
like a lot, and I have the greatest admiration for those who can do it well.
Also my Momma only raised one kid dumb enough to badmouth the cook and it
wasn't me.

So does anyone else think these ideas are worth looking in to?

Robert Fitzmorgan