[Steppes] Security at Warlord (was: Weather at Steppes)

[Diane Rudin]

Her Majesty Conal wrote:

> Unfortunately, security problems at that site increase every year.
> Every year we get mundanes cruising the site.  Sometimes they are
> polite and sometimes they are not.

Even more unfortunately, getting an event site on less public land does
not always solve the problem with yokels.

The shire I was in for my first five years in the SCA kept trying to
find good event sites.  For a while we were on the land owned by the
family of a shire member.  The locals kept stealing the SCA signs when
we put them up so people could find our events.  We had to buy several
sheets of plywood and make new signs twice a year.  While this is small
potatoes by Steppes standards, I assure you that it is not small by the
standards of a small, struggling shire with less than $200 in the bank.

Then we tried another site on someone else's land in the country.  I
distinctly remember huddling down in my tent as drunk local teenagers
drove by the site Saturday night shooting rifles and shotguns randomly
at the site.  Because we'd camped away from the road, no-one got
license plate numbers, so there was nothing the local authorities could
do.  We didn't use that site again.  (That was the second time we'd
used it.)

We also had a number of incidents back when we were holding Warlord at
Camp Burnet.

I agree that there are security issues at the Canton site.  I just want
people to realize that we will probably have security issues wherever
we go.  We're weird, some SCA'ers like to rub people's noses in that
weirdness, and whether yokels are overtly provoked or just don't like
weirdoes, they're going to react in inappropriate ways, whether we're
in Canton or in the East Texas Piney Woods, or in public parks.

--Serena

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