[Stargate] Bran's answer to the Question of the Dates

[Darlene Vandever]

Here is Bran's explaination of the beginning of our Barony. It **does** look
like we get to have **2** anniversary celebrations!! Woo-Hoo!!!
Annes
Picking out my party hats now!


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: bran at pdq.net <bran at pdq.net>
Date: Jun 14, 2007 9:51 AM
Subject: Re: Yes?
To: Darlene Vandever <annescvb at gmail.com>




Hi Dear!

I do miss you and I miss Stargate (I've recently attended a West Side Lunch,
and plan to try it again this month).

Sindra & I sold the house in the Heights last winter, and moved to "the
'burbs." (Near 290 & the beltway). Our new subdivision has a castle shaped
community center . . .
If I come to an event, I'll have to come naked . . . most of my costumes are
rather the worse for wear.

The apparent discrepancy that you've noted in the OP is actually exactly as
you described (and just plain weird by today's processes).

When Stargate was founded in '72, it came into existence as a barony. The
policy then was that the first branch in a state was founded as a barony
(even though no one in the group had ever attended any SCA event or really
had a very good idea of what happened there).

We submitted Myrrdin's name as our baron, and were advised by Atenveldt that
our coronet was held by the Crown until they could invest a baron in
Stargate.

So, we functioned for a year with Myrrdin as Seneschal and virtual baron
until he was invested.

Atenveldt in 1972 was huge (geographically), covering the southern US from
the Arizona/California boarder to the Atlantic Coast. At the time, the Aten
Crown and officers had too few resources to administer their holdings
effectively (and not a whole lot of interest in doing so).

As a consequence, Stargate (and Steppes, Bjornsborg, Bryn Gwlad, et al.) we
free to develop a unique set of traditions and practice.

One of the unique features of the time was that Michael of Moria (and a
couple other knights) were empowered by the Aten Crown to travel their
Kingdom granting recognition, rank and title to citizens of Atenveldt and
reporting these elevations to the Aten Crown and Aten Herald later. This
resulted in a number of entries in the OP that still give the Hearld's
Office ulcers.

I think I miss this . . . :~)

Love!
Bran


*On Thu Jun 14 8:55 , 'Darlene Vandever' sent:
*
*<<<<<<much snippage of personal history only of interest to Bran>>>>>>

*

 Here is the history question I wanted to ask you. I found the names of the
nine founders of the barony. They were included in a Ballad I found in a
1977 Two Towers written by Diedre la Cleric. So that is good since you said
you couldn't remember everyone. BTW, if you want to see them, here is a
website that I've been working on.
*http://stargatehistorian.tripod.com/*<http://stargatehistorian.tripod.com/>
 If you know anything about tripod, you know to have your pop-up blocker on.
While the barony has its own website, I don't know how to tell the vscribe
what to build for my pages and she doesn't have the time to sit down with me
over it. So I went to the free site. Later, I'm going to look into buying
more space and getting rid of the advertising.
 Anyway, I've found a certain discrepancy in dates that I hope you can shed
some light upon.
 In this 1977 issue of the Two Towers where I found the Ballad with the
names of the founders, the date of the origin of the Barony is given as Oct.
1, 1972. This coincides with the date given to me by Shanahan and also is
collaborated with the new Kingdom Interactive OP as the date the barony
began.
 So far so good. Our 35th anniversary is this year.
 BUT...When I looked up Myrrdin ap Rhys in the same OP it says
"Stargate-10/17/73 to 3/5/77. According to these dates, Myrrdin became
"officially" baron a year and 16 days after the inception of the group.
 Do you have any memory of this? There has been a lively debate on the
Stargate list between myself and Michael Silverhands concerning how such a
discrepancy may have come about. He seemed to be thinking that Myrrdin's
entry in the OP must be in error. That surely the BoD wouldn't form a group
without naming a Baron to preside over it.
 My arguement is that the SCA was only 6 years old itself at the time (was
there even a BoD in existence then?) and that the entries are quite possibly
correct. That Myrrdin wasn't elevated to Baron for a year because the Crown
of Atenveldt probably couldn't get to Stargate any faster than that to hold
an "official" elevation. My thought is that he probably had the duties and
was an "unofficial" baron (since all groups were baronies at the time) and
then was made official when a Crown had the time, money and energy to drive
all the way from Tucson to Houston.
 So, my dear friend, can you shed any light on this issue? I'm holding out
that we can hold 2 anniversary celebrations back to back. This year (we
would celebrate it at Yule) we celebrate the founding of the barony then
next year (probably at Yule again) we would celebrate the founding of the
Baronial line. Any excuse for a party...I haven't changed all THAT much!! I
hope you can.
 Please consider trying to make a couple of the local meetings. Like it or
not, oh modest one, you are a legend. We still need you. I still need you.
 Until then,
Love
Annes