Sewing project

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I want to start looking better for when I am representing the Challenge at events, so I've finally got together everything I need (linen, linen thread, documentation of pattern, stitches and seams) to get cracking on my most period dress to date. Nothing fancy, just a linen under-tunic with 6 gores and armpit gussets, but I am really excited about it! I've done most of the cutting, and am going to embark on the neckline today; wish me luck!

Also,the A&S 50 growth spurt continues: we now have four Kingdom Coordinators, for Northshield, Aethelmearc, Ansteorra, and Lochac; and our fliers seem to have been a big success at Estrella (our yahoo group has grown 50% just this week!)

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Growth Spurt!

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No, I haven't posted since before the holidays. Mea Culpa.

That does NOT however, mean that a) I haven't been busy, or that b) things haven't been happening!

We have a new brochure, which will be distributed at Estrella, possible new Coordinators for several Kingdoms, and, perhaps, someone to run a Session at Gulf Wars!

Folks are joining the listserve every day, and volunteers are actually stepping up to spread the word about the Challenge. I'm VERY excited that others find this a project worth not only putting their own energy into, but their own faces and names and time as well. Happy Dance!

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Joy!

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Enough folks have asked for the 'how do I run a Session' info that I have put it, and the corresponding Level Number System and Contact Info sheets, in the files section of the Yahoogroups.

I'm going to do my mass database updates (all the paper Contact Info forms I have), and the MOAS letters (to Kingdoms first, then EK MOASes) in January, and with other folks starting to run Sessions, we're just going to keep on growing!

Plans to change out the website are on indefinate hold, since the database on Yahoogroups works great, as does their file system. That said, anyone who wants to help me collect and organize handouts for the website itself is heartily invited to let me know! The one thing we do NOT have between the two systems is a facile threaded forum. Our web guru, Alexandr, has one on our proto-Joomla site, so there IS still motivation to make that happen at some point, but I'm feeling WAY less crunch about it now; unless we get someone on the project who WANTS to do the website (rather than Alexandr who is willing to help me do it), it will probably sit there until either a) our numbers/needs grow big enough that I have a pool of folks to beg for help, or b) we hit the 5 year mark, and my plans for online galleries demand it (if Yahoogroups doesn't have even better functionality by then though, I'll eat my coif!)

And, last but not least, can I just say how darned right spiffy it is read someones blog and see them mention that they are doing this cool thing they are really excited about, and how they are doing it for their A&S 50 Challenge??
Happy Albreda! :D

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Canterbury Report and Recovery

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Well, Wrong Way reports that Canterbury went very well (she got her Kingdom level Service award too, Congrats!) - and that a bunch of folks came by the A&S 50 booth, and that most of them were already on-board with the Challenge. Hurray! She also said that lots of other folks were interested in attending, but too busy RUNNING the event to get to attend. She plans to hold A&S 50 Sessions at some of their local events this fall, to give everyone a chance to get involved. All in all, good things! Thank you, Teresa Wrong Way Giani!

As it turns out, it was a VERY good call for me not to attend the event - I got sicker, my husband was down for 24 hours, and both of my kids got it too. Then we had a massive 'pack away that stuff from Pennsic, we have a houseguest coming' cleanup, and then he came, and it was wonderful, but tiring! My house looks FAR nicer, but the website? Not so much. I'm still recovering from it all, but hope to pick up the pace considerably this weekend, including a conference call with our webguru, Alaxandr. My goal at this point is to have the site up for Oct 1. It probably won't have either the forums or the Contact List database or its front end up yet, but every journey begins with a single step. Did you know that walking is considered to be a form of controlled falling? Sounds about right!

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How NOT to infect 50 people

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I'm really bummed out, but it looks like I'm not going to Canterbury afterall; I'm sick. :( The A&S 50 Session WILL be happening though, with Teresa of the Wrong Way Giani running it! Hurray! (I LOVE LOVE LOVE adaptable people who can take something on at the last minute and run with it! I will also admit to being nervous about the first time someone else runs a session, but my trepidation is WAY down, now that I know that first person is going to be Wrong Way!)

I AM still really bummed out, though. I wanted to go the event, for starters - it looks REALLY cool (and I even dug around and found out that my sideless surcoats - made for Viking stuff - would have been tolerably ok for 14th Century!) - and I was looking forward to trying the Artisan's Row concept too. :( Hopefully they'll hold the event again next year, and I can get a second chance at it?

Oh well, at least the Session will still be happening at what I'm sure will be a VERY happening event! Hurray! Hmmm... maybe I can drag my laptop into bed with me and make some more progress on the website... presuming that my computer can't pick up my virus! ;)

To all of you heading to Canterbury this weekend, ENJOY! (and tell me all about it, so I can live vicariously!)

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Riding the Tiger

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The symbol of the most noble Kingdom of the East is a Tiger, and my husband has just said that I need to learn how to ride one. I was just about to go to bed, but found two letters in my mailbox; turns out one from someone who wants to start running A&S 50 sessions in her home Kingdom, and the other is from a Kingdom I have never even heard of before tonight (sad, but true.)

While these are both *amazing* things, since they mean that the project is growing and that folks are actually interested, it is making me panic a little bit too...

I have hoped that this would happen, but now that the Challenge has hit a growth spurt, I'm not really sure how to handle it. I have known that I'm going to need to let go of this to some extent to let it *run,* but I can't help but be afraid of where it might go without me there to guide it in person. It isn't like the Challenge is my adult child, capable of making decisions for itself; I would be letting other speak for ME. My concept, my goals... how do I know that other presenters will, well, get it *right?*

Obviously, others may have ideas that make the Challenge even better, but there is always that chance that I, and the project, will be grossly misrepresented. If someone ran an A&S session and stomped on someone's dream or inexperience, I would feel like I owed them an apology for letting that person speak for the project, but the project can't grow unless I DO let others speak for it.

Part of me wants to 'screen' people - get to know them a little before I 'approve' of their representing me. And, yet, I know that they wouldn't be representing ME (even though this WAS my baby), but the project, which belongs to all of us now. I guess I'm trying to figure out my role in the larger 'organization' now that it isn't completely housed under my one roof here in the Freehold.

One of my guiding principles behind the challenge is that no one can tell another person that they are doing the Challenge *wrong.* We each have our own independant goals, and I hope that the Challenge (and its community) will help many people to reach theirs. To that end, I guess I really just want to be the philosophical leader of the project - folks can work out paperworky stuff, meetings, exhibitions, etc as they like, and as would fit their communitiesand their needs, but the Philosophy behind the project; THAT I feel called to keep tabs on, even at a distance.

I don't want to manage, but I think that I need to guide. Now the question is HOW...

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Tally update and site results

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GNE this last weekend was LOVELY. I got to camp with localish folks that I didn't know well and now do, and, ta da! I got to watch a new lovely friend be inducted into the order of the Maunche (Kingdom level A&S) - vivat Robert of Stonemarche, calligrapher, embroiderer, and new voice herald of the East! Hurray!

I also added to my Challenge tallies - I taught pre-1300 weave structures again, ran a Challenge session, and learned how to Viking wire weave!

The new website is doing well too, in large part thanks to the constructive critiques of those on the Apprentice List. If you haven't looked at it since today (7/18) go take a fresh peek, especially at the first page; I've clarified the details of the Challenge itself and have even added a new twist to the Breadth Challenge - the "complete persona package" - 50 different things that one's persona would know, have, or know how to do. I got the idea tangentally from my friend Ardenia, (who was, incidentally, the only person to complete Master Henry McQueen's Challenge at Northern Lights a few years ago) since she had basically entered a megapent with things that all went with her ME dancing (garb, food, performance, make-up, you name it).

I thought this new addition might help give folks some focus in their search for new things, and might provide a more satisfying collection when completed than 50 unrelated things might do. No requirement to do this, just an idea. ;)

Anyway, the new site has had going on 140 hits just in the last few days, which is just amazing! I'm not really sure though, how to get folks to participate in the forums. So far Angelique and Ysemay are the only folks who have, as Ysemay put it 'joined me out on [my] limb.' I have posted 'starter' threads on most of the topics, but folks just don't seem to be taking the bait... Ideas, as usual, are MOST welcome.

Most interesting thing about the project today? I've been asked if I am available to meet with Challengers at *ESTRELLA*! My complete lack of understanding of the geography of the Known World is decidedly period - I didn't know that meant ARIZONA, and I certainly didn't know that was in the Kingdom of Atenveldt! (if I even spelled that correctly!)

I hopes that this Challenge was going to take me places, but I didn't anticipate foreign lands! :)

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Join me!

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The 50th Anniversary of the SCA is a thing to celebrate, and I'd love to make my personal project into a community event. If you or your group would like to join me, welcome! You can comment here, send me links to your site to include here, etc, so we can best figure out how to give each other some support. (Want to get 50 gentles in a web ring?)

Anyway, if others join me, I'd love to create an online exhibition of our work, or maybe even a travelling show to all the Kingdoms, however many we have in AS 50!

No idea what to work on? Here are some other ideas other I had:

• 50 scrolls or scroll blanks for your (or even another!) local group
• 50 entries in A&S competitions
• 50 hours of A&S service - to your guild, to helping newbies garb up, to making reports for your group, to research for folks in your Shire, at Herald's Point, etc.
• 50 new pieces of music to perform
• 50 dance performances
• 50 new folks in your A&S network (from outside your Kingdom?)
• 50 bundles of herbs for chefs to incorporate into their feasts
• 50 new dishes/drinks to cook/brew/prepare
• 50 new links on your local groups website to sites of interest
• 50 Collegia and Kingdom Universities to attend (ambitious!)
• 50 new style variations in your scribal/embroidery repetoire
• 50 new pieces of armor to suit up your local army
• 50 pairs of shoes to plug the most glaring hole in most gentle's garb
• 50 classes to either attend or teach
• 50 articles/books to write, read or translate
• 50 gentles you answer A&S questions for!

I'd like to invite groups to create goals as well. Some of my ideas, beyond the above, include:

• 50 new decorated panels for your camp enclosure for War
• 50 pieces of garb to make/collect for Gold Key (borrowing)
• 50 bardic circles to host or classes to offer
• 50 pieces to enter in A&S shows
• 50 ways in which to make one's Household more period

Other ideas gratefully accepted; who knows what your comments here might inspire? Can you imagine if groups all over the Known World started churning out period footwear? Or teaching more classes than ever? (I'd be in heaven!)

While I'm at it, I'd like to point out that many of these activities could just as easily be part of a project called "the Service 50," and that is deliberate. Our Dream is not a solitary one; and sharing of my skills, time and knowledge are some of the greatest gifts that I have ever *received.* Most Scadians act this way as a matter of course, and that is one of the things that has made the SCA what it is today, and will soon have been for 50 years!

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