[Steppes] Fwd: 12th night re-cap

[loworbit@comcast.net]

Jon,

First, let me thank you for taking on the BIG job of seneschal.  We can't play without you, and I for one appreciate what you have already done and all that you will do!

OK.  I was in charge of gate.  All things considered, it went pretty well, I think, except for one thing:  the prepaid stuff--mostly feast.  I really want to make gate better each time I do it, so I've asked a lot of questions and received quite a bit of input from many old-timers.  Here's what I see that went wrong, and please note:  I'm not blaming anybody.  I'm chalking all the problems up to lack of experience.  I think everybody involved did the best they could, knowing what they (we) knew.

The feast reservation deadline was extended, then pretty much done away with.  Everything went till the last minute:  The ACCEPS list was late in coming, probably because the employees were off during the Christmas Eve to New Year's period.  Nuala was receiving checks in the mail.  I didn't receive her report till Wednesday morning.  The treasurer was making exceptions via email for people who said they had had trouble with their ACCEPS online transactions.  I was printing off new information from my email up till 3:30 Friday afternoon. We didn't get the final information in time to synthesize it into one coherent accurate list.  

As a result, we were working from what I could print off:  the ACCEPS list, Nuala's list, and a list I compiled from reading about 6 fwd. fwd. fwd. fwd. last minute emails.  There were three different lists, all with different formats.  Very confusing!  To make matters worse, their was another list I didn't even receive, so about 40 people were temporarily disgruntled that we didn't show their reservations.  Luckily, Elin was able to retrieve that list from her computer during the event, and everything was settled nicely well before feast.  She was frazzled.  I was frazzled.

To make things better next year, I would recommend two things:

1)  For prepaid feast and/or site fee, set a deadline of December 15th, and stick to it.  That will give the person compiling the list time to synthesize everything before the Christmas to New Year's "dead" time.  We won't be waiting till the last minute.  We will have time to check with each other and be accurate and complete.

2)  Set one person only to receive feast reservations in the mail and through ACCEPS.  I'm thinking it should be the treasurer or the person in charge of gate.  (In all fairness to Nuala, she didn't volunteer to accept checks in the mail.  Her name was put on the website by accident, probably recycled from a previous website.)


Many things went well with gate this time:  we had plenty of volunteers, and all of them showed up!  HL Katya did awesome magic handling the confusing lists, L. Catalina was a rock of competence and common sense all day long, and everyone involved did a great job.  There were not too many times when the line backed up, so most people didn't have to wait too long.  I would say 95% of it was smooth sailing, but it's that squeaky 5% that I worry about, right?

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
L. Osanna de Burgh


-------------- Original message -------------- 

> Would all the various "o-crats" for 12th night 2005 please email me ( 
> and only me ) their opinions of how things went in their particular 
> area. No commenting on other areas, please.