Sherwood Demo Planning Meeting Notes

Sherwood Forest Faire Weekends:

Mar 4-5 – Opening Weekend

Mar 11-12 – (Gulf Wars)

Mar 17-19 – (Gulf Wars)

Mar 25-26 – (Commander’s Crucible) Stargate primary

Apr 1-2 – (Elfsea Event, BJ demo) Shadowlands primary

Apr 8-9 – (Crown Tourney) Goldweard offered to be primary

Apr 15-16 (Stargate Event) 

Apr 22-23 (Glaslyn Event)

*BJ going to try to take one of the late Apr weekends

Virtual presence:

  • Create landing pages on Kingdom site for both SCA @ Sherwood Volunteers and SCA @ Sherwood recruits
  • Get Sherwood Demo up on Kingdom Calendar
  • Koia & Kolfinna social media blast/takeover
  • *** Getting our virtual presence established now is a high priority ***

Setup:

  • Setup weekend 2/18-19 (across from Candlemas, so Sunday only?)
  • Put up black and white pavillion, tables, boxes 
  • Go ahead and order business cards and stuff
  • Lyst field (make sure to get natural ropes, not nylon)

Meeting attendees:

  • BG
    • Gavin
    • Wentilliana
    • Giovanni
    • Elizabeth
    • Goldweard
    • Kolfinna
    • Orazio
    • Nicaize
  • Hellsgate
    • Guillaume
    • Erin
  • BJ
    • Rosa
    • Bryan
    • Noemy
  • Shadowlands
    • Marina (Renee)
    • Cassian
  • Stargate
    • Valeria
  • Other
    • Koia

Demo ideas

  • Set basic schedule structure which can be used for all weekends
    • Arts display/demos
    • Bardic/performing arts
    • Combat
  • Can be flexible for types of demos but helps people plan their days and consistency means better communication w/Faire
  • Review rules/guidelines to make it easy for volunteers to do consistently represent SCA
    • Head coverings (basic is fine – a coif, circlet, flower crown, veil, etc)
    • No obviously modern shoes, especially in the parade
    • Can’t sell anything
    • Can’t give away food from cooking demos (feed SCA volunteers ok, faire patrons not ok)
    • No obvious mudanity in the booth – bag chairs, coolers, etc.  Bring wooden chairs and make generous use of tablecloths and other covers for such things.
  • We can use the nearby stage, assuming no performers are using it
    • Be conscientious of loud demos / fighting when faire performers are using the stage
  • Fighting demos are big draws
    • Fighting demos right after the noon parade are great (parade ends right next to our booth); have the fighters geared up and ready to go 
    • Recruit fighters specifically for weekends
      • It might be better to have 6 rapier fighters one weekend than 3 rapier and 3 chivalric, for example
  • Other demo ideas which are good draws
    • Silk banner painting
    • Weaving
    • Fiber arts (lucet, embroidery, etc) which can easily be picked up and put down as people show interest
    • Bardic, dancing (European & Middle Eastern), etc
    • Game boards (Goldweard will be donating some info sheet + game board notepads for us!)
    • Discussed that scribal isn’t a great draw due to weather/wind/humidity and harder for people to see.

Other things

  • The more help w/can get from other groups, the better.  Most of March is still wide open.
  • Identifying more primaries to help distribute pressure is critical
    • ??? Let’s start compiling our list of primaries now
  • First weekend might be the “all the primaries” weekend to help get everyone synced up.  
  • Go ahead and design and order business cards now
    • There were ideas about designing business cards – especially using the SCA at Sherwood landing page on the kingdom site at the singular point of contact
  • Camping – We’ve been invited to camp with Elizabeth’s household (name? I forgot)
    • People will still have to pay camping fee but means we can all camp together and not fight over finding room
    • Make sure will-call list is also sent to camping entrance
  • Gavin is resetting (and improving) the various forms and spreadsheets for tracking volunteers