[Steppes] Why I'm So Excited About the Homeschool Demo! - Response from the Steppes Baronial Knight Marshal

[Mike]

Heilsa,

"What we got here is... failure to communicate."
A famous quote from a movie made more than 40 years ago. How true this is!

I need to state this at the very beginning of this email - "THIS IS A 
GAME" - a number of people have definitely forgotten this based upon the 
various feedback that I have received on this matter.

The issue of attendance for Demos by heavy fighters have been raised by 
individuals who are not heavy fighters nor are Not active with/at the 
local fighter practice.

For a Demo to get off the ground, then a meeting of all groups who 
should be involved - a meeting, and actually working with both the 
warranted officers of the respected interests, plus the individuals of 
that are active within said interests/endeavors that one wish to have 
involve at any particular Demo. This needs to take place long prior to 
any type of announcement is ever made either at a business meeting, a 
populous, and/or by email.

This does not mean contacting everyone else outside the local fighting 
community, making the announcement and then expect that the various 
individuals involved in the martial activities of SCA fighting to drop 
everything and rearrange their lives, and these lives are not only the 
individuals - but their families as well. It is discourteous and rude, 
makes no difference whether we are speaking within the SCA or outside of 
it.

No one is require to do something that they do not wish to do nor agree 
to do, just because they like to get into armor and have a bit of good 
fun, fighting. :)

In other words, just because you make an announcement that a Demo would 
be held, does not mean that anyone will come!

The lead time of 11 weeks or 3 months has been raised, while it may seem 
long enough, but in reality it is not and this has to do with a number 
factors. People should not assume just because that Gulf Wars is over 
that there is a lull in the fighting aspects of this region and Kingdom, 
or because there are only one or two events on the Kingdom calendar for 
the weekend of March 28th.

This is a common mistake made by individuals who are not involved either 
with actually donning armor and being a heavy fighter or coming out and 
being part of the local heavy fighter practice, and needs to be 
addressed here and now.

There are 2 tournament seasons here in this Kingdom of Ansteorra - the 
1st starts after Gulf Wars and the ends with Steppes Warlord on Memorial 
Day weekend. The 2nd starts with the Labor Day weekend event of Gothic 
Wars and usually ends around/between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There 
will a few events through out the summer, but the majority of 
tournaments fall within the above stated time frames. This is roughly 
the tournament seasons of the Kingdom of Ansteorra.

There are previous engagements/commitments both in the modern world and 
within the SCA and this Kingdom known as Ansteorra that are on-going.

The weekend of March 28th is the beginning of the Spring tournament 
season, with some fighters who fought at various last year's 
tournaments, who became the Champion of those tournaments, are expected 
to return to that very same event. This is a requirement that came into 
being a couple of years ago to ensure that the Champion of the last year 
tournament would be on hand. So in order to enter a tournament that is 
hosted by another group, then each individual knows the responsibility 
and duties of becoming that group's Champion for the coming year. In 
some cases there are symbols the old Champion must surround to the new 
Champion and there may or may not be a stepping down/stepping up or 
changing of the Guard ceremony, so to speak involved.

These individuals know that when they have enter and win those 
tournaments, thus becoming the champion for the hosting group, thus they 
must return the following year to that same tournament on that same 
weekend. And since 99% of the tournaments are held on Saturdays, with 
Sunday being when people break camp and head for home. By attempting to 
hold a Demo at the beginning of tournament season without actually 
meeting and discussing this with the active heavy fighters...

One of the local and extremely active fighter did just this last year, 
he won the tournament and became that group's Champion, and so he is not 
available for the weekend of March 28th..

A number of fighters are in the royal entourage of TRM's (Their Royal 
Majesties), who have agreed to travel with them and to assist in easing 
their journeys in this Kingdom and outside of it, during their time of 
wearing the crown of the Sable Star. And per the Kingdom calendar - 
there are 2 separate events that TRM's will be attending, one is about 2 
hours south of Steppes and the other is out of kingdom, the Trimaris 
Coronation. Thus, few more active heavy fighters will be elsewhere, 
including at least some local knights, I think, - this is based upon 
feedback received in just speaking with the active heavy fighters.

Since Gulf Wars is a week long event, for people to attend it, they take 
time off - for most it is their vacation time. If there is any left 
over, then that time is budget for additional family and/or events. In 
some cases, these individuals can not take additional time off in a 
short interval after taking a week or more off earlier in the same 
month. This applies to all who do attend Gulf Wars and I should not have 
to speak on this, yet per feedback received, I having to speak about it.

There is a gathering of Knights of the known world being held that same 
weekend (March 28th), which is out of Kingdom. Once again, a number of 
knights are making plans to attend that gathering. So, there may not be 
a large number of knights in the local area and Kingdom for this 
weekend, which in addition to those who, I think, will be traveling with 
TRM's.

Some fighters get one complete weekend off every 6 weeks, thus they make 
plans with their families for that weekend to spend time with them and 
at times they will not even attend a Sunday afternoon practice - it is 
their time with their families - and I, for one will never ask them to 
give up this time. There are a couple of industries that operate in this 
mode.

Other fighters work Saturdays and they usually have Sundays off, 
sometimes they even have to work on Sundays as well - once again, when 
they able to come out, they are welcome and we are glad to see them. So 
by switching the original day from Sunday to Saturday, some of these 
fighters will not be able to attend that Saturday, they could have if 
the original day - Sunday March 30th was still in effect. Now, even if 
the date was switched...not sure if they will agree to attend, once 
again this has left a bad taste with them.

To date, as the Baronial Knight Marshal, I spoken with a number of the 
active heavy fighters that attend the practice, concerning their plans 
and what they thought about doing a demo on that weekend. All this was 
accomplish by simply meeting and talking with heavy fighters that are 
active in the local area for that Saturday, March 29th.

 I got a couple of maybes.

Received some answers that this individual or that individual who was 
not present had already agree or fall into one of the categories that I 
have listed.

I did get a number of absolute - "No". Once again, failure to actual 
meet with and work with the active heavy fighters, plus switching the 
day from Sunday to Saturday, resulted in those answering - No.

How many active fighters will attend?

At this point in time - I do not know.

The bottom line - this Demo has been mis-handled from the very beginning.

Now there are some fighters who only do Demos, but their knowledge of 
what is actually happening at the Steppes heavy fighter practice would 
be out-dated to say the least and thus would not be able to provide 
up-to-date answers. They can speak on their "Back in the Day" time 
frame, but not on present day, and there is a huge difference here.  In 
addition, there has been a couple major updates and changes in our rules 
(January 2008), how up to-date these people are, I do not know.

Note - The Steppes Fighter Practice with the current active heavy 
fighters in attendance, has taken a more modern and proactive approach 
over the last six years.


YIS,
Lord Michael Kettering
Steppes Knight Marshal





Deb Mach wrote:
> Dear Gentles,
>
> You many have seen posts on the lists lately about the Homeschool Demo on
> Saturday March 29th in McKinney.  And you may be wondering what all the hype
> is about for a "school" demo.  Or wondering how this demo could possibly be
> as good a use of time and resources as a gaming demo.  Since I am the
> homeschooling mom who requested the demo, as well as a relatively new member
> of the SCA, I wanted to share with you why I am so excited to do this.
>
> <snip>

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> Steppes mailing list
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> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/steppes-ansteorra.org
>
>
>
>