Schold Farm Review.

[arontius]

.....Well, Arion took us on a tour yesterday of Schold Farm outside of Silverdale, a potential June Faire Site. It had its good points, bad points and ugly points.

.....The Good: It is more-or-less a level grassland throughout the site. Even though it is located within some wetlands areas, the useable areas actually look like they remain above high tide. :-) I'll have to make a run out there the next time it rains heavily to see how the ground looks.

.....The site is rather good looking, with most modern-ness hidden from view. The Clear Creek Trail system runs through the area, so there are nice footpaths, bridges, stream accesses, etc. When set up properly the ambience could be really nice.

.....The site can be contained from vehicle traffic. There is only one real road onto site, and a maybe one exit. If this can be turned completely into a one-way situation, it could work out O.K. Ghosting from the SCA would be difficult unless people wanted to haul in all their equipment down one of the multiple footpaths onto site. :-)

.....The useable areas look to be about the same size as the uplands at Port Gamble, with more actual USEABLE lands. A church owns part of the territory, and it is large enough to use as a parking area. There is also a privately owned farm to the north of the property that has a potential of use, maybe for parking or more camping.

.....The county is apparently hurting for funding at the moment to maintain their parks system and now would be a good time to negotiate a deal.

.....The Bad: There are several site owners, all of whom would require a different set of negotiation. A 'Citizens Advisory Committee' runs the actual Schold Farm itself. This is the same group with whom Chris Schultz and I dealt with a handful of years ago. They were a grumpy bunch then, but their emphasis seems to have centered on Howe Farm in Port Orchard. We'd have to more-or-less deal with just the county on Schold Farm, which might make things a little easier.

.....The Clear Creek Trail System runs throughout the site, with multiple walking and biking paths. I doubt that we could close down access over the weekend.

.....Parking would probably be an issue. I'm not sure where we would park all the modern traffic. A good suggestion that was brought forth was to park cars at the mall and bus people on to site. Would certainly reduce the impact of cars on the site itself and remove many traffic and parking hassles.

.....The impact on the grounds itself could be an issue. The area is 'protected' and there could be restrictions on traffic on the grounds. How long vehicles could be parked on the grass, how many roads are made, etc. But the SCA has a good history of leaving sites in better condition than we found them, so I think that this hurdle could be jumped.

.....The Ugly: The site is a wetlands area. Even though it looks like it is relatively high above the tide line, I'm not sure what the area would be like after a good rain. Parts of it could turn into a swamp.

.....After taking out the non-useable wetlands areas, the site is not huge. We'd have to be careful of what we put where and just how many people camp over the weekend. We might even have to consider a pre-registration system that puts a cap on the total number of people on site. Which creates headaches on its own.

.....Overall, I like the site. But I don't see it as any kind of permanent home for June Faire. It has the potential to host a time or two, but I think that the environmental and recreational goals of those maintaining the site would not fit very well with the purpose of June Faire, which is, in reality, more of a circus than anything. Arion asked me for a letter of intent to take to the county, which I'll draft and run through him for review.

.....I'm actually a little worried about June Faire and its future at this point. It's growth may preclude its existance in Kitsap County. Reducing its size would be difficult. I worry that any tinkering along those lines would result in a mass exodus on the scale of Egils. I think that we're going to have to get more serious about scouring the county for potential sites, and then working hard with those sie owners, if we want to find any sort of real home for June Faire. The Fairgrounds may be our only final option. We've used it before, but it isn't my favorite option, that's for sure.

.....More to follow.

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Comments

[greywolfe64.livejournal.com]

Aaron,
How's the negotiations going for the Tribal/Art School land in Poulsbo? I know that its hilly but if we can get the land and start working on mapping it we can design an intelligent usage plan early. Just a thought.

Parking away from site and bussing doesn't seem to work very well and I think it only exasperates the moderns. With the Fairgrounds we at least have sufficient parking on site.

[hrollaug.livejournal.com]

I'm not recalling right now, didn't we pass on this site once before?
I have a dim recall we looked at it during a "spring" period and found that there was too little room for June Fair. The addition of neighboring land should help.
I wouldn't be worried about the paths, they actually don't see all that much use

[gwen-the-potter.livejournal.com]

What about Mintor Creek Farm? Do you think since the Renn Faire is no longer there, that perhaps they may want a Medieval Faire? We know a bit more about it. Sure, it's out of the local area, but if we have to have a large site, that may be a solution.

[brighidross.livejournal.com]

I know I am Pollyanna, but I am not pessimistic. June Faire may well change...it certainly has over the last 15 years...but I think if we keep focus on which aspect of the event we want to nuture, we will find a way to make it work. It may cost more, and not be the cash windfall it has been in the past...but I think the event itself will be fine..no matter how it is re-invented. Let's not forget to contact the Port Gamble S'Klallam tribe also!

[fearga.livejournal.com]

Brighid has a good point here--change isn't always bad. We deliberately re-tooled Egils, *hoping* to cause an exodus, because the event had gotten unweildly, had an abundance of households and people with entitlement issues who didn't do any work, and was killing our small Barony. This last year the event was a much more manageable size, none of our populace got fried, everyone had fun, and we made a stack of money. *More* money than we made on the huge events. It's been a win-win all the way around.

[brighidross.livejournal.com]

That is awesome to hear!!!

[fearga.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Rumors of our demise are greatly exaggerated. :D We're using a smaller version of your Committee, too, to great success.

[brighidross.livejournal.com]

Excellent. If I had my dream situation with June Faire? We would attract many more SCA campers and fewer non member campers (read pirates!). Not quite sure how to do this, but I am doing some serious thinking! We need to make it more attractive to the day trippers. We get them from as far away as 3 Mountains... maybe we need more quality tournaments on Sunday also...

[fearga.livejournal.com]

Encourage those who choose to do Pirates to start their own event. Show them how. :D
You're dealing with quite a few of the same issues we did. Our problem is that we kept trying to fill the needs of OTHERS, not what worked for the *barony*. A long discussion process and a willingness to move away from "iron-clad tradition" to "what serves our populace best" resulted in a much happier group. Was it easy? No. But I love that those who wanted a purely Norse event took on the responsibility of creating it themselves. Grand Thing is way cool and serves *their* needs, and Egils is happy and serves *our* needs. Win-win.

[hrollaug.livejournal.com]

I understand the concern about NM, but the reality is, they are the ones that pay for the event.
I really don't mind non-members paying to fund our fun

[brighidross.livejournal.com]

The problem with that is that the members of the Barony aren't having much fun putting June Faire on. It seems to have become more of a chore than a chance to show off what we do, and encourage new members. I don't want to lose the money...just replace it with people that know the game, or at least have a desire to learn it.

[hrollaug.livejournal.com]

Trust me, I know. I have not been having fun at June Fair for a couple decades now...
A way to generate:

• the funds we need
• the new members we need
• and have fun

all at once, would be ideal.

[fearga.livejournal.com]

Well, a big event isn't always the answer. We rebuilt Egils to focus on bringing people together, providing opportunities for newer folk to actually *participate* in the various activities (artisan's village, peasant games, silly fashion show, dancing, etc) and the smaller size allowed the staff to spend *quality* time with the newer people, instead of being overwhelmed with the masses. We've pushed the "please play with us" theme, and we're going to keep working on it. It's a variant of Cariadoc's "No Audience" article--if the newer folk can touch, participate, do, and talk, they'll stick. The smaller size also promotes more socialization, and less of a need to isolate groups in their camp. And we're going to, in the end, make about $3000 on an event that had about 700 people.

Is this still a public demo?

[wyntersea.livejournal.com]

Unless some of the intentions are changing (and they could be) this event is a public demo as well as an SCA event. Demos seem to be very labor intensive (entertaining more than involving - which might be what is drawing the pirates?) for the sponsoring branch.

You could limit the people camping over but not who is coming through the door.

Re: Is this still a public demo?

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

"No Audience" applies to demo's too... and in spades. Nor is it difficult to involve the public (as in getting them involved intellectually, as actual participation can be problematic), especially when it comes to A&S. But that means moving away from the A&S paradigm of static displays, which we are slowly but steadily doing.

What's drawing the pirates is the opportunity to camp and drink. They aren't really involved in the event in any useful sense of the word.

[brighidross.livejournal.com]

Yes and Yes!!! This is what I would love to see happen. When we were letting people try archery and thrown weapons, we had tons of people come to archery practice. I would love to see a more hands on demo...I think our Arts and Sciences village is going there. And our Gold Key needs to be re-vamped...that is another great way to get peopel "hooked".

Gold Key

[centaur11.livejournal.com]

I saw on a neighboring list that they're having a garage sale of sorts for their outdated Gold Key items. Couldn't we advertise something like that at a fighter practice and at least get the bins down to a manageable level? Then we could start rebuilding Gold Key to have more of what we'd like to see in there. Plus any money made at the garage sale could be put towards fabric for those of us who sew to make T-Tunics.

Re: Calligraphy Key

[wyntersea.livejournal.com]

One of the potential "demo" for later involvement points might be advertising follow on classes for varoius interests - contacts for the Scribal guild and other arts interests (though many need reminders by e-mail at the least for when these are coming up) and maybe where the local fighter practice.

There is a slightly different approach when looking to provide something interesting to the general public and looking for those that are interested in getting involved in the SCA... most of the public at June Faire isn't interested in joining the SCA they are there to be entertained (and you might have had a lot more if the news about the Renn Faire cancellation had gotten out sooner).

At Kent Canterbury we used to have sign up sheets for those interested in more information about the SCA that we would contact (e-mail seems to be the least intimidating way though early on it was phone numbers - not sure what Dragons Laire does at June Faire. I saw the gate for non-members to go through, but it seemed like after that they were mostly wandering (might have just been a perception, because I was busy Royal Scribing at the event). Hourly tours would be good with a good spokesperson for the SCA:-}

okay time to post before my internet time times out:-s

Re: Calligraphy Key

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

"most of the public at June Faire isn't interested in joining the SCA they are there to be entertained"

If that's true, we are doing something badly wrong.

[gwen-the-potter.livejournal.com]

Amen. I think smaller and "Quality" is better than larger and "Quantitity".

Question though on that property and RVs - will they work? Believe me, I don't want to stop using my RV, it has made my eventing easier - to the point that I would have left the SCA if I had not gotten an RV. But, if there are lots of concerns about the land, it's something to be concerned about. There are lots and lots of RVers in An Tir.

[brighidross.livejournal.com]

I dont think any property for June Faire would be approved that could not accomodate RVs. As the SCA grows older this is something that will have to be be thought about more and more.

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

Isn't there considerable highway noise?

[fugazi2112.livejournal.com]

Would the fact that a Church shares the ground cause problems during times when they have their services?

[brighidross.livejournal.com]

The church owns the land but hasn't built anything on it yet. So until they do.....

[brighidross.livejournal.com]

We didn't notic a lot of noise yesterday...there is a tree barrier between most of the site and the hiway. But there are still some hefty challenges to the site.

Olympic College

[centaur11.livejournal.com]

Were you able to make contact with the Poulsbo property owner (between Olympic College and Walmart)? Looks plenty big enough to me...