[Sca-cooks] A&S competitions, was Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 3, Issue 21

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Peldyn wrote:
>I have been playing at SCA since 1988 and I still have not entered any
>competitions, wouldn't have an idea how to and live so far away from 
>my closest
>group that I really don't know anyone. I merchant and so I have a hard time
>getting away from my booth, but I think I would like to start doing more.

I don't know how things work in Caid, but up here in The West, you 
can enter a competition without even being at the event, if someone 
will take your work and your documentation to the event and fill out 
all the paper work.

All our competitions to come are printed in every issue of our 
Kingdom newsletter, The Page. I don't know if you do that in Caid - 
but this way we can plan ahead. If competitions are listed in your 
newsletter (that's the Crown Prints, i think), look at a competition 
in the future that involves a skill or time period you like.

Find an historical item, generally in a photo, and make one similar. 
You don't need perfection nor to make exact replica. Make sure you 
understand the materials they would have used, and note in your 
documentation where your materials and/or techniques are different 
and why. The idea is that you do things as historically accurately as 
possible, but there are reasons why we often cannot make a perfect 
copy, and your documentation will indicate that you know the 
difference.

Rules vary from kingdom to kingdom, so i'm making a generalization here:

The main things to cover in your documentation are:
what is it;
when is it from;
where is it from;
who would have used it and why;
what was it made of;
how was it made;
what you made yours of;
how you made yours.

There may be situations in which not all of the above is relevant. 
But most of it usually is.

Have pictures of the original. If you are not making a close replica, 
but something very like existing items, have pictures of the items 
that inspired you, or other pictures relevant to your item.

Do not make something "nice" then try to "back-document" it. While 
this can sometimes be done, i think it isn't worth the pain and 
agony. If you start with something that you actually know is 
"period", then documenting is not a big problem.

Take notes while you do your research - on materials, techniques, 
variations, times and places, etc. Keep a record of the books you 
used, so you can create a bibliography. This is not as complex as a 
college "research paper".

After looking over A&S manuals from a multitude of Kingdoms and 
branches, it seems to me that the consensus is about 3 pages of 
documentation is good, which should include a bibliography.

For a recent submission, i made a 12 page booklet. It was a bit of 
overkill, but was carefully organized:
1. Cover Sheet, with title of object and title of competition in 
which it was entered and date of competition
(our submissions are anonymous, so i did not include my name)
2. Index of contents
* 3. Photo of original item
* 4. One page synopsis of documentation in outline form
* 5. One page bibliography
6. Written directions on how to make the item
7-8. Two pages of detailed charts
9-12. Four pages of detailed documentation
(The essentials are the photo, the bibliography, and my one page 
synopsis - but it could have up to 3 pages)

The judges didn't have to read the whole thing- they could just look 
at the photo of the original, read my one-page synopsis, and look at 
the bibliography, and compare these with my item.

We have separate ministers for Kingdom and Principality cooking 
competitions. The documentation for cooking is a bit different than 
for A&S stuff, although most of the same info is relevant, although 
we generally leave out the who and why...

Anahita