The Monday Circus.

.....Mondays are always tough. Everyone at work seems to want to catch up on stuff they let slide on Friday, and hurry up and get ready for the stuff they have on their plates for the upcoming week. So panic always seems to be in the air. Add to that all the cobweb clearing to be done from being home for two days straight, and it can be a real grindstone. Have I mentioned how much I hate Mondays?

.....This one is actually kind of interesting though, in a rather frustrating way. Dame Angharad has been maintaining Facebook in support of September Crown. We have been putting out messages to let people know they should make sure and pack some water. At first we weren't sure of how we would tap into the water available on site, and whether it was drinkable. Then, when we were given permission to tap into that water and were assured that it was drinkable, it was noted that it was a distance away from most of the camping. So we continued to encourage people to bring their own water to site. Dame Angharad dutifully promoted this on Facebook. And was pretty much beaten over the head for it with demands that all Teams should ensure sites had adequate drinking water before they were allowed to be part of a bid.

.....Dame Angharad handled it quite well actually. On my weekly informational e-mail on September Crown I'm sending out tonight, I'm making sure to include a note on drinking water. Hopefully people read it and regain some calm.

.....Working our way through the vehicle and parking issue. We're publishing notes on all the Parking Passes that essentially state people have 30-minutes to unload their gear once they get to their campsites. We are trying to get cars moved off the camping area as quickly as possible. We have never used this site for an SCA event before. We don't know its particular quirks and pitfalls and I'm being cautious. The fewer cars located in camping means fewer potential traffic jams.

.....People sent Angharad posts expressing their concern with the policy. I will have to spend some time clarifying that policy I think. It really is a hollow 'threat'. We're not planning on towing vehicles. We're not planning on standing around with stopwatches and timing people so they can be bullied out of the area after the 30-minute mark has passed. It is essentially an awareness issue. We really need people to move their vehicles off-site as quickly as possible.

.....I put this subject on today's Informational as well. We'll see what kind of response I get to it directly. If people seriously become unglued, we may need to soften that stance just a bit over the next several weeks. But as an awareness thing? It may be doing its intended purpose anyway.

.....I actually had fun at Summer Madness this last weekend. I was not looking forward to it on Friday as it had already been a long week and I have a 'to-do' list about ten miles long. I pulled myself out of bed on Saturday morning and had to convince myself that I needed to get dressed and get into the car.

.....But once we arrived on site? I had a lot of fun and the day seemed to just breeze by. Although it was HOT out there. I did redden up a bit. Thankfully there was a slight breeze every now and then, and I don't think it was as hot as was predicted. But it was still too hot for me none-the-less. :-)

.....We witnessed Morgan complete the Armored Combat portion of his Serjeantry Trials later in the morning. He and Conchobar sparred for around forty minutes. Morgan is a beast with two weapons. It was mesmerizing to watch. And inspirational. That's actually what I have enjoyed the most from the Serjeantry Trials, the inspiration that comes from watching the candidates perform and succeed.

.....After the individual one-on-one combat forms, Diomedes and Ajax joined in for some squad tactics and leadership trials. Again, in my opinion, Morgan was awesome in everything he did. It was magnificent to watch.

.....About an hour after the combat trials, it was time for the candidates to perform their bardic and dance trials. There were seven candidates present: Master Cedric, THL Morgan, THL Caius, THL Nidda, THL Jenae, THL Magdalena and Lord Albrecht. I enjoyed all of their bardic performances. I think the audience did as well as they maintained their attention throughout. :-)

.....For the dance portion, they all demonstrated the same two dances: Double Bransle and Horses Bransle. In such a large class it is a difficult thing to say they all need to do something different. But we may have to consider that for next year. I don't know. I'm still on the fence at the moment. *I* like dancing, but there are many who would otherwise have nothing to do with it.

.....The final dance was a Carolingian Pavane. Each of the candidates pulled a member of the audience out on to the dance floor with them and taught them the steps to the music. Then everyone lined up and we went danced through complete. At that point they had completed their dance trials. But we still kept dancing for one more song, the Korabushka, which is probably my favorite dance.

.....After that, it was time to set up for the potluck. Theodoric and Ella did a great job with all the cooking. I enjoyed the sausages and pork immensely. I certainly did not go away hungry, that's for sure. :-)

.....We sat around for a couple of hours, until early evening when the Mosquito Air Force came out in force from the surrounding swamps. It was like an air raid, with all of us running for our cars to get the heck out of there as quickly as possible. :-)

.....As we left for the evening I was once again reminded that we had survived a June Faire in the Uplands of Port Gamble one year. It was not our best June Faire, but we did survive. Which further reminded me that September Crown will be fine as that site is larger than the Uplands and will do fine for what we need it to do.

.....On Sunday we scooted back up to site to help Gwenllyn and Loric take down site and pack it all into vehicles for next weekend, when we'll go back to the Uplands for Huntsman's Challenge. :-) I anticipate it will be even easier than the picnic as I think we'll not have to be on site so early. But Sunday may be a challenge as we'll start working on plans to get all the bales of hay moved to the September Crown site.

.....Sigh, one thing at a time. Have to survive the week first.

.....Tonight is the last testing session before Serjeantry Trials itself. A Corpora Test tonight, based on Kingdom Law and Society Corpora. Ten essay questions. It should go fairly quickly as Magdalena gave a stellar training session to most of the candidates. Although, to be honest, most of them knew all the answers before Magdalena even started speaking. :-)

.....Tomorrow night is the regular Social at the VFW. I do not think we have anything scheduled for Wednesday or Thursday, which may be a miracle! But maybe I'll be able to get caught up with a few things dealing with September Crown. Then on Friday, back up to the Uplands to help with Huntsman's Challenge set-up.

.....And the wheel turns again. :-) The following week will be the roll-up to Serjeantry Trials on Saturday the 18th. The 19th will be a day of moving hay bales, and maybe a water tank if we're lucky, out to the September Crown site. If we can make that happen we might have the weekend of August 25th/26th open to actually get ourselves ready for Crown. I'm hoping for that at any rate.

.....Aaron / Arontius.