Candidates for Officer Positions

Thank you to the folks who have stepped up to fill the upcoming terms of the officer positions listed below.

For Seneschal — Three Candidates

Alexander MacLachlan

I am submitting myself as a candidate for Seneschal of Ostgardr.

I have been in the Society for 30 years. I have served in several officer posts: Baronial and Canton Seneschal, Chatelaine, Chronicler, Acting Knight Marshal, and Fencing Marshal. I have autocrated several events, including King’s and Queen’s Bardic Championship. I feel that I can use this experience to help support and guide the Province in its future endeavors.

I have served in the Province for almost the last two years as the Provincial Deputy Seneschal and am currently the Acting Seneschal. In that capacity I have tried to be an additional means for members of the populace to communicate with the officer corps, and provide whatever support I can throughout the Province. I feel I have demonstrated an ability to work with people who have varied interests to get things done.

With these in mind, some things that I want to do include:

-Develop new demos and workshops where we show our best skills and manners, not just to fulfill our mandate to educate the public, but also to attract new members.

-Foster new events and develop new venues to generate interest and get current members to participate more in the Province. Likewise, we can not afford to commit our time and effort in major projects that yield little results (such as an event that has extremely low attendance). We always have to look at events to see how we can make them better.

-Support the Provincial officers in their endeavors.

-Help Northpass become a group that will prosper, has it had in the past.

These, along with the general administration of the Province, require not just being a leader, but also working with everyone from the Viceregals and Provincial officers to the populace.

Alienor Salton

I submit myself as a candidate for the position of seneschal of Østgarðr. I believe by now you all know me and what I am prepared to do for the province.

From my letter of intent when I ran for my first term as seneschal:

“My goal as provincial Seneschal will be to increase participation at all levels, by […] facilitating communication, supporting provincial officers in doing their jobs, and making local activities more transparent & accessible and welcoming to new & old members alike. I will also work to encourage participation out-of-province, seeking out nearby & further events relevant to our local members’ interest, and publicizing and facilitating group excursions thereto.”

To accomplish these goals in my first term, I streamlined our commons meetings and recruited new talent to invigorate our officer corps. I brought transparency and efficiency to our provincial communications by introducing pre-Commons written officer reports, published along with full minutes after each meeting. I expanded our event listing, also published after each meeting, to highlight out-of-province events of interest to our populace.

I also urged on the work of the bylaws committee, which concluded with a successful ratification of our new provincial bylaws — a milestone in provincial history.

I would like to carry on this work in a second term with the following four initiatives:

1. Continue to diversify the officer corps by recruiting new talent so we have the breadth and depth to share the labor across officer volunteers.
2. Encourage activity within and beyond the province so our new & old members alike are more involved at home and “abroad” and better connected with each other and our neighbors. Facilitate more casual, regular, social cross-interest gatherings (like the Whyt Whey solars, the Brokenbridge Commons, the Northpass A&S/gaming days, and the bardic/fencing evening) to enhance provincial community. Arrange road trips to events further afield to connect with our neighbors and fellow citizens of the East.
3. Sort out a less ad-hoc provincial storage solution, easing the burden of storing, maintaining and deploying our gold key, kitchen gear, loaner armor (iron key), etc. (pavilions, list ropes, banners…).
4. Encourage new & different events, with more immersion and other thematic activities, broadening the pool of successful event stewards, and finishing a provincial event steward handbook and an event site database.

From me, the job of provincial seneschal has included attending canton commons, preparing for & following up on provincial commons, communicating with kingdom officers, supporting local officers, and making things run smoothly for the populace. Over the last two years as your provincial seneschal, I have spent 40-60 hours a month in your service. I am committed to doing so again for the next 2 years, if you will have me.

Brandr Aronsson

I officially submit my name for the office of Ostgardr Seneschal.

I am Brandr Aronsson and I am running for Seneschal of Ostgardr. I have been active member of Ostgardr for over twenty years. I have seen this province prosper and I have seen it diminish. I believe we are on an upswing right now and it’s important that Ostgardr have a strong leader to push us forward in the coming years.

One of my goals as Seneschal would be to take steps to bring in more new people. I know we always say that but I think we can find more opportunities for outreach and demos. There has been a decrease of demos in recent years though it was an effective recruiting tool. There is still a “Cool” factor that we can draw on, we just need to find some venues where that will be appealing. For instance, I would like us to seek outmore living history venues and try to arrange demos, like the one we do at the Cloisters, where we show off the best of what we do. There is a built in audience of potential members at these places.

Another goal of mine is to increase the new people stepping up as volunteers. You don’t have to have any skills to serve. The SCA is built on service and that is where you also learn what the SCA is really about.

Additionally, I would want us to take steps to bring more Ostgardians to Pennsic. I know it is only two weeks, but it is a time when all get to share each other’s company away from Mundania.

I have served as the BrokenBridge Seneschal since 2016, Ostgardr Camp Master for twelve years, and Ostgardr Knight Marshall from 2002- 2003. I believe my many years in Ostgardr and the SCA, as well as my years as Broken Bridge Seneschal, have equipped me to look at the future of Ostgardr and help move us forward.

In 2016, I was asked to take over Broken Bridge as Seneschal, by our Viceroy. The Canton had lapsed into inactivity and was on the verge of going away for the second time during my time here in Ostgardr. At our first commons in September of 2016, there were three people in attendance. Now, we regularly have 20+ attendees at our Commons meetings.

We worked on updating the bylaws, making a financial policy and reaching out to local members to get involved again. We streamlined our Commons meetings and paired them with A&S classes to increase attendance. We have several new active members of the populace whose first SCA event was a Broken Bridge Commons meeting and A&S day. We identified several event gaps unique to our area – such as were easily accessible by public transportation and a lack of winter events, and established a regular local event, Deck the Halls of Valhalla, which is about to run its 4th year. It has been a great draw for newcomers within the BrokenBridge and Ostgardr populace due, in large part, to its ease of access via public transportation. It has been so well attended, that we actually reached site capacity for one of the years.

I am proud of how active Broken Bridge has become and I believe that is partly due to my encouraging our new people to step up into leadership roles they may have never envisioned themselves in or even thought about taking on. This has brought new energy and new ideas into the Canton which has, in turn, brought more new people and more new people stepping up and getting involved. And I believe that I can have similar results for the Crown Province of Ostgardr.

[Update: At the Provincial Commons meeting on November 15, Brandr withdrew his candidacy for Seneschal.]

For Herald — Two Candidates

Drasma Dragomira

I, Drasma Dragomira, wish to declare my intent to be considered for the office of Seahorse Herald of the Crown Province of Østgarðr.

While my active participation in this great Province has just started, I have been a participant of the Society for 6 years and actively participating as a herald-at-large for one and a half years, both within the East Kingdom and at the Pennsic Herald’s Point. I have reviewed the requirements of the position and have spoken to Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin, the current holder, and believe I can meet the requirements. I am willing to utilize and expand my knowledge of book heraldry as well as coordinate and participate in the court heraldry aspects as needed to serve the Province.

Thank you for your consideration of my letter. No matter the outcome, I commit to continuing my support for the heraldic needs of the Province, the East Kingdom, and the Society.

Ragnarr Bláskegg

I, Lord Ragnarr Bláskegg of Brokenbridge, wish to put forth my intent to run for Ostgardr Herald.  In my time as Brokenbridge herald, I found that I enjoyed the court aspects of heraldry and want to expand on my abilities as a court herald.  My intentions if elected would be focus on the court and voice aspects of heraldry since research for arms and names is not my forte.   If someone is willing to be a deputy for me to help with research, I would greatly appreciate it. 

Arts & Sciences — Þorfinnr Hróðgeirsson

It has come to my attention that there is a vacancy in the MoAS position.  I’d like to put myself forward for consideration if there is no other claimant for it.

I think I can do a reasonable job: I view the position as largely organizing A&S activities within the province, drumming up more interest and advancing the A&S skills of the populace.  I have a large network of local and regional A&S contacts, and can definitely bring them to teach locally.  I myself have taught a number of classes and can continue to do so.  I’ve been personally very successful with A&S and would be happy to share that knowledge with the province.

Webminister — Anne of Østgarðr

I have been the Østgarðr webminister since I was elected to the position in the July 2018 commons. Unfortunately, mundane work takes me away from the Province for the next commons meeting, so I am writing this note so that all in Østgarðr can have the opportunity to find out more about me in this role.

I took most of my first term (2018-2019) to get onboarded and in the rhythm of making updates, I plan to use my second term to continue smooth operation and look for small improvements.

The webministry role largely consists of managing our web presence. Some sample tasks for that would include: renewing our ostgardr.org web domain, creating new mailing lists for event staff for local events, and making posts of upcoming events to our website at ostgardr.eastkingdom.org.

Some of the things I’ve done in my first term are:

• Set up Google Analytics to measure traffic to our site around demos
• Switched to Trello to internally manage webministry tasks in progress
• Built personal ties with East Kingdom Webministry

If elected, I plan to continue this work.

The ethos informing many of my decisions as webminister is that I want to make maintainable and sustainable choices. In part, this means that everything I do should be able to be easily passed on to someone else when the time comes. As a software engineer, it’s easy to fall into the trap of looking at the next new and exciting thing to work with, and I try to consciously choose stable, low-maintenance tools, while also working with Kingdom Webministry as I’m able to ensure we all remain modern throughout the East.

Please feel free to reach out via email at 238825@members.eastkingdom.org for questions about my candidacy, and at webminister@ostgardr.eastkingdom.org for questions about the current role of the webministry.

Historian — Sofya Gianetta di Trieste

Be it known to all that I would like to continue as Ostgardr’s Historian and consider this my letter of intent.

Marshal of Fence — Alexander MacLachlan

I am also seeking re-election as the Provincial Fencing Marshal.

I have held this position for the past two years, and I was the deputy for this position for six months before being elected.

During this time I have held regular fencing practices, assembled loaner gear, attracted new fencers, encouraged fencers to be more active in Province (usually as officers), and have been part of giving the local fencing community a sense of unity.

I would like to continue with this, and expand on what we have.