Happy Birthday to Us!!!

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Hello, Challenge Community!!! (cross-posted from our Yahoo site)

Today is our Birthday, and I hope we each have a good one! :)

Challengers officially signed up in our Database will hopefully be
receiving Birthday Cards between now and next Monday night, and I
hope you all enjoy writing them and sharing the joy!

I would like to take a moment while I may to thank those folks on
this [yahoo group] list who have *no intention* of officially becoming Challengers
themselves. You are the observers, the promoters of A&S, the good
gentles who are here to act simply as resources and sounding boards
for our many and diverse projects. You may not be Challengers, but
you are most certainly valued members of our Challenge Community, and
we thank you for being here! :)

As of today, we have 158 members of this Yahoo group Challenge
Community, and 90 people officially signed up for the Challenge in
the database! We also have a *bunch* of local and regional
listserves going, seven Kingdoms have Coordinators, and we have held
meetings at Pennsic, Estrella, and Gulf Wars, as well as at Rowany
Festival in Lochac. Challengers come from 17 out of 19 Kingdoms, and
two sitting members of the Royalty are members of our Community.

The fact that all of this growth has occured in just the one year
since I had a little idea, and wrote about it in a few places,
honestly boggles my mind. I'm so glad we have all found one another!

My present to the Community is a newly updated website (which will be
able to be found at ArtsAndSciences50.org as soon as it spreads
through each internet cache, or whatever they're called), with an
expanded FAQ, and a list of Coordinator contacts and local/regional
listserves. I was hoping to complete an annotated webography of
resources on how to do good documentatation, but it just hasn't
happened yet, sorry. I DID archive and remove all of the technically
awkward forums there though (I'll post them in the files section
here, once I've tidied them up a bit), and I discovered that there
were *quite* a few folks on there who have not yet joined us [on the yahoo site], so
I guess I have tracking them all down as another project to add to my
to-do list!

Anyway, my hopes for us for our second year together include Kingdom
Coordinators for each Kingdom, visible representation for us at each
Inter-Kingdom War, and official Challengers hailing from every
Kingdom. Compared to what we've already accomplished, I feel like
these are more like predictions, than wishes! :)

*I* think we are doing a great job by our motto - "to learn and share
of our learning, to create and share of our creation." When I look
at the posts on [our yahoo] list, I see folks experimenting and discovering,
helping others find sources, both within our Community and beyond,
and I hear reports (and see pictures!) of works in progress, and of
them being exhibitted and entered, and even offered to others. What
more COULD we be doing to share our philosophy with the Knowne
World? (Actually, that's a pretty good question, and I invite your
answers!)

My BIGGEST wish for all of us is simple though - that we all keep on
having **FUN**!!!

Happy Birthday to Us, and ENJOY!
Albreda

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The Buzz

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I've been hearing from lots of folks that they have been hearing about the Challenge on List X or Blog Y, so I googled the Challenge and read some blogs. Wow. Folks are copying the entire front page off the website into their blogs and newsletters. Folks are talking and talking and talking about this. Folks are feeling oddly guilty if they are NOT doing the Challenge.

Yikes.

One thing came up that I really feel needs addressing though; someone said that they didn't see the point in 'banging out' 50 things for some arbitrary target. I couldn't agree more! Our motto isn't "do 50 things and be done with it," but "to learn and share of our learning, and to create and share of our creation." If folks aren't taking, as their 50, those things that will *take their work to the next level,* well, I just feel like they are cheating themselves.

Likewise, the SHARING part of the Challenge is critical - any of us can work on 50 things in isolation, and feel good about it, but we'd miss the Community aspects of the Challenge - shared passion, shared discovery, shared support. Sometimes we'll be of equal experience, and can learn together; other times we can mentor each other, and, as my mother likes to say, we often find out what we do NOT know by trying to teach someone else, so everyone benefits in these relationships too. It is our Community that is our greatest strength, and the part that makes the SCA work - I doubt we'd be approaching AS 50 if we didn't love getting together so much...

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What an A&S 50 Session *is*

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I talk here about a lot of my goals for this Challenge, both as an artist, and as its facilitator, but what happens at the sessions I hold at various events?

Well...

* Networking - meeting folks who are interested in doing the Challenge and in supporting their fellow artists in taking their work to the next level, (whatever that level may be), and generally getting to know the people behind the work so we can pick each others brains.

*Brainstorming - new ideas for projects, new solutions for old problems, new ways of presenting our art and classes, who might be a good contact person for someone, ways to expand folks' exposure and understanding of A&S

*Info Exchange - resources of all sorts (supplies, teachers, books, websites, etc), as well as sharing experiences with entering/running A&S competitions and exhibits, getting new folks involved in A&S, teaching and running roundtables, etc

Where other classes focus on single subjects, A&S 50 sessions broaden the view, discussing the A&S and the A&S community in general; how to make it more accessible, supportive and fun for all.

I hope this helps, and I hope you will join us at a session coming to an event near you!

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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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8+ years to go....

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So I'd better get started!

I have set myself the challenge of 50 Arts and Sciences projects before the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism - look up SCA.org if you have no idea what I'm talking about) turns 50 years old on May 1, 2015. It might sound like a really long lead time, but that averages out to one new project every 2 months, which means that I'll be busy!

The way I see it, this challenge can break down into Breadth and Depth:

• Breadth: 50 projects in 50 different styles, disciplines, subjects, etc., or,
• Depth: 50 of one kind of project, more or less alike.

The former really appeals to me, because, as a Jane (or Brunhilda) of all trades, I love trying something new. The latter also appeals to me, since I would love to really explore one art/skill in depth.

So, silly me, I think I'll do *both.*

• I am going to try 50 NEW things. Some might be completely new disciplines for me (like I'd like to learn how to do some rudimentary celestial navigation), while others might just be a further development of a skill/knowledge that I already have (like I'd really like to try gold leaf illumination work with REAL gold leaf instead of imitation.)

• I am going to make 50 NEW pieces of garb. My twin one year old daughters will likely get most of these as they grow, but hopefully my husband and I will get some new stuff out of it, and hopefully I'll clothe another gentle or two in the process as well.

• I will also try to teach 50 SCA classes. I have taught a variety of subjects over the years, and really don't want to stop doing so, even though I now have the added considerations of mothering small children at events. Plus, trying to get all those classes into only 8 years means I might have to go back to Pennsic in that time just to get them all in. >:)

Fortunately I have a bit of a breather before May 1, 2007/AS 42, and my official start of this project. Too bad that my sewing today and my teaching tomorrow won't count...

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