June Faire XXX Court.

.....Oi! I'm glad it's Friday! It's been a rather long week! Even though we have Honey War to attend tomorrow, we'll still be able to sleep in for a little and the schedule will not be a race. So maybe we will get to relax a little bit. I'm really tired and looking forward to Sunday, when I really get to sleep in some! :-)

.....Lots of thoughts still churning in my head from June Faire. Many impressive things happened as part of the event. Some things that worked, but could have worked better. And some things that didn't work at all, or were foo-filled beyond normal. I want to get all of this down in black-and-white, but maybe one thing at a time for a while. Like a bunch of tangled strings, if I pull out one at a time maybe I can get them all organized.

.....One thing that worked for me, finally, was Baronial Court on Saturday. TBT is a professional at that type of interaction, so Court has never been a big deal to her. But I am not a natural at all. I'll never forget my very first Court at Yule Feast in 2011. What a disaster! I kept blanking out in mid-sentence. Kept getting flustered over what to say. Kept turning to TBT to carry on the conversation. Never seemed to know where I needed to be at any given moment.

.....But improvement has been steady. I have my own way of getting myself organized, and when I started doing that more for myself and then integrating it within TBT's style, things became much smoother and more efficient for me. The Court Staff has been excellent and professional throughout this period. Between them and TBT carrying the conversation at times, it has definitely helped prevent me from looking like a complete idiot. :-)

.....AS usual, Tsuruko put out a preliminary agenda for June Faire Court. She plugged in all the notes from our retinue meeting to make it as complete as possible with the information she had. At work, I routinely put together agendas and run meetings by them. They keep me organized and focused and help from meandering and getting lost. Once I put one together and familiarize myself with it, I usually don't need to even have it with me as I have it imprinted on my mind. But it makes a great starting point to get myself organized in the first place.

.....I opened up Tsuruko's agenda and started adding to it. The new awards with the new names we'd developed for them. I added business that had come up since the last retinue meeting and then anything else TBT and I thought important. Then I organized the listing in a format that let us easily add and subtract items from that list. Since Their Majesties had at least two hours worth of business, we decided that we needed to hold our Court to an hour. TBT and I looked at our list of business and did our best to time it to an hour in length.

.....After TBT had reviewed the list and essentially gave her blessing to it, I studied it so I had a good idea on how it was going to flow. I made copies for Caius and the rest of the Court staff to review and have available. Then I went through each line item and made sure we had scrolls, medallions and any other materials needed to support each items of business. Some of the new awards were so new that we did not have scrolls for them, so we had to generate promissory notes for them.

.....Thankfully, we had plenty of necklaces and medallions to pass out with each award. Gwenllyn and Company have made dozens and dozens of necklaces. I think at this point we have enough necklaces to give one to every single member of the Barony! Although I am NOT complaining. I think this is great! And to top that off, Rebecca added to the stash just before June Faire itself.

.....I wrote some words for some of the new awards and TBT made up the scrolls on the computer and printed them up. They looked nice. We made sure we had a scroll and a specialty medallion for the new Wyvern (Caius). Conchobar painted a special scroll on some wood in an Elizabethan styling that looked especially great! :-)

.....Saturday afternoon, TBT and I started organizing over an hour before Court. We pulled out all the Court Business and placed it in order on one of the back tables, making sure that all the supporting material was in place. Some items had to be shuffled and replaced. We pulled out medallions and necklaces. Made sure we had all the appropriate prizes, and the right number, were available.

.....At the same time, the Court Coordinator, Tsuruko, and the Court Herald, Caius, were making up note cards for all the business happening during Court. Familiarizing themselves with everything to be presented. They were also preparing to have guest heralds dropped into the schedule. The Serjeantry Candidates are required to perform an item of Court Business and they were all lined up to be ready for this to happen.

.....At around 5:30PM, we lined up in a Processional and followed Their Majesties into Court. It was actually a Royal Court with lots of Their own business. About an hour into Their Court, They turned it over to us and Caius did a great job of stepping right into the swing of things. After a few up front wobbled, his voice and presence settled into a nice and regal flair. The Baronial Court Staff flowed! Tsuruko and Gwenllyn passed materials to us smoothly and efficiently. We were always being passed materials right when we needed. We had a nice rhythm where TBT would give the necklaces and medallions and I would give the scrolls to the recipients.

.....I took on more of the vocal role during this Court. For some reason, I still find it nerve wracking to speak in Baronial Court. Which is odd as I have no problems conducting meetings or giving presentations at work. I figure it has something to do with how I think of my audiences. At work, it is professional and impersonal for the most part. In the SCA it is more familial. But I'm working on it and TBT let me go to town. I only wobbled a few times, which made me feel a little more confident.

.....Those times I stumbled are when I blanked out on the deeds of those who were being presented awards. I'd look at them and forget completely why they were there. I think next time I need to put those notes on the Court Agenda. Shortened bullets maybe instead of complete notes, just something to queue a reminder. That might help prevent the blanking out.

.....One of my favorite presentations was for the awarding of the Serjeantry Cloaks to THL Jahnkin and THL Madrun, who had both completed their Quests after they completed their Trials last December. For me, it was the culmination of a lot of angsting and work. I spoke to the reasons why I thought the Quest was important and touched base on what the Quests were for Jahnkin and Madrun. I had a lot more I wanted to say, but in my mind the clock was ticking loudly and going 'faster...faster...faster...'. So I kept the presentation short.

.....TBT had been working on the cloaks up until the very last minute. To someone unfamiliar with our thought process, they looked rather simple and unadorned, but that just fed into what I wanted to say. That being the newness and freshness of the new members of Serjeantry. And how, over time, the cloaks would be weighty with the experiences each Quest brought to the Serjeantry members. Those experiences translated into tokens that would be added to the cloaks over time.

.....It was an exciting moment for me. We're going to have the new members speak the tales of their Quests at the Baronial Picnic later this summer, and we'll have a lot more to say at that time. But it looks like the primary mission is being accomplished. People are interested and asking questions and thinking that they would like to try the Serjeantry Program for themselves. It is my hope that this excitement will continue to feed the Program.

.....The other favorite presentation of mine was for The Dragon's Keep. This is a new award of ours being given to households who have devoted themselves to the Barony or given special and / or extended service to the Barony. We gave this first one to House Awry. The household nominally headed by THL Conrad Ross, son of Cedric and Brighid. The entire household made a lot of noise as Conrad approached the thrones, and even more as they were called to rise and approach. It turned into a very special moment. House Awry has worked hard behind the scenes, especially at June Faire, for many years now. It is good to see them recognized for all that hard work.

.....We gave out a Wyvern (extended service to the Barony), Snapdragons (service), Bumblebees (arts & sciences), Dragon's Company (service to the martiallate), the Dragon's Keep, and an Argent Pavilion (for distinguished and period (or 'perioid') encampments. We also managed to adopt two people into the Barony (Mistress Morgaine and Mistress Althaia). Prizes were given for the Martiallate Championships of the day. War was formally arbitrated by Druim Doineann (a story unto its own). The Serjeantry Cloaks given. It was a long Baronial Court.

.....But as we gave our last presentation and sent Court back to Their Majesties, I took note of my watch. We had done the entire agenda, and had done it in one hour and five minutes! Outstanding! We couldn't have done it without Tsuruko, Brian Devereaux, Caius and Gwenllyn working as an efficient Team behind us. The Baronial Champions even assisted with the movement of material and largesse to speed things up. Between THL Richard (Heavy Champion), THL Mateusz (Arts and Sciences Champion) and Roderkr (Thrown Weapons Champion), we were well attended!

.....THL Talia, our Bardic Champion sat in front of us in her best entertainer garb (after providing the food we ate during Court. Thank you, Talia!!!!). She sat alongside THL Nidda, the Kingdom Bardic Champion, and was as energetic as Nidda in keeping the audience entertained. We may have to ask her to continue with that over the rest of her tenure. :-) I was especially convinced of that the following day as Talia sang in Court for us to keep things rolling while we were trying to get organized.

.....After Their Majesties took back control of Court, TBT had a drink and I finally relaxed some. Court went really well and I was grateful! :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.