Meeting Minutes - February 2005

Present: Lady Sarra, Lord Torquil, Willow, "Baby Q", Lady Kudrun, Lord Valgarth, Lady Ariella, Lady Vettoria, Don Jacques, Lady Aine, Lord Toki, Missy

Meeting called to order shortly after 1:00 p.m.

Officer Reports

Arts and Sciences

List passed around.

Exchequer

• Will need to send Autumn Rose non-member surcharge funds (earned through the raffle) off to corporate very soon.
• Donation to the Northshield Endowment Fund was voice-approved to be a round $100.
• Donations for lunch (like those earned at Coille Stormeil's TMT event last weekend) are doing well enough for us that we will go with that to fund the non-member surcharge for the Novice's Day event.
• Domesday misfire was taken care of right away.

Marshall of Fence

• Five 'Cliffies will be travelling to Gulf Wars.
• Fighter Practice has been taking place at the Rod and Gun club most weeks. Cost is $3.00 per person.
• Doctour Jacques became a Don and was awarded his scarf at Twelfth Night. (Huzzah!!)

Seneschal

• Held planning session last week to hammer out schedule/events for Novice's Day, which is on the Northshield Calendar for May 7th in Taylor, WI.
• Served lunch at That Moot Thingy event in Coille Stormeil. Donations requested in lieu of fixed fee. Gave check for $80 to Exchequer.
• Lady Cybele's husband, David the Thirsty, had a heart attack and will be hospitalized until Sunday. Passed around a "Get Well Soon" card for folks to sign.

Webminister

Domain name and Web hosting came up for renewal in the last month. It's taken care of. Will take care of the bookkeeping as soon as a receipt is received.

New Business

• We had a newcomer, Missy, attend the meeting. Her aunt has been in the SCA, as have some of her friends, so she has some familiarity. Her main challenge, she says, is narrowing her focus to concentrate on a few things rather than trying to do everything that looks interesting, which is a lot of things.
• Shire members introduced themselves (including persona name, place/time, and what they do in the SCA) for Missy's benefit.
• This was also Jacques' and Aine's first meeting since moving to the Shire. They introduced themselves.
• Made some changes to the draft of the Novice's Day schedule and events. Missy was a great help with brainstorming from the perspective of a newcomer! Some thoughts:
  • Have "tour guides" who wear gold stars or some other identifying badge to help folks find where they need to be.
  • Staff a general information table.
  • Having breakout groups structured as "classes" that run for nearly three hours is unrealistic. It might be a wiser idea to staff tables with enough bench strength to handle multiple people with questions or to give short tag-team presentations.
  • Add a "Dictionary Wall" along with a "Silly Questions" wall. Shire members will "seed" the "Dumb Questions" wall with starter questions so that no one is weirded out by being the first person to add a question.
• The next Populace meeting is scheduled for March 15th at UW-L, but that falls during spring break, and we may not be able to use Cartwright. Vettoria pointed out that the Library's basement rooms are available, and offer the amenities that we can bring food and beverages in, which we can't do in the first floor rooms. The drawback is that the library charges $10, and the room must be reserved. Kudrun will look into reserving the room. Donations will probably be requested from the attendees to cover the cost of the room.
• The La Crosse Public Library's summer reading program's theme is "Dragons, dreams and daring deeds.". Kudrun will give a short presentation about the SCA to the librarians on Thursday, starting at 11:00 a.m. Shire members are highly encouraged to attend in garb if possible.

Post-meeting

Members worked with shoe-making and Jaques worked with others on making gaiters to cover up non-period shoes.

Page last updated:  20 March 2005