[Gatesedge] Proposed change to Kingdom law

[Eadric Anstapa]

"Young, Carolyn" <Carolyn.Young at goodmanmfg.com> said:

> How will this proposed change affect our budget plans?  Inquiring 
minds and
> all that.
> 

Not a "proposed" change.  It is a change and will be published in 
an upcoming Black Star and will go into effect in 2004.  TRM rode 
with me to Pennsic and back and we discussed it on the trip.

As a canton or Shire we will be permitted one event on the Kingdom 
Calendar.  Currently we have two events on the 2004 Calender and we 
will be expected to give up one of those.  We also already have a 
spring event on the 2005 calendar.

If we can only have 1 event per year it will need to be an  outdoor 
and camping event if we want to continue to have activities like 
archery, equestrian, and knire/axe/spear.  Personally now that 
official SCA involvement has come to an end I am in favor of 
hosting our one event per in the cooler fall season.

FWIW I am also personally in favor of this change and I think fewer 
events will help the kingdom to have higher quality and better 
attended events and will hopefully encourage people to submit bids 
for various kingdom events.

If you run the numbers...  

There are 52 weekends a year.

Crown, Coronation, Red Tape, and Queens each happen twice a year 
generally without conflict.  That leaves 44 open weekends a year 
for events.

Generally branches do not host events the weekends surrounding Gulf 
Wars (the events would have miserable attendance).  That leaves 42 
open weekends a year for events.

When you consider that generally Pennsic weekends are also often 
avoided (largely because of heat but also because of Pennsic 
conflicts) and that Thanksgiving and Christmas weekends are 
essentially always avoided as event dates that takes us down to 39 
(or perhaps even 38) weekends a year for events. 

There are 42 groups listed in the Black Star so that means more 
than 1 event per remaining weekend.

There are 13 baronies in kingdom that each get a PED so that takes 
us to 55 events in 39 weekends.

There are about 13 other kingdom events needing hosts annually.  So 
that takes us up to potentially 68 events in 39 weekends.

Consider that multi-group/regional events do not count as part of a 
branches quota and neither do the known world events like known 
world heraldic, known world dance, etc. or large events likes TFYC 
etc.  

Consider also that very large traditional events like Steppes 
Warlord and Steppes 12th night generally do NOT have events 
conflicting with them.  These events are large and successful at 
least partially because they do not have 2 or 3 other events 
conflicting with them (and because Memorial day weekend is a great 
weekend for a big event).  Other events like Three Kings are also 
quickly getting large enough that the force weekends all their own 
on the kingdom calendar.

Very quickly event with this new law in effect except for the very 
big and protected kingdom events on most weekends you will still 
have the choice of more than 1 event to attend.

How many of you remember Bordermarch 15-20 years ago?  They were 
great big events with melees all day Satruday, feasting and 
partying all night, and more melees on Sunday.  In recent years the 
event has been a pale shadow of it's former glory I think at least 
partially due to the fact that they typically have 2 events that 
weekend conflicting against them.

Now, has to the question of IF it effects our budget plans I think 
it certainly should.  I dont know know about this most recently MSF 
(can someone please report on that)  but for the previous 3 MSF and 
Courd'Amour we were making about $350 profit per event.  With 
an 'average' of I think around 150 people in attendance.  We have 
certain fixed costs every year such had chroniclers overhead, bank 
service charges, etc. and other costs such as maintaining canton 
equipment and loaner gear and paying for equestrian insurance for 
our equestrian practices, etc all add up to consuming the largest 
portion of the profits we would have historically made from a 
single event a year.  Any budget policies that plan for any sort of 
deficit spending would I think be highly irresponsible.

The last few years we have been very lucky.  e have had some very 
nice and unexpected donation come in.  These are not things that we 
can or shoould budget for/with but should instead be considered and 
windfalls that we may use to repair, replace, and improve where we 
can.  We have had two or three (or even 4 events) per year and have 
profited from most of those events.  All that will change since we 
will only be allowed one event a year and can never count on 
actually being awarded any bids for kingdom events.  Our budget 
will I think need to be based largely upon projected profit from a 
single event a year and I dont think that we can start raising our 
site fees and feast fees too much without hurting event attendance.

Regards,  

-- 
HL Eadric Anstapa
Ansteorra
eadric at scabrewer.com