[Ansteorra] Archived TRF Info for the request

[Bill Butler]

I dug back into some archives and found this info
reguarding SCA involvement at TRF.  Hope this serves
as an answer your question.

William

----------------------------
Greetings unto the populace of Ansteorra.

I am HL Gerald of Leesville, last year's liaison to
the Texas
Renaissance Festival demo. Yesterday I received a
letter in the mail
from Jeff Baldwin, Entertainment Director for TRF,
that read as
follows:

Dear Gerald:
This letter is to inform you that, after a great deal
of thought, I
will not be renewing your contract with the Texas
Renaissance
Festival. This has been a very difficult decision, but
we feel that
it is necessary due to continued violations of the
festival dress
code, demeanor code and our ongoing concerns about SCA
participant
adherence to our rules and regulations as outlined in
our Texas
Renaissance Festival participant handbook. We
appreciate the fact
that the SCA was an integral part of the festival
during our early
years. However, over time, our organizations have
grown in different
directions. We have become increasingly business
oriented, while the
SCA, in our opinion, has become less cohesive. It is
time for our
organizations to part. Thank you for your 28 year
participation.

Best wishes,
[sig] Jeffery L. Baldwin
Entertainment Director"

This morning I called Mr. Baldwin to talk to him about
the letter,
and the gist of the conversation is that, over the
years, TRF has
become more and more a theme park, with actors who are
paid to make
their decisions based on audience reaction, while the
SCA is a group
of role-players who make decisions based on personal
reactions. This
is what he means by becoming "less cohesive". In
talking with Jeff he
wanted to make it clear that there was no bad blood
between TRF and
the SCA. He said that this year's TRF liaison (Beowan)
put in a good
effort to insure that any requests he had made were
carried out. The
decision was a result of several years in hoping that
the SCA could
come closer to what the rest of the TRF personell were
trying to
achieve, and finding that it just wasn't happening.

While there's a part of me that is sad to see the end
of this
particular yearly demo, I think we did a good showing
for ourselves.
I would like to thank all of you who participated in
this year's
demonstration, in whatever capacity. Our fighters did
a good job with
the change in format and with the change of schedule.
Our artisans,
as usual, did a wonderful job of displaying the depth
and breadth of
all crafts that are practiced/pursued within the SCA.
Ld Beoan did a
splendid job of keeping things going and trying to
enlist sponsors,
and his coordinators worked hard to make sure that all
the pieces
that were part of the demo (waterbearing, parade,
etc.) were taken
care of. To all of you, Vivat! I would end this
message with a
request; there was no fault, so please don't try to
find any. There
was no malice in the decision, so try to find no
blame. If you feel
so inclined as to respond to this message, please do
so by bringing
back memories of past TRF demos that stand out. This,
I think, is a
fitting end. I thank you for your patience.

In service to the dream with a song in my heart,
I am HL Gerald of Leesville
Title bard of Loch Soillier
A bard of Stargate
Kingdom Ansteorra




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