The Province’s monthly commons meeting was held on March 15, 2023. Here are the minutes as recorded by Mathghamhain ua Ruadháin. The officers’ reports are attached at the end.
Attendance
Present
- Angelica di Nova Lipa, Vicereine
- Nagashima Ichiro Ujimichi, Seneschal
- Alienor Salton, Exchequer and Seneschal of Appleholm
- Drasma Dragomira, Herald
- Brandr Aronsson, Arts & Sciences
- Zahra de Andaluzia, Chronicler
- Friderich Grimme, Webminister
- Ervald LaCoudre Edwardson, Armored Combat Marshal
- Alexander MacLachlan, Fencing Marshal and Deputy Seneschal
- Vitasha Ivanova doch’, Minister of Lists
- Kunigunde Wedemann, Chancellor Minor
- Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin, Historian
- Arnora Ketilsdottir, Seneschal of Brokenbridge
- Ragnarr Bliskegg, A&S Champion
- Fiona the Volatile
- Freddie
- Gibbs Moryss
- Hrefna Aronsson
- Ilya Alexsandrovich
- Jenna Childslayer
- Lada Monguligin
- Oliver de Bainbrig
- Perez ben Meir Gershon
Absent Officers
- Sofya Gianetta di Trieste, Vicereine
- Albrecht Anker, Chatelaine and Social Media Officer
- Iola Wulfsdotter, Seneschal of Lions End
Opening
- Called to order at 7:35P.M.
- Anti-harassment statement was reviewed.
April A&S Gathering
- Angelica: We need someone to lead an open Arts & Crafts evening in April. Brandr, as A&S minister, can you organize it?
- Brandr: I’ve been traveling with the forge but can host things when I get back to the city. What date did you have in mind?
- Angelica: It’s always the third Thursday of the month. Next will be Thursday, April 20.
- Brandr: Okay, we’ll have people over at my house for a hands-on workshop on sausage making, with the results to be served at Crown Tournament.
Dancing
- Angelica: Thanks to Alienor for organizing a local dance practice in recent weeks.
- Alienor: We’ve done three so far. The next is Sunday, April 16. And Dancing Fox is May 13.
Awards
- Angelica: Send in award recommendations! It’s not hard. There are links on both the provincial and kingdom websites.
- Perez: How do I provide extra information about how the recipient would prefer to be recognized?
- Uji: If they don’t have a wiki to hold that kind of information, use one of the fields on the web form to include it with your recommendation.
Northpass Update
- Uji: The Kingdom Seneschal has confirmed that Northpass is being reinstated and the Province is not involved in that process.
- Uji: A small corps of officers has been selected. They are currently being warranted. Once that’s done, the canton will be established. The new officers will be seeking out people who can be designated as deputies once the canton is official.
- Uji: I’ve been meeting with them weekly and will continue to share information as needed. They’re currently selecting a bank to host their account.
- Oliver: Is there a timeframe — months?
- Uji: Perhaps a month or two.
Health of the Cantons & Province
- Uji: I wanted to talk about the health of the province and cantons. Lions End and Brokenbridge both had meetings about this recently. I am concerned about the health not just of the cantons but of the province.
- We’re about to undertake our third royal-progress event in thirteen months. I am concerned about people burning out. Pace yourself. Join the order of the carrot.
- Arnora: Regarding Brokenbridge, at our last commons, we started an unofficial discussion about letting the canton go dormant. Nobody is eager to do it, but we’re struggling for a few different reasons. We’ll talk about it more in our canton commons meetings. It won’t be decided by a vote – it’ll be decided by people either stepping up for officer positions, or not. Show up to our meetings, and everyone’s opinion counts.
- Uji: In Lions End, we’ve discussed several ways of keeping the canton healthy, including expanding to cover zip codes that are currently Ostgardr Proper. Healthy cantons means a healthy province.
- Lada: I’ve spoken with other baronies with cantons that have gone dormant. It’s okay, it happens periodically in every group, due to the natural ebb and flow of energy in the populace.
- Jenna: An Dubhaigeainn had a canton that shut down because its most active members all became baronial officers and couldn’t simultaneously be canton officers.
- Mathghamhain: A lot of cantons have gone into abeyance over the last decade; even before Covid the East Kingdom was seeing a decline in the number of cantons. I suspect that in many areas, cantons were more vital twenty or thirty years ago, when most communication was face-to-face, and that nowadays online communications means it’s as easy to coordinate Province-wide without driving two hours across the city.
- Uji: There’s no strict time-limit on restarting from dormancy. One local branch went dormant for ten years and then restarted. It’s also possible to run a quiet canton on a very limited basis, with just three officers.
- Uji: For Lions End, zip code expansion into Queens now looks like the least viable approach.
- Uji: If you have suggestions, please contribute to the ongoing discussion we’ll be having in the months ahead.
Brew-U
- Fiona: Twenty people have registered, six classes are planned so far, but we need forty people to break even. Have collected $1100, need $2000 to cover expenses.
- Oliver: The last of these events had to be canceled for poor attendance. Perhaps the EK Brewers Guild should have their events concurrent with another event.
- Friderich: Is there a site-rental cancellation fee? That would influence the cost comparison between continuing or canceling.
- Oliver: I would have to look into it.
- Uji: Oliver, please research the site cancellation fee.
- Fiona: Was the site rental fee $700 or 900?
- Oliver: We paid the “in-county” rental fee of $700.
- Alienor: It was paid for via the carryover from Goat’s Tavern being canceled due to site problems last fall.
- Uji: We could auction off random items from the lost and found.
- Uji: Does that loss include if you adjust the food budget for lower attendance?
- Oliver: Even if we adjust the food budget, we’d be $200-300 short.
- Jenna: How much could you trim the food budget if the number of people was lower?
- Friderich: I don’t have the final bid, but the food budget was $25 for Saturday lunch and dinner plus Sunday breakfast.
- Fiona: If we cut the food budget by $100, we’re still about $530 in the red.
- Fridrich: Are people daytripping or staying overnight?
- Fiona: Paypal has 14 overnight and 6 day trippers, and Oliver has checks for 6 overnight.
- Uji: When we’ve had uneaten food in the past we’ve managed to save it for future events.
- Angelica: It still ends up mostly being a loss.
- Friderich: When will we know for sure so I can start buying food and prepping it? I’d like to have four weeks to be sure. Two weeks is the absolute minimum but would make prep rushed and more difficult.
- Fiona: I’d like to have another week to recruit people.
- Alec: Can we pick a date by which we’ll make the choice?
- Friderich: If we’re going to do this, I would like to start working on March 25th. Pushing back to April 1 makes things harder.
- Fiona: Perhaps if we don’t get enough pregregs to justify it by March 24th?
- Mathghamhain: Can we get updated financial numbers before the decision has to be made?
- Friderich: Can we have a meeting to review on Friday, March 24th?
- Mathghamhain: That doesn’t need the entire officer corps; I think you would only need the finance committee to review.
- Uji: I’ll gather information next week and review with the finance committee.
- Mathghamhain: If you’re only looking at losing a limited amount of money, we could accept a bit of a loss — some events make a bunch of money, it’s okay if others lose a little.
- Angelica: What would we be willing to lose? Maybe $200?
- Mathghamhain: A $250 loss wouldn’t be upsetting when we have $10,000 in the bank.
- Angelica: Uji, please schedule that meeting for March 24, and make sure that we have the necessary information, including pre-registrations and rental cancellation fee.
- Alienor: Paypal has only been up for a week. The bid says that it sells out every year. Perhaps with more advertising you could sell out the remaining seats.
- Uji: I haven’t pre-registered yet.
- Alienor: Is the event being marketed online? I haven’t seen it.
- Fiona: I’m trying to post about it on Facebook, please support it.
- Mathghamhain: Please send something ready-to-post to Friderich for the website/mailing list. And If you send me something ready-to-post I can post it on the kingdom discord.
- Fiona: I’ll do that.
Lions End Schola
- Ragnarr: I’ve agreed to be the official event steward for the Lions End Schola, and am excited to help make the event happen, currently two months away.
- Ragnarr: This is your chance to enter the provincial A&S competition, which will have four separate awards.
- Jenna: For non-drivers, note that this event is located at an LIRR station.
- Uji: Vitasha, you mentioned maybe teaching a class?
- Vitasha: I have family obligations to deal with, and can’t guarantee whether I can make it to the event or not.
Youth Activities at Events
- Kunigunde: There’s been a discussion online about activities that kids would enjoy at events, and I’d like input.
- Kunigunde: Most of my tenure has been taken over by plague, and then a recent event cancellation, so it feels like I’m operating in a vacuum.
- Fiona: I’ve done kids activities in An Dubh. Avoid things that are too complex or that require too many kids, they fall apart. Crafts work, as do scavenger hunts. I have lots of projects I could share.
- Fiona: It’s hard to predict what mix of kids you’re going to get.
- Arnora: The biggest draw for us as parents would be to know that there were going to be more kids in the same age range there.
- Arnora: At St. Andrews there were no little kids, but they had a picnic table with “old fashioned” games (not necessarily period) with wood pieces that allowed for imaginative play.
- Kunigunde: It’s nice that simple board game pieces can be used for free play.
- Fiona: Teens are over youth activities, and they don’t want to be at the “little kids table.” For older teens, it’s more engaging to find ways they can contribute to the adult activities.
- Kunigunde: Yes, we can provide a table for teens to congregate at, but it’s harder to handle younger kids.
- Fiona: It’s awkward to have the youth point off in the corner of the event; you don’t want to get stuck babysitting when parents leave.
- Mathghamhain: I think the most important part of youth point is that it’s a place for kids to meet up with other kids — spending time with the other kids is more important than organized activities.
- Alienor: For older kids, I think it’s fine for them to have their headphones, give them outlets so they can recharge their devices, and let them hang out in their own space.
- Kunigunde: But somewhere close enough that adults can keep an ear out for trouble.
- Jenna: For the Spring Crown event, maybe put them near the barn, where they can get an extension cord, on the margins so they’re not an eyesore, but close enough to keep an eye on.
Crown Tourney
- Arnora: Our bid was accepted, and the event is just eight weeks away.
- Arnora: I’m still waiting for an answer on whether it will also include youth champs, but hope to get that soon.
- Arnora: Attendance cap was increased from 300 to 450, but dayboard count was not, so there are now 150 extra spots that are cheaper but don’t include dayboard.
- Arnora: Paypal pre-reg opened this morning. There will be separate pre-reg flows for entrants/consorts, for royal staff, and for volunteers.
- Ragnarr: When can combatants register?
- Arnora: Entrants are supposed to enter by April 6. There’s a kingdom form that is currently closed but should open soon.
- Arnora: There’s word-of-mouth knowledge about the Veterans’ Memorial Park, but it’s not written down and nobody knows it all. I’ve started a document to gather notes about the site as an institutional memory.
- Ervald: Are we expected to provide the marshals?
- Arnora: I’ll find that out tomorrow.
- Mathghamhain: The marshals and heralds are all provided by kingdom.
- Alec: Are there any other martial activities at Crown?
- Lada: No. Just rattan.
- Brandr: We learned some lessons from doing Barleycorn at this site, so we’ll be better able to prep, and Arnora is working on getting us additional kitchen equipment.
- Brandr: Perez is going to cook some dishes and help with prep, and will organize his own assistants to help him with that prep work.
- Brandr: Beth is running the kitchen on the day, and managing the calendar for the prep schedule.
- Brandr: I will be cutting up a lot of meat and will need help.
- Brandr: We need a lot of help. On the day we need a kitchen prep person and a runner.
- Kunigunde: What does the runner do?
- Brandr: Move food back and forth between the indoor kitchen (refrigerators and sinks) and the outdoor kitchen (cooking and serving)
- Brandr: Biggest problem at the last event was lack of servers and someone to oversee them. For this event we’re going to recruit a volunteer to lead the service.
- Uji: How can we help? Should we schedule weekly meetings?
- Arnora: I don’t want to put too much burden on local people who might be on the edge of burning out. In the coming days I’ll reach out to neighboring groups and ask them to provide teams to cover volunteer slots.
- Arnora: If you want to help, or if there’s a specific role you want to play, reach out to me now. At the next commons I’ll recruit more aggressively for positions we haven’t filled yet.
- Zahra: If someone asks for volunteers, I don’t know what to offer, but if someone asks me for specific help with a specific role at a specific time, I’m happy to do it.
- Arnora: I’m glad to play that role.
- Arnora: I want someone to make an Event Steward baldric so that it’s easy for people to find me on the day of the event.
- Angelica: I’ll make the baldric.
Inventory
- Arnora: I’d like to know when the inventory will be complete and centralized so I can figure out what needs to be purchased for Crown.
- Uji: I’ve started working on this, and may be able to work on it again this Sunday, or next Sunday.
- Uji: Stuff is scattered around the province and I’m working on getting it centralized.
- Arnora: Where is it located?
- Uji: The pig roaster is at Lada and Suuder’s
- Lada: Also a couple of other things: sandwich boards, maybe a few small odds and ends.
- Uji: There’s gear that Francisco held that’s listed in the spreadsheet.
- Uji: The inventory list is online, I will work on updating it.
- Uji: Volunteers would be appreciated.
- Arnora: Volunteers for working in the unit, or for moving stuff to it?
- Uji: We need to do both.
- Mathghamhain: If someone wanted to help, could they go to the storage or would they be locked out?
- Uji: Alec, do you have the key?
- Alec: The lock that is in use is a key lock. I haven’t been back to the site since it was set up.
- Uji: I’ll need to get that key from you.
- Angelica: The numeric padlock gave Alec trouble. He will give it to Uji, who will apply it to the unit. There’s a numeric code for the building and the lock.
- Alec: The list poles from Barleycorn are at my family’s house in Mt Sinai, enough for 4 lists.
- Alec: Also, An Dubh might have extra gear we could borrow.
- Alienor: We have shelving that was purchased for the storage unit. We need someone with a vehicle to move it to the storage unit.
- Uji: I’d like to go to the storage unit on Sunday. I will make arrangements to come by and pick up the shelving.
Scribal Event Proposal
- Lada: The kingdom’s Signet office reported that over the last year, the kingdom dropped from 90 active scribes to 60. I’ve been trying to train people to join their ranks.
- We have several talented people in our area who are willing to train, and there appears to be folks in the southern region who are interested in learning.
- I would like to organize a scribal schola/workshop event in Brooklyn.
- Goal is to be newcomer-friendly. Would relax the garb requirement.
- I’ve started putting together a draft budget.
- Site rentals for 2,000-square-foot spaces in Brooklyn for eight hours going for $450-570 on PeerSpace.com.
- Other expenses would be minimal: potluck dayboard; no site tokens; maybe $50 for an insurance certificate.
- We would break even if we got 40 people paying $15 each.
- Lada: Looking at dates around the end of June or early July.
- Jenna: I will check with An Dubh about the schedule for Potted Arms.
- Jenna: Too bad this couldn’t be combined with Brew U.
- Lada: That’s not a great venue for this event; we need bright lights and work surfaces.
- Kunigunde: Good lighting is not optional for scribes. We need light!
- Jenna: Lions End is still waiting for a date on the Farmingdale demo, around the beginning of June.
- Lada: I don’t want to move out onto Long Island for fear of losing visitors from New Jersey.
- Mathghamhain: An outdoor demo for the public doesn’t seem like a great venue for scribes who want to sit indoors and talk to each other.
- Alienor: For sites, we care about tables and chairs and lighting.
- Mathghamhain: The event sounds like a great idea.
- Alienor: I’ll follow up with you about a scriptorium. Would you want to include a backlog scroll session? A handful of local scribes drove down to Delaware for a scribal backlog day a few years ago and it went very well.
- Lada: Yes, I would love to include both structured and unstructured activities.
- Lada: Okay, I’ll reach out to the sites and research costs and dates and follow up.
Fighting practice
- Ervald: We have enough local fighters to fight as a unit this summer.
- There are places in the city where we could have a regional practice, not just for the province, and invite folks in from neighboring groups.
- This would be a fight practice, not a formal event as such.
- When we’ve done this in the past it helped to have non-fighters come and provide support.
- Ragnarr: It sounds great.
- Alec: We had practices like that 15 years ago and they were great.
- Ervald: Jibril has suggested something similar.
- Ervald: We could look at Kissena Park, Astoria Park, Prospect Park. But McCarren Park is too crowded.
- Ragnarr: Do we need a permit to do this in a city park?
- Perez: Note that kingdom war staff has emphasized including other skills, including combat archery and siege, so we should either include those disciplines, or make it clear that the venue doesn’t allow it.
- Ervald: We probably can’t have archery in city parks.
- Lada: Victory Field in Queens has good parking, but it’s not transit-accessible.
- Ervald: If you have other ideas, let me know. When would you want it?
- Uji: Before Southern Region War Camp.
- Ervald: Should it be Saturday or Sunday? I’m leaning towards Sunday.
- Alec: Not as much planned for mid-late June.
- Perez: Lots of fighters will be away for Beltane and NRWC.
- Kunigunde: Northern Region War Camp is June 30- July 2
- Ragnarr: Central Region War Practice is this Sunday.
- Alec: There will be fencing at Central Region War Practice..
- Ragnarr: Southern Army Sundays are these dates: April 16, May 14, June 18, July 16, Aug 20, Sept 17, Oct 15
- Mathghamhain: Maybe on Sunday, May 21? Or June 11? Or June 25?
- Perez: Post the idea to the Southern Army page to get a preview of who might be interested and what dates work.
Final Business
- Jenna: On March 29th I’ll be holding an online “Pennsic 101” class.
- Zahra: Thank you for sending material to the E-Horse, keep sending me art and articles! The next issue will be June 1.
- Mathghamhain: I noticed that Friderich’s report mentioned that he would not be seeking another term and wanted to thank him for his service; he’s done a great job of posting regular updates to the website and mailing list.
- Angelica: Hail Friderich!
- Meeting ended at 9:44 PM.
Viceregents • Sofya Gianetta di Trieste & Angelica Di Nova Lipa
Bid for Crown Tourney-May 6th-Accepted
His Majesty has verbally confirmed that our bid for Crown Tourney has been accepted. Arnora will speak further when we discuss the event.
Special Officer Meeting
On Friday, February 24th, 2023, as mandated by the Charter, a Special Meeting of the Ostgardr Officers’ Council was called to discuss the validly submitted petition to remove Lord Nagashima Ichiro Ujimichi from the Office of Seneschal. A quorum of the Officers’ Council was achieved. There were insufficient votes from Officers’ Council members to move the proposal forward. We thank the interested populace members for expressing their views before and during the meeting. We also thank the Officers’ Council members for their careful consideration of the petition and counter-arguments, and for their promptly submitted votes.
Reinstatement of NorthPass: Uji will speak further however, we would like to share information provided by our EK Seneschal on February 22nd via email:
“Northpass *will* be re-established as a Canton. This is not negotiable, and Ostgardr Proper does not get a say in how it is done. This is being handled outside the normal procedures due to the settlement. Once the group is established according to the settlement, which is being managed by Society, Society will be stepping out of the management, and all future running of the group will be handled per Kingdom and Society Governing Documents.
What are the re-establishment steps?
- A beginning slate of officers reviewed and approved by Society
- Return to Active status
- Return of Name / Group Arms
- Establishment of bank account and return of funds
All of these steps are being handled by Society, my office, and the plaintiffs.
Once these steps are complete, I will notify Ostgardr that it is done and routine procedures for all groups are to be followed.
Those who have a zip code in Northpass who do not wish to participate in Northpass activities are not required to do so. They can play wherever they wish”
Arts & Crafts Night: Thursday, March 16th
Lady Alienor: The topic will be weaving writ small, illustrating weave structures with potholder loops & looms. In-person event-Appleholm. More information is available in the event announcement.
Would someone like to teach for April’s A&S?
Scribal Workshop: Sunday, March 19th, from 2 to 4 pm in Broken bridge
Brew U: April 15-16th
Oliver/Fiona
Schola at the University: Wolfie Welcomes the Ducks: April 22nd:
Support our An Dubh duckies!
Lions End Schola: May 20th
A&S Champion will be selected-Please enter! Limited space, so please pre-reg!!
Special Recognition:
Alienor & Math: Dancing!!
Kingdom award recommendations: Their Highness Brennan and Caoilfhionn have posted their award recommendation deadlines for Their upcoming reign. If you feel someone is worthy, please submit it online to the EK website. The next deadline is March 31st.
https://surveys.eastkingdom.org/index.php/945932/lang-en
See one of Ostgardr’s consistent contributors? By all means, nominate them for recognition with a Provincial award… the easy-peasy process is on the Ostgardr website:
https://ostgardr.eastkingdom.org/provincial-orders-awards/
Seneschal • Nagashima Ichiro Ujimichi
I continue to be involved with the re-establishment of Northpass, including online meetings with the selected officers. Officers have started the warranting process and will be seeking deputies once Northpass has come back officially.
Exchequer • Alienor Salton
Sent checks for Deck the Halls food reimbursement, Bears NMR, Spring Crown site fee, Spring Crown insurance certificate reimbursement, and Storage Post (northern counties storage) through June.
Set up PayPal (with EK PayPal team) for Brew U and Spring Crown.
Created shared Østgarðr exchequer drive, managed by the exchequer and deputy exchequer, visible to the seneschal and viceregents. Have begun the slow-burn process of archiving material from Frank & Angelica’s shared exchequer folders into this drive. (The difference between Google shared drive and shared folder means that the offices can own the shared drive, and so access transfers automatically when positions change. If other offices have shared folders that they are passing to their successors, I would suggest an upgrade to a shared drive. I can help you figure out how to create it, add your office and then remove yourself.)
Received event report for Bears from Oliver; have not yet processed it. Event report for Deck the Halls needs final polish (I was late with the reimbursement check, oops).
Storage Post rates go up April 1st, from $34 to $40 for our unit.
I understand that the provincial storage unit has been provided with a keyed padlock. Our discussion was that would be a numerical padlock, which I understood had been provided by Angelica. Was there a problem with that lock, who paid for the new lock, and how do we proceed from here with getting a key-less lock on that door?
What’s up with the New Rochelle Library A&S night? I will need some lead time to write them a check, since they have to circulate via USPS.
I am working on the new signatory form for corporate. Will be conferring with the signatories in the next month to schedule a bank signing party.
Herald • Drasma Dragomira
Not much to report this month. Heraldry submissions from the populace are moving along nicely as there’s a few of them that have made it into the submissions process the last few months.
Chatelaine • Albrecht Anker
Quiet for the end of February into March I believe it is a vacation window to most. I need a Chatelaine team. We have lots of events coming down the pipe and one person is not enough to maximize our coverage to draw interest from new players.
In summary, I think everyone should take a look at the potential Discord changes and send me any questions as well as offers to join the Chatelaine team. I will be unable to attend this month’s meeting as I am away on vacation.
Chancellor Minor • Kunigunde Wedemann
I have nothing to report. However, I would like to open a short discussion on what kinds of youth activities people would like to see at local events, and which events should have youth activities. A discussion in the unofficial EK discussion group on the Book of Faces about events being family friendly/not family friendly had me thinking.
Arts & Sciences • Brandr Aronsson
Greetings not much to report either. I will be back in NYC in three weeks and hope to begin some arts and craft nights.
Armored Combat • Ervald LaCoudre
While fighter practice has been regularly happening at the Manhattanville Community Center on Wednesday nights, attendance has been low, particularly among armored fighters. I understand that some of them have been going to the armored combat practice in Nutley, NJ.
But in the meantime, there have been several new people who have been showing up for training, giving me and Sir Ilya the opportunity for focused training in things like sword technique, footwork, and distance. Several of the GladiatorsNYC fighters (who’s practice runs concurrently with ours at that location, and by whose generosity we are able to use the space) have also benefited from this training. Some of them intent to authorize and hope to join us at Pennsic.
This week’s cold and snow notwithstanding, I expect the weather to be nice enough to start practice inMcCarren Park on Tuesdays on the first week in April.
Regarding my workshop and loaner armor: I have lost my apartment, so my workshop is closed and all the armor I have is in storage near that apartment. The armor can be retrieved as needed for loan and use, it will simply require specific notice at least one day in advance. Coming to help pick it up and transport it to and from practice is a plus.
I have a friend with a workshop in Brooklyn next to Industry City, and he is very amenable to letting it be used for armoring, so if anyone needs armor work done, let me know and we can make an appointment.
I am also considering one or two “group armoring” workshop days between now and Pennsic. This would be targeted towards making sure armor is ready for authorizations, war practices, and, of course, Pennsic itself.
With this in mind, i believe we are approaching a “critical mass” of Pennsic Ostgardr fighters to do the following:
I would like the province to consider hosting a large open/invitational fighter practice (not necessarily an official regional or kingdom practice) between now and Pennsic. Possibly in Astoria Park, Prospect Park, or Kissena Park, probably on a Sunday. This would enable those who have trouble getting out of town for a big war practice to have some sort of war practice here in town. We could hold authorizations in time for Pennsic for those who had not gotten authorized yet. Also, Sunday used to be a popular weekly fighter practice day for the province.
To this event we would invite Ostgardr-based fighting households, Ostgardr-adjacent households, neighboring baronies, and regional and kingdom commanders. This would raise our profile in their eyes, give them all one more chance to practice together before the war, as well as give newer Ostgardians an opportunity to meet more of our neighbors.
This has been done before, in Kissena Park, our old Sunday fighter practice site. One thing that made it work was a team of non-fighters who helped to support this “event,” with water, refreshments, first aid, and other “fetch-and-carry” type stuff. A few people provided homemade snacks for the fighters, with donations accepted to defray the cost. The donations turned out to be so generous from the out-of-town fighters, there was a profit!
By doing this as a practice rather than an “event,” we would not have the attendance level and demographics of a full event, and thus not the expectation and obligation to commit the degree of labor and resources that a full event would require (no court, no feast, no changing rooms, no troll, etc).
If we can pick a day at the upcoming meeting, we can start planning and sending the invites right away.
I will be at fighter practice tonight, splitting my time between training and paying attention to the meeting. Fel free to call me when it is my turn to report or if anyone has a question for me.
Fencing • Alec MacLachlan
Fencing Continues at the Manhattanville Community Center on Wednesday nights. Still just two of us,
I think towards the end of April we will be going back to McCarren Park for practice. (When it’s warmer.)
Minister of Lists • Vitasha Ivanova doch’
Nothing to Report
Webminister • Friderich Grimme
I am continuing to update the website on a weekly basis with a list of upcoming activities in the province. If you would like something promoted in a separate blog-post to the website please let me know. Related, if you would like an event website created, please let me know.
Looking to the future, I am not planning to seek renewal of my warrant when my term as web minister expires in December of this year. I am actively looking for someone to succeed me in the office.
Chronicler • Zahra de Andaluzia
No report.
Social Media • Albrecht Anker
My focus stays on promotion and ensuring our social media is a safe space to share information with everyone.
The big thing I am working on is converting our discord server to a Community server. This will give our group more visibility and more tools for us to use to make Discord a place to communicate, plan and grow. With that comes some changes:
• Members will have to have a verified email before they can send messages.
• Discord will automatically scan and delete media sent in the server that contains explicit content (this excludes channels that are designated as age-restricted).
• We will have a community updates channel made so discord can send updates for Community admins and Moderators, this will need to be a private staff channel.
• Have a title and description that accurately describes the server.
• Have clearly posted rules and guidelines.
• Have a moderator team.
Historian • Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin
I’ve continued to record local happenings in our Annals, and am expanding my list of “old timers” who I would like to interview to collect memories of the province in its earlier decades.
Whyt Whey (Appleholm) • Alienor Salton
Since last provincial commons, Appleholm has hosted 3 dance practices, including a live music session, all of which went very well. Next indoor practice is April 16th. Hopes are high for outdoor practice as the weather cooperates.
Our cultural outings to the Morgan Library (for She Who Wrote) and the Bard Gallery (Staging the Table) were well attended. Appleholm will be hosting a serrated-fan folding paper/linen workshop, based on a video in the Staging the Table exhibit, in the near future.
The Morgan Library will be hosting an exhibit on Medieval Money, Merchants & Morality at the end of this year. In November, we will plan an outing.
https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/medieval-money
The Met will continue hosting Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color, for another week. If you can’t make it to the gallery, you can check it out online: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/chroma
Upcoming activities:
• Østgarðr A&S evening: Weaving Writ Large (swatching historical textiles with potholder looms), Thursday, March 16, 7-9pm, 255 W. 105th St., Apt. 21
• Taci e Balla! dance practice, Sunday April 16, 3-4pm, Bridge for Dance, 2726 Broadway, 2nd floor
Our next canton commons (which we hold quarterly on the 4th Monday of the relevant month) will be April 24th, 7pm, at our usual Meet link: https://meet.google.com/azp-fqtb-dbn
Lions End • Iola Wulfsdotter
No report.
Brokenbridge • Arnora Ketilsdottir
BrokenBridge should be having a Herald election (Ragnarr vs Catelin: The Final Battle) at our next commons.
Following commons last month, and probably following each of our commons’ going forward until September, BB is having an unofficial discussion about becoming inactive. Our next commons is on Monday March 20th at 8pm if you wish to join (zoom link). Brokenbridge considers its populace to be anyone who is active in Bb, and all opinions are welcome.
We are having this as an unofficial discussion because it is not something that happens with a bang (like a big vote) but with a whimper (simply no one steps up to fill certain officer positions). The discussion has included people’s reasons for feeling one way or the other as well as memories and feelings towards Brokenbridge. So far, no one has been particularly in-favor of becoming inactive but rather willing to accept that it might be the best route to go given the circumstances. We welcome anyone to join us next week to be part of this discussion.
