[Ansteorra-archery] [Mm] response , sorry long

Tue Jan 13 23:02:09 PST 2009

greetings 

>Speaking of thrown weapons, somebody mentioned that if there were multiple throwers on the line, than each would require there own marshal.  I can't find this in the rules, can somebody point me to it?
uuhhmm , that would be me, arthur blackmoon , kingdom deputy thrown weapons marshal for ansteorra ......

most of ansteorra's rules are written with " common sense " values . so , not everything is in black and white .

to me this is a safety issue , prove to me that you can do all of the following safely for more than one person at a time , and we will discuss allowing it on a case by case basis. but let me state this very clearly , 

i don't even trust myself to be that observant , after hours standing in the weather .

so far , as far as i have been able to determine, thrown weapons has been " accident free " for a long time , i want to keep it that way .

remember , i'm one of the people you have to call and explain any on range mishaps to . 

II. Duties Of The Marshallate For Thrown Weapons

1. Monitor the safety of the participants, other marshals, and spectators or other bystanders

with respect to the thrown weapons activity being marshaled.

2. Supervise Thrown Weapons activity upon the Thrown Weapons range.

3. Give warnings to participants and others, when necessary, for infractions of the

rules and to report those warnings to the Thrown Weapons Marshal-in-Charge.

(Note: Unless otherwise designated, the Thrown Weapons Marshal-in-Charge at an

event will be the Local Thrown Weapons Marshal of the hosting group).

4. Assist the participant(s). This duty may include, but is not limited to:

a. Assistance with clothing, and/or weapon(s)

b. Teach basic techniques of throwing to new throwers

c. Make necessary decisions of how to score a throw. It is stressed that the

Marshals should always remain objective when giving such decisions and

that the final decision with regard to the validity of any throw or it's score

rests solely with the Thrown Weapons Marshal-in-Charge if there is any

question about how to score a particular throw.

>My experience is that a large proportion of the people who sit and watch an activity (any activity) are connected personally to somebody who participates in the activity.  So the more participants, the more spectators

some times , something else to consider, is the " golden rule "  thats the rule that where ever the gold hats go people always follow ; )

get the nobility ( everything from b&b to k &q , heck even invite the peers out = )  people will come out following them.

make your shoots / throws interesting , and on time , people will come see the parts they want to see.and maybe hang around if it continues to look exciting.

use range changes as a time for privy breaks, drinks , photo ops , ( have your picture taken with your favorite archer ; ) , present royal round tassels  .

>We could use this a bit to our advantage

personaly, i'm willing to try most anything positive to improve tw and ta activity levels .

>We could emphasize the importance of an archers inspiration, have archers perform salutes

this normaly  falls into the heralds expertise , but archery is the only marshal activity the whole family can participate in together .

and is often the starting activity for most newbies .

>give dual awards to competitor and consort

coff , snort , hack , most places have a hard time coming up with 1 adult and 1 child prize for archery what i think would be a better solution , would be to bribe the scroll makers into making matching scrolls for the winners and their significant other / friend/ hero/ etc. 

a prize can be passed on, but a nice scroll at least here gets framed and hung about the house.

( so far my perpetual " lady of fill in the blank "  has been a girl i watched grow up in the sca, and is like a daughter to me . )

> even pander a bit and award largess for best list pavilion set up, etc.

could happen , a scroll sounds good here as well..

>We, as archers, also need to ask our friends to come watch us shoot.

only problem is , most of our friends are already on the ranges ; )

>Because of safety concerns, no matter how close we can get the firing-line to the rest of the event, watching an archery competition will always mean facing away from everything else that is going on.  Often it means being completely separated from the event.  Conversely, watching the rapier tourney usually means being in the middle of everything, and often you're at the list even when you're not paying attention to the fight.  

unfortunatly , life requires us to make choices

safety requires that we chose not to point the range at the list field , as this would endanger lives, and make the people with big sticks very nervous.

safety requires that we chose not to make people with big sticks nervous ; )

life will remain full of minute choices each of us must make constantly , so choosing to participate or watch any given activity is a matter of personal choice, all we can hope to do is make missile activities a more appealing choice.

>but if you ask them to sit for hours on end, while they miss the rest of the event, even strong personal connections are going to be hard pressed to keep there butts in the seats.

we are actually working on that very problem , through this discourse ; )

>I think a good strategy would be to pick your best, most climactic portion of the days shoot and push to get people there for that.

close , through better planning ,and advertising ,  the attendees should know exactly when they need to be on the range to see any given " part ' of the days shooting.

> Try and get it scheduled in an empty part of the day (no use trying to compete if you don't have too) 

that could be problematicle, as in some places the schedule runs on heavy time. " example, 9am morning court , 9:30 heavy armor inspection , 10 am heavy tourney begins , ( rapier armor inspection begins ) , 2 pm heavy tourney ends , rapier tourney ends , 3 pm childrens court , 4pm all winners names must be turned in so that scrolls may be filled in , 6 pm feast, 8 pm nite court  " so the only " free" time would be between 3:30 and 4pm

>Get the site heralds to make a big deal of it

grab them early and bribe them well , but usualy they prefer the list fields , or court 

>Petition the presiding royals to attend

see above about the " golden rule " 

>The fighting equivalent is pick-ups after

not really , that would be comparable to " open range practice" or royal rounds / ikacs

----- Original Message ----- 

  From: Jed Tressler 
  To: Archery within the Kingdom of Ansteorra 
  Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 10:24 AM
  Subject: Re: [Ansteorra-archery] [Mm] How to increase TA, TW, and CA

  Instead of trying to conquerer the logistics of a wagon, why not make an effort to put the ranges closer to the rest of the event?  Some sites will make this impossible, obviously, but I have attended several events where the range is off in BFE, where you had to walk through half a mile (exaggerated) of suitable range to get to it.  Scoot that sucker up a bit.  It may mean investing in more safety line, but that will be cheaper than renting a wagon/paying for gas and the like.  This would be especially true for Thrown weapons, where the necessary safety zone is (usually) much smaller.

  Speaking of thrown weapons, somebody mentioned that if there were multiple throwers on the line, than each would require there own marshal.  I can't find this in the rules, can somebody point me to it?

  I think an additional factor we may not be keen on considering is the relative ratio of participating individuals to total event size.  My experience is that a large proportion of the people who sit and watch an activity (any activity) are connected personally to somebody who participates in the activity.  So the more participants, the more spectators.  If 1/3 of the people at an event are fighters of some kind, and only 1/4 are archers, there will be more people at the list field than at the range, both due to the number of participants, and there attending personal connections.  We could use this a bit to our advantage.  

  We could emphasize the importance of an archers inspiration, have archers perform salutes, give dual awards to competitor and consort, even pander a bit and award largess for best list pavilion set up, etc.  We, as archers, also need to ask our friends to come watch us shoot.

  Finally, I would like to offer that "all-day" tourney designs, while fun for us, do not engender attendance from non-participants.  Because of safety concerns, no matter how close we can get the firing-line to the rest of the event, watching an archery competition will always mean facing away from everything else that is going on.  Often it means being completely separated from the event.  Conversely, watching the rapier tourney usually means being in the middle of everything, and often you're at the list even when you're not paying attention to the fight.  Peoples attention span will not hold very long (most college students have a max attention span of 20 min. and there on the high side of the curve).  The ideas mentioned about making the range attractive, having snacks, heralds, interesting formats all combat this, but if you ask them to sit for hours on end, while they miss the rest of the event, even strong personal connections are going to be hard pressed to keep there butts in the seats.

  I think a good strategy would be to pick your best, most climactic portion of the days shoot and push to get people there for that.  Try and get it scheduled in an empty part of the day (no use trying to compete if you don't have too) .  Get the site heralds to make a big deal of it.  Petition the presiding royals to attend.  Ask all your friends to come support you.  And try to time the whole thing to be over in about an hour.  You wont see most of the attendees any other time in the day, but big deal, they came to the big tourney.  The fighting equivalent is pick-ups after.  People don't sit around and watch the fighters practice with each other when the tourney is over, even when they are on the center field.

  Just my $1.25.
  Bastian Eisengart

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