[Elfsea] Defender

[Estella Flather]

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Greetings from HE Mistress Stella Silvana-
    If you all want exact lines of reasoning that were gone through in trying to plan our events, you had better be ready to do a lot of reading, because we have tried a number of different formats, trying to have the event run smoothly and fairly for the participants.
    We used to have the Chivalric Defender Tourney on Saturday and the Rapier Defender Tourney on Sunday so that the tournaments had their own venue and the participants could be more greatly recognized. Then it was noted that the Rapier Defender was not getting to receive their prize at Saturday court and thus not getting as much recognition as the Chivalric Defender. It was then decided to have both tournies on Saturday. We have tried several different formats: One tourney after the other (this led to a very long day, but let fighters participate in both lists), alternating rounds of Chivalric and Rapier (this didn't work very well, as it led to Looong waits between bouts for the fighters), both tournies fought at the same time on different fields (which we did this year, I didn't get to see any of the rapier fighting because it ended while the other list was still going.) I still think that the best solution is to have one tourney after the other. This way people who fight in both styles can do both and those of us who like to help with marshaling or field heraldry can be free to help.
    This doesn't help with the Archery tournament, which usually ends up on Saturday so they can also get recognized in evening court and so runs at the same time as the other tournaments. One year we did the archery either after or before the other tournies. I don't remember if that worked better or not. I seem to remember that the tournies didn't end until just before evening court and it was a really long day, but it did all get done in time for court.
    I really like the reverse OP challenge we do at Defender. It usually is done with people making their challenges individually so they can make more of a show of it.
    Culture camps were cool, but nobody wants to do all that work anymore. I've done my share and don't want to drag out all that stuff anymore for a while.
    Spring Faire has usually been meant to be more of a fun event and for trying different fighting scenarios, etc.
    I think that combining our Baronial College with Steppes Artisan might work OK, but we still have the problem of finding a suitable site with a large meeting room and class rooms. If we do it in the Summer we might be able to get a school for a site, but it wouldn't be good to have it too close to King's College which is usually around June.
    I'm always open to new ideas, just remember that we have usually thought up most of the possibilities and either tried them or found that they don't work out, so don't be surpised if your great new idea is not so new as you thought.
    If you want to find out how many people demos have brought to our group, why not add a column to the sign in sheet for Moot asking how did you hear about the SCA and give options, i.e. demo, friend, internet, fighter practice, moved to area, other. Then you can count up how many members we got from which venue.  You wouldn't need to do it every time, just once a year or so.
    That's all I can think of at the moment.
    In service, HE Stella
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