Minutes from April 17 Commons (2020)

Meeting called to order 8pm.  Thorfinnr took minutes.  These notes are heavily edited to include action items and other items of interest that may still be relevant.  For the meeting itself, everyone on the call contributed a personal or SCA-related update.

Lada: this month we lost two of our populace members, Targai and Conor.  

This past weekend, her majesty and their highnesses held their first ethereal court, with a shoutout to Mathghamhain for writing bylaws.  All events through the end of June are canceled in the East.  This means that our demo is now canceled along with any proposed events or events that we had on the calendar.  While unfortunate, this is for the greater good and we will get through this.  

Countess Fortune is coordinating a dancing-in-armor video for the east kingdom, freestyle dancing to the eye of the tiger. 

About two months ago we mentioned the inter-baronial largesse challenge which is supposed to happen at Pennsic.  The baronage of the East will figure something out.  We’re excited to see where you’re progressing with it, so feel free to share if you’ve created some pieces or whatnot.

Catelin: I’m coordinating a provincial concert, putting musicians together and selecting music.  We’ll start with a prerecorded video.  Gavin and Simon will do the video and audio editing for this specific piece.  

Suuder: House Runnymede will be doing an online Q&A.  Questions will be submitted before hand to be answered by the entirety of Runnymede. 

Alienor: we are encouraging online activities.  This is going to be longer than we were originally anticipating, so think of ways to do an online event.  Suggest what you’d like to do.

I need a deputy.  I want someone who hasn’t done it before to deepen our pool.  I have a year and a half left and I am term limited.  I want there to be more experience out there for the upcoming election.  Critical job requirements are good judgement and attention to detail. Volunteering is not commiting to run but getting experience that can be helpful if you want to be canton seneschal one day.  It will tell you if you want to do it.  I actually find this job to be a lot of fun.  I will gladly take on multiple deputies.

Your membership won’t lapse while this is going on, this is official from corporate.  They’ll announce when that’s over.

Francisco: Exchequer stuff.  Because of all the cancellation of events, I did not submit or create a check for the AnDub challenge that proposed for the end of June.  Kingdom has been looking for help with some Northpass exchequer reporting.  When they went into suspension obviously the officers were put on hold, and that stopped – we’ve been trying to get access to the account and bank statements and luckily we’ve managed to get a hold of the former exchequer who has been trying to help us gain access.  Because the online account hasn’t been accessed recently it’s actually locked him out, so he’s looking into how to help kingdom finish their 2019 reporting and then ultimately 2020.  As a reminder if there’s any other exchequers, Q1 is due at the end of the month.  I have one more reimbursement for Bear’s Tavern.  And one more request coming for temporary storage of Northpass feast gear.

Drasma: not too much to report, no consultations.  Submissions go in as normal so we can consult remotely.  As long as you can mail it you’re good.  If you want digital art, we can help.  I have a lovely device which is optimized for that.  If you want one of those I can help you out.  Email me.  Heralds quarterly reports are due may 1 so I will do that, that’s also true for canton heralds.

Laila: we had a pretty successful collegium event.  This is the sort of thing that can work pretty well as an online event.  I would be down to co-autocrat a collegium type event but I’d need someone who is really tech savvy to be the other half of the co-autocrating equation.

I don’t have a lot of new news.  A few new contacts this month.  People being indoors are at least starting to look towards the future.  I had already been thinking about maybe doing a couple of newcomers classes to make sure we don’t lose the momentum from these new people, so if you have thoughts about any of the classes let me know.  We might want to put together a newcomers classe series.  I can put together a persona class, if someone wants to do heraldry and names, if anyone can put together a video introduction to martial arts in the SCA, I think we can do something to keep the interest of the new people coming in right now.  For kids, we were thinking color theory for younger kids and Shakespeare for high schoolers.  

Thorfinnr: Please continue to take classes from and offer classes to the EK A&S ministry, who is doing a terrific job with lots of content. There’s an online 24-hour viking schola being planned for the weekend of April 25th which might be something fun to contribute to.

Ervald: In the virtual world equivalent of having fighter practice in my backyard is having it on my front page, so it’s basically a training session for anyone who wants to tune in for anyone from 7 to 9:30.  I assure you that if anyone gets close enough for me to hit them with a stick, they’re too close, so I look for those places where I can be far enough away from people.  Working on basics expanding to what else we can do with it.

All of my practices are on my youtube page.  http://youtube.com/newyorkknightscombat1.  

Mathghamhain: There’s a new SCA-wide discord channel for heralds, so if you’re not getting enough heraldry chat, there’s more available.  LMK if you want an invite.

Anne: I am here to support whoever wants to host things online.  I can get you set up with an EK account so you can run meetings like this one.  Message me.

Vika: virtual quarterly commons on the 4th, Simon Talbot is new webminister, WW needs new volunteers for deputy webminister and minister of A&S.

Brokenbridge: there was a meeting on the 4th.  They need a chatelaine.  Brandr will take email for that ongoing.

Alienor:  No committee activity on lockdown—the only event we have upcoming is Pennsic, which is unclear.  The Pennsic mayor is in discussion with Æthelmearc and everyone, and will make a decision by May 15.

Cailleach:  Old Stone Bridges is good.  I wanted to come and share thanks from our shire.  I’ve been seneschal for 2.5 years now and we’re just about at the point of leaving incipiency, and we couldn’t have done that without Østgarðr.  Thanks to Alienor, Mathghamhain, Lili, Francisco, Lada & Suuder.  I’m really glad we were able to have that meeting at Dancing Fox two years ago and it’s just been a wonderful experience.  As seneschal for our shire, I can’t thank you enough and if I’m missing anybody it’s completely because I wasn’t planning on speaking tonight. 

Aurora:   The june 26 event for Østgarðr did not have the group use application, but that’s now canceled so it doesn’t matter.  The park needs a release form and a notarized page.  They’ve already had pig roasts there so at least we’ll eat pig.  After that I’ll get more chefs.  For decorations I have a lot of things I’ve been working for 6 months—it needs tons and tons of fabric.  I’d like to have classes and because this particular site is very much airy we could still hold classes because there’s plenty of room.  

Alienor: moment of silence for our absent friends.  We will not be able to have a memorial in person, so I would like us to do a website post perhaps, with thoughts and pictures so that we can memorialize them there and put some of our feelings out.

Meeting adjourned to socializing at 8:55