[Sca-cooks] Adjusting your Feast budget for Comps

Huette von Ahrens ahrenshav at yahoo.com
Sun Apr 17 16:39:04 PDT 2011


Hi!
 
I had something similar happen to me 30 years ago, when I volunteered to do my first kingdom banquet.
 
Since I live in Caid, the Barony or Shire who volunteered to hold the event knew this was happening at least six months in advance, so we knew who the stepping down royalty would be, but we had not held Crown Tourney yet and didn't know who the stepping up royalty was going to be.  In my budget, I charged the diners $12 per meal and told the barony that I needed $7 per meal.  I actually brought it in at about $5 per meal.  I was the first head chef in Caid to make a profit on the banquet.  The deal at that time was the barony funded the money and any profit was shared 60% to kingdom and 40% to the barony.  If the banquet lost money, then the kingdom reimbursed the barony 60% of the overage.
 
Anyway, after Crown Tournament we had a first time Crown Prince.  He was married, and was making his wife his queen, but the two of them were separated and he was living with another woman.  The other woman he introduced as "his royal mistress".  Previously, the comped people were the new royals, the old royals, the B&B of the barony and any visiting royals/dignitaries.  So I worked in 12 comps into my budget and figured that I could add a few more because sometimes visiting royals didn't always let you know in advance that they were coming.  
 
However, the Crown Prince told us that not only was his mistress to be comped, so was his entire household and all of the royal guards.  This was something like 36 to 40 people.  I told him "no".  He complained to the baron at that time, who chewed me out.  I then turned to the Kingdom Seneschal and the Kingdom Exchequer and told them how much money they would lose if they allowed this to happen.  These two had a talk to the Crown Prince and there was no further problem with this.
 
Now you might think that because I am a laurel I had some pull in this.  But no, I didn't have my laurel then.  In fact, it was at this event that I was elevated.  [This was a drive-by laureling.  They didn't do prior informing and vigils until much later.]
 
I did have a further incident with this king.  Court was supposed to end at 4 pm, so I made sure that the banquet was finished and ready to serve at 4 pm.  But the court continued on and on.  At 5 pm, I sent a message to the Kingdom herald and told him that the banquet was more than ready and asked him to end court, but that didn't happen.  At 6 pm, I sent a note to the king, saying, "It is 6 pm and your people are hungry.  The banquet has been ready since 4 pm.  If you don't stop this court right now, I will personally serve you every burnt bit of the banquet."  I am told that the king blanched and told the herald they would continue the court after the banquet.  I was fully prepared to be publicly villified or banished.  Fortunately, I wasn't.  Of course, there were no burnt bits, but he didn't know that.
 
Huette


--- On Sun, 4/17/11, Deborah Hammons <mistressaldyth at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Deborah Hammons <mistressaldyth at gmail.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Adjusting your Feast budget for Comps
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Date: Sunday, April 17, 2011, 1:59 PM


Today I received a partial list of people who will be comped for Coronation
in May. Only the in Kingdom people so far, no visiting royalty is included.
It amounts to $375 of my feast budget of $750.  I will absolutely confess it
is taking a forklift to lift my jaw off the ground.  Coming from a small
shire who has done Kingdom events before, and never comped this many people
before....I am at somewhat of a loss.  Has anyone else here had to deal with
this deep of a cut?  How did you manage it?  I have already published a
menu, and started buying supplies.

For background, the past two sets of Crown and Coronation have been
"centralized" by a royal decree.  So they are taking place in two baronies,
but other individuals/groups are actually "doing" them.  Kingdom is
financing. This will probably change at this Coronation, going back to a bid
system.

Aldyth The more than slightly peeved
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