arontius | Entries tagged with june faire site

.....It's been a long week and I need to distract myself from the huge pile-o'rama of stuff on my desk, at least for a moment. :-)

.....Spent most of this week dealing with a migraine. For me it is a two to three day phenomenon. I can feel the pressure and light sensitivity the first day or so. Then the full blown migraine itself on the second day. Then the third day is spent in a migraine 'hangover', which is where I find myself today. Sort of disconnected and a little wonky. But I am grateful that I'll be done with the damned thing before Last Chance this weekend. I was grumpy most of this week, but thankfully TBT knew all the right things to say to make me happier. :-)

.....I'm also grateful for Last Chance being approximately 500 yards from my front door. :-) I can go home and grab all of those forgotten items whenever needed. I can go home and grab a nap or use the shower or make a for-real lunch. Hmmm, I could get used to this. Now if I could only get June Faire moved to the Fairgrounds..... :-)

.....The Kitsap County Parks and Recreation Department is a frustrating place. I've been trying for a while now to get something going on possibly using the Fairgrounds for June Faire. They acknowledge that they have received my application. But the Department Director has to review and approve the thing before they can negotiate the final price and send me a contract. Argh! So in the meantime I'm bugging the heck out of Port Gamble to ensure that we have the town squared away AND NO WEDDINGS ARE BOOKED so that we can hold June Faire 2009 in town.

.....We have the new Chairperson on board for June Faire. They officially accepted the post yesterday. They reviewed the line-up and agreed that they could work with all on the Team. I have two people to whom I have to discuss their positions and then we can announce to the world the Team. I'll be able to wrap that up this weekend.

.....Managed to get a number of SCA things done this week. Copy is submitted for the October Harvest Dance. EIF is complete for the 'Toys-For-Tots' Tourney (which may end up having a few other surprises occur :-)). Finally took care of the insurance for the Culinary Symposium. Received our permission to conflict with Aquaterra for Yule Feast. Submitted a DRF for Candlemas on February 7th. I even managed to catch all of our finances up for The Crier by paying the latest bill from United Mailing Direct. Even with a migraine I managed to make the week work for me. :-)

.....Have had interesting conversations with the site owner for the Port Orchard Airport. It is a 110 acre site with approximately 80 of that being usable, flat, clear ground. It's a nice place that will make a great event site. Maybe not for June Faire, but definitely for a Kingdom Event, a war, Last Chance, and other things.

.....Unfortunately, there are a few hurdles to jump before the owner will let us use the site. He's had some bad luck with people who have wanted to use the site in the past. Extreme Home Makeover utilized the airport as a staging location for the home they remodeled in Olalla. They basically trashed the place. Left all kinds of trash and garbage. Left nails strewn all over the place. Wrecked several stretches of fence that required repair. They paid the bill for what they did, but the Site Owner still had to get all the clean up and repairs done, which was a pain.

.....Then a car club held an event on the site last year. They agreed to pay a rental fee of $1,500.00. The event itself pulled in approximately $900.00 and the car club didn't have the funds to pay the rest of the rental and basically told the Site Owner that they wouldn't pay. Very frustrating.

.....Surprisingly enough, the final straw was Ron with the Renn. Faire. It seems that he made a run to use the airport as a site for the Renn. Faire. I don't know all the details, but Ron did not make the Site Owner happy with his negotiations.

.....So, the Site Owner is reluctant to rent us the site for any reason. I haven't given up though. There is a person here at work who is good friends with the Site Owner. He has held a number of his own events at the Airport that have been successful and he is acting as a mediator for us. He's been to June Faire and knows me fairly well. He's in the process of talking the Site Owner into at least maybe coming to an event and talking to a few people who manage sites we've used in the past. This is giving me a little hope. We'll see where we go from here.

.....Gotta run. Hope to see as many of you as possible at Last Chance this weekend.

.....Aaron / 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.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Arontius of Bygelswade

Known as Michael Aaron Rogers

Entries tagged with june faire site

Friday Musing.

Schold Farm Review.

Profile

July 2021

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags