The Ostgardr commons meeting was held April 20. Here are the minutes/notes as recorded by Nagashima Ichiro Ujimichi. The officers’ reports are attached at the end.

Attendance:

• Suuder Saran, Il-Khan
• Lada Monguligin, Il-Khatun 
• Nagashima Ichiro Ujimichi, Seneschal 
• Francisco de Braga, Exchequer
• Drasma Dragomira, Herald
• Catelin Straquhin, Chatelaine
• Kunigunde Wedemann, Chancellor Minor
• Ervald LaCoudre, Armored Combat Marshal 
• Alec MacLachlan, Fencing Marshal
• Friderich Grimme, Webminister 
• Albrecht Anker, Social Media
• Sofya Gianetta di Trieste, Historian
• Alienor Salton, Whyt Whey Seneschal 
• Ragnarr bláskegg, Brokenbridge Seneschal 
• Angelica di Nova Lipa 
• Gibbs Moryss 
• Edwin the Younger
• Perez ben Meir Gershon
• Jenna Childslayer
• Hanya Vladimirovna Polotskaya
• Richard the Poor
• Victoria Hofmo
• Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin

 Absent Officers:

• Randve L’il Hammar, MoAS
• Arnbiorg Helga Niálsdóttir, Archery Marshal
• Zahra de Andaluzia, Chronicler
• Ian of Clan Mitchell, Chamberlain
• Marion of York, Minister of Lists
• Iola Wulfsdotter , Lions End Seneschal

Opening:

Called to order at 7:30pm

Victoria Hofmo, President of Scandinavian East Coast Museum spoke to us about the Viking Fest. It will be held on Saturday, May 14th in Owl’s Head/Bliss Park in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Catelin Straquhin has volunteered to be involved in planning, but does not want to take point. We need a volunteer to be the lead organizer for this demo. I realize this is short notice, however our participation would be beneficial to the museum, the community, and the Province. That being said, we do not have to participate this year if it is too much and too short.
What is expected of us? Fighting and fencing are our most visual activities and tend to draw a crowd. A&S displays and demonstrations can also be a draw. A Scavenger Hunt will be held for students, to explore displays/demos provided by reenactment organizations. The museum asks each group to send us 6 – 10 questions for the students that are relevant to their offerings. All re-enactment groups are given a stipend.

Officer Report Items For Discussion:

Congratulations to Gibbs Moryss, Edwin the Younger and Hanya Vladimirovna Polotskaya for receiving their Arms, Jenna Childslayer received her Silver Brooch, Ibrahim al-Rashid received a Writ for the Order of The Laurel which will happen at Northern Region War Camp, and Padgraige our Armored Combat Champion received a Silver Wheel. Anyone interested in helping the planning of Ibrahim’s Laurel celebration, contact Lada and she will add you to the gmail discussion group headed by the Sharc Pit.

Ostgardr trim is available for distribution and will be made available at upcoming local events.

With another RP coming in September, it is a good time to write in people for awards, both Kingdom and Provincial. It was recommended that EK wiki pages are used for listing awards, achievements, positions held as officers or event staff. They become a useful reference for your friends to check what awards you have and possibly what awards you should get. Descriptions of awards can be found here:
Provincial: https://ostgardr.eastkingdom.org/provincial-orders-awards/
Kingdom: https://www.sca.org/awards/east.html
To write someone in for awards:
Provincial: email viceregents@ostgardr.eastkingdom.org with recommendations.
Kingdom: https://surveys.eastkingdom.org/index.php/945932
Searchable database to see what awards people have: https://op.eastkingdom.org/op.php

Friderich Grimme said he is planning on running a class on writing someone in for an award. Perhaps to be run during one of the Solars or a weeknight. Jenna suggested that Gianetta <sp?> from An Dubh has run a similar class.

Pollings are sent out periodically by the Crown for the various polling orders. Award process takes about 8-12 weeks. Any recommendations submitted before the end of last year should be resubmitted.

Please pre-register for Pennsic if you are planning on going. Non-Ostgardrians should reach out to the Viceregents for permission to camp with Ostgardr. Meeting to discuss camping with Ostgardr will be scheduled in the not-too-distant future.

Catelin is stepping down as Chatelaine at the end of the month and Albrecht has volunteered to step up as Acting Castellan. A request for letters of intent will be posted at the beginning of the month. Elections to follow that if there is more than one candidate.

Elizabeth Rodriguez <sp?>, site coordinator for Castle Hill YMCA and PS 108 emailed Catelin to ask for a quote or invoice for Ostgardr coming to site to educate kids on Middle Ages and Renaissance culture. Questions for them:

1. What sort of budget are they looking at?

2. What sort of access is there for bringing in equipment?

3. Is there parking available?

4. Do they want this midweek during work hours?

5. Would there be any weapons restrictions?

6. What would they want from us? Lectures, hand-on demos, combat exhibition, etc?

7. What sort of setting would it be in?

8. How many people, for how many hours?

YMCA is a larger organization and a successful demo/lecture would help get us a recommendation for other YMCA facilities in the city. Catelin said she would take point, but would prefer a co-organizer. Albrecht volunteered to assist.

Friderich requested someone with a graphics background design a banner for “Upcoming in Ostgardr” for the website. Three volunteers stepped up.

Fighter practice in McCarren Park has started up again. Ervald is all in favor of fighters organizing trips to various practices and events and wants to know about it so he can get involved too. Ervald has set up a room in his apartment as an armor workshop.

Perez and Albrecht are going to Balfar’s Challenge and Southern Army Sundays the following day.  Padgraige has offered a ride and to transport gear to SAS. There are a couple seats left. Fighters are also going to Daffodils. There should be some fencers at SAS.

E-Horse – Submissions are needed for Summer edition, which should be publish in June.

Coronation Wrap-Up – Food and Decor got rave reviews. Fighting tournament went smoothly.

Going forward:

More parking coordination

Rent all the tents or host events later in the season where we can mark out the sprinkler system and stake things down. Possible replacement for G&W.

Gate would need to be set up on the south lawn field, to prevent mundanes walking through event. Legend was created by Catelin as she ran down and stopped a large quinceañera party from cutting through the event.

Brochures, business cards, and fliers, as well as a number of people for outreach/chatelaine duties would be beneficial.

We need someone to take propane use/handling exam, so we do not need to balance with an off site kitchen. Idea of a food truck was brought up but not really viable for a large event. Perhaps reaching out and getting someone from the FDNY to be there instead of getting a propane certification. Sofya volunteered to get propane certification.

Having a staff member devoted to reminding people to hydrate and eat.

Kunigunde brought up that youth activities area was kind of hidden.

Keeping to schedule would help breakdown squad from getting burnt out.

Event turned a profit despite going way over the food budget.

Richard the Poor brought up info about Unesco website and fun and outrageous activities that took place in the middle ages.

Francisco brought up issue about the fact that we don’t have a refund policy. This discussion has been tabled for the financial committee.

Upcoming Events/Activities

Sponsored by Østgarðr or its Cantons

5/14 Lions End Spring Schola – Levittown, NY

5/14 Viking Fest – Brooklyn, NY ?

Of interest to the populace

4/23 Balfar’s Challenge – Dragonship Haven

4/23 Black Gryphon Inn – Gryphonwald

4/30 Tournament of the Daffodils V – Port Jervis, NY

5/7 East Kingdom Crown Tourney – Nicolet, Quebec

5/27-30 Leonardo’s Quest for Wit and Wisdom – Pittstown, NJ 

6/3-5 Southern Region War Camp – Manalapan, NJ

6/4 Consort’s Championship of Arms – Nazareth, PA

6/16-19 Les Baltaines – Saint-Mathieu-du-Parc, QC 

6/18 Potted Arms and Fancy Faire – Huntington, NY

Upcoming Commons Meetings

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Closing

Meeting closed at 9:35pm

April 2022 Compiled Officer Reports

1. Viceregents • Suuder Saran & Lada Monguligin

Thank you everyone for the amazing work on Coronation. We feel the Province really went above and beyond here and we set a very high bar for other events and especiallyother Coronations across the SCA.

Congratulations to Our Populace who got recognized by Their Majesties at Coronation:

Gibbs Moryss,Edwin the Younger and Hanya Vladimirovna Polotskaya received their Arms

Jenna Childslayer received her Silver Brooch

Ibrahim al-Rashid received a Writ for the Order of The Laurel

and Padgraige our Armored Combat Champion received a Silver Wheel

I am sorry I had the box with the Ostgardr trim with me and completely forgot to hand it off to Alienor to distribute. So… I still have the Box

We are looking for award recommendations for our 3 upcoming courts: Lion’s in Spring Schola 5/14, Pennsic and Barleycorn.

Please also look   consider recommending your friends and fellow SCAdians for Kingdom Awards. We have another Royal Progress happening in Ostgardr in September, which is a very good amount of lead time to write recommendations.

Pennsic is 100 days away. If you are camping with Ostgardr please pre-register so we can get our land. If you are not an Ostgardr resident but would like to camp with Ostgardr please reach out to Suuder and Lada to request permission to camp with Ostgardr.

Do we need to have a Pennsic Camp meeting?

Coronation:

General Feedback from Coronation has been excellent. This is both from Their Majesties and the populace.

The site loved us and will absolutely welcome us back

Things that went REALLY well:

• The food was delicious and keeps getting rave reviews.
• Our decor in coordination with the Royal Decor team looked amazing.

Things that we can do better next time at this site:

• Control on parking at this site. We will need someone who is priority parking who can manage that area directly and tell people to drive off and not park there just because there is space.
• While we did manage to get our tents up with weights. It was not optimal. We need to either rent all the tents we will be using in that space or host events later in the season where we can mark out the sprinkler system and stake things down.
• Gate would need to be set up on the south lawn field. We had a lot of mundane people wandering through because they did not realize this was a private function.
• We got a lot of exposure at the site and having multiple folks to chatelaine on hand with brochures, business cards would be good.
• If we do hot food at this site, we now have enough lead time to have someone take the propane use/handling exam, so we do not need to balance with an off site kitchen.

Budget wise:

We went over budget. Mainly in the food /dayboard bracket.

Here is the financial report for review.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/134aZl28R6_H04V5pZhlAb8rXmYO97FWI/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116064813768068826079&rtpof=true&sd=true

It is pending on me receiving the last of the receipts from Arnbjorg for the food. I am going off the # she gave me here.

I’ve added a tab with our original budget for comparison purposes.

2. Seneschal • Nagashima Ichiro Ujimichi

Thank you everyone for your work in making Coronation a successful event, and congratulations to the Ostgardrian award recipients!

Our chatelaine is stepping down at the end of this month and Albrecht has volunteered to step up temporarily. We will need deputies as well.

On a more somber note, I had to open a bullying and harassment investigation that has gone up the chain beyond the East Kingdom Seneschal. It saddens me that this happened, but I am resolved in my duty as seneschal to perform my duties to the best of my abilities.

3. Exchequer • Francisco de Braga

• Currently waiting for Kingdom to respond to our request to add/remove signatories on our banking account.

• I will be assisting Brokenbridge in an effort to get their new and up to speed.
• Northern Storage deposit is due and will be paid this weekend. I will submit a request for reimbursement afterwards.
• Coronation Refund checks have been issued to those who requested it prior to the event. I am waiting on Reimbursement request submissions and will write appropriate checks for them once reviewed by the event stewards.
• I would like to formally request that we review our Financial policy on event refunds. It does not appear we currently have anything written.
• 2022 – Q1 Reporting is due at the end of this month. As always, anyone wishing to see our quarterly reports (past and/or present) may reach out to me.

4. Herald • Drasma Dragomira

While I do have some submissions rolling from Coronation and beyond the last couple of weeks, if you’re thinking of working on a name, device, or badge, feel free to reach out to me. 

5. Chatelaine • Catelin Straquhin

I’ll be stepping down as Chatelaine after this month. It has been an absolute pleasure working with everyone.

The site coordinater for Castle Hill YMCA has reached out asking for a quote for our demonstration services. They are interested in having us come to educate children on pre 17th century history, focusing on the middle ages and the Renaissance. I think working with them would be an excellent opportunity.

6. Chancellor Minor • Kunigunde Wedemann

My background check went through and I was cleared for working with our youth only days before Coronation! Youth activities were successful at Coronation, although I did expect more kids to come by. All in all, I still had a total of 9 kids come by. Some of them hung out in the Youth Point pavilion and the others made something and left. The most popular project was stab binding, followed by making blue tyger flags. One adult, who was accompanied by children, also learned to do stab binding. A big thank you to Mathghamhain, for being my second adult, and helping to keep things legal by being present at the Youth Pavilion. My next big event to focus on for activities is Barleycorn. 

7. Arts & Sciences • Randve L’il Hammar

No report

8. Armored Combat • Ervald LaCoudre

No report

9. Archery • Arnbiorg Helga Niálsdóttir

No report

10. Fencing • Alec MacLachlan

Fencing practice will resume on Tuesday, April 27th, At McCarren Park in Brooklyn, at 7pm. 

11. Youth Combat • Vacant

No report

12. Minister of Lists • Marion of York

No report

13. Webminister • Friderich Grimme

My report to EK Webminister was submitted on April 5, 2022.

The website for Coronation seems to have been well received.

EK web ministry alerted me to a malformed Fusion Directory entry ‘recording.secretary.’ It looks like this was intended to be an email address but was never set up properly. Since it was not working and does not match an official Ostgardr officer position, I deleted it. We can always remake it if needed.

Wanted: Are there graphics designers among us who could create a banner or graphic/icon for the weekly ‘Upcoming in Ostgardr’ post? If yes, please contact me.

Also, I am planning on setting up some static picture galleries for past events and practices. I need to review the photo-release requirements before putting this up. I will probably start canvassing for pictures next month.

As always, please let your Web Ministerknow when you are running practices and activities, so I can add them to the Ostgardr calendar and the ‘Upcoming in Ostgardr’ posts. I try to have posts up about 2 weeks in advance. While I can pull announcements from facebook, I’m often left guessing about how you would like the announcement formatted on the web (and facebook makes collecting links a pain).

14. Chronicler • Zahra de Andaluzia

No report

Social Media • Albrecht Anker 

We had success working with the kingdom’s social media, and web ministry team on “streaming” the coronation.

We ran into bit rate issues once coronation started. Bitrate tanked because of the sheer number of cell usage in the area. We are going to be looking into doing at least a recording that could be rapidly posted if live streaming isn’t feasible.

But we managed to get a good recording with great sound so that is a lot of value.

I have a couple of ideas to do a Social media push for spring which I will bring up at commons.

Facebook page views are up 

141.18% vs. Mar 22, 2022

15. Chamberlain • Ian of Clan Mitchell

No Report

16. Historian • Sofya Gianetta di Trieste

March 17th

Being the Court of Their Majesties/Their Excellencies held on March 17, 2022, in the SCA East Kingdom YouTube Channel at Ethereal Court of Their Royal Majesties Ioannes II and Honig II the following good gentles of Ostgardr received writs.

• Lord Brendan Firebow received a writ for the order of Defense
• Lord Thorfinnr Hrothgeirsson received a writ for the order of the Laurel 

April 9th

On April 9th, A.S. LVI (2022) Their Majesties Ioannes Aurelius Serpentius II and Ro Honig von Sommerfeldt II held Their last Court in the Crown Province of Ostgardr bestowing gifts and accolades. Soon to follow, Their Majesties Ioannes Aurelius Serpentius II and Ro Honig von Sommerfeldt II stepped down and Ryouko’jin of the Iron Skies & Indrakshi Aani Aravinda were crowned King and Queen of the East! Long live the King and Queen of the East!

Being the First Court of Their Majesties Ryouko’jin & Indrakshi in the Crown Province of Ostgardr at Coronation, Their Majesties called forward the following good gentles of the Crown Province and awarded the following:

• Gibbs Moryss was called forth and awarded Arms (AoA)
• Edwin the Younger was also called forth and awarded Arms (AoA)
• Hanya Vladimirovna Polotskaya was called forth as well and awarded Arms (A0A)
• Jenna Childersley was inducted into the Order of the Silver Brooch for service to Ostgardr and the East Kingdom
• Ibrahim al-Rashid received a Writ to answer the question of whether he will join the Order of The Laurel

Whyt Whey • Alienor Salton
Whyt Whey had its quarterly commons last week. We resumed discussion of a new name for the canton. Fort Tryon Park Medieval Festival (Cloister demo) is Oct. 2, 2022. Mathghamhain is our event steward for the demo. Damion DiGrazia (of Santa’s Knights and steel combat) is the new festival coordinator.
Lions End • Iola Wulfsdotter

No report

17. Brokenbridge • Ragnarr bláskegg

Brokenbridge is proud to have two new AoA recipients. Our A&S Minister, Hanya Vladimirovna Polotskaya and our seeing to be exchequer Edwin the Younger.

We are looking to see if we can do something at the old stone house this spring/summer and looking for a new space for Deck the Halls of Valhalla.

We are also looking into some street fairs to demo at.

Lastly Brokenbridge Seneschal LOI are due April 30.

18. Committees

Coronation Planning:

No report

Flair Committee:

No report