SC - Serving question

[Bronwynmgn at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/9/2000 9:09:53 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
catwho at bellsouth.net writes:

<< Again, I question this tactic.  I don't pay to go to an event, dress 
 in my finer things, PAY for feast to be asked to work.  It 
 is the responsibility of the hall steward to obtain servers and do 
 their training *before* the feast and preferably before the event.   >>

All well and good if you have enough people to do that.
My shire has a working group of about 10 people.  At least 4 of those will be 
in the kitchen cooking/plating/washing up.  Another is leading the 
entertainment.  Another is going around the site making sure that anyone who 
is cooking their own food is following the regulations about where they can 
build their fires, not blatantly displaying alcohol, etc.  That leaves us 
with four people to serve.  It is unusual for us to have fewer than 60 people 
in the hall, or 8 tables; it is routinely over 100 people, 12 tables or more. 
Four people cannot serve that many tables effectively.  And those four people 
are also the same ones who have been running troll, arranging the hall, 
dealing with merchants, running the fencing/fighting/archery/whatever, and 
teaching classes all day long.  They are already exhausted, and they will be 
the ones cleaning up tomorrow.  I WILL NOT ask them to serve all the food as 
well.
Yes, we do get some volunteers from among our guests - but they usually 
volunteer to help set up the hall, to do some cooking in the afternoon, or to 
help in some other area that doesn't affect their ability to sit and eat the 
feast.  We have a couple of really dedicated friends (Hi, Ragnar, Griff, 
Gille, Tirza, Kyle) who will stay in the kitchen to help us, and will drop 
out briefly to eat the cold servings their tablemates have saved for them.  
These people are beyond price.
The only feasible way to us to serve a feast is to ask for a volunteer from 
each table.  This is not as onerous a task as you make it seem.  The person 
comes up and gets the servings for their table, perhaps making 3 or 4 round 
trips which rarely take more than 15 minutes total, and then sits down and 
eats with their friends until the next course is announced.  Often the people 
at the table will take it in turns to serve each course.

I'd love to be able to serve things properly - have the dishes come out of 
the kitchen, be taken to a dresser to be carved and sauced, and then have 
them conveyed to each table by a trained server.  Just to do that would take 
more people than we have active in our shire at the moment.

Sometimes this is a matter of necessity - and frankly, I've never heard 
anyone complain, although I have seen some reluctance to be the first to get 
up.  On the other hand, I've also seen people argue about which of three 
people is going to go up.

Brangwayna Morgan