Meeting Minutes - February 2007

Present:  Kudrun, Valgarth, Busta, Maewyn, Vettoria, Vitaliano, Ahlwin, Brighid, Gordon, Ariella

The meeting was called to order at 2:12 p.m. on 18 February at the La Crosse Area Public Library (Main Branch)

Officer Reports

Arts and Sciences

• A & S moot held this past Thursday (Feb. 8th) with a good turnout, and was a lot of fun.
• A possible new member of the Shire dropped by last week's meeting. He is interested in heavy fighting.
• Valgarth is actively searching for themes/project ideas for the next moots. Please contact him with what you'd like to work on.
• The A & S list was passed around.

Exchequer

• Officer's funds were topped up in January, as has been the custom in Rokeclif for a number of years.
• Read totals in the various accounts.

Marshal of Fence

• No practices have been held recently because of the weather.
• Ahlwin will attend the Knowne Worlde Rapier Symposium in November. He hopes to have his marshalling paperwork (meaning that he has all the required signatures) in order by then.
• Alhwin also plans to marshal at Gulf Wars for at least one day, (and play for another). Hopefully he will be able to pick up another few signatures for his paperwork there.

Marshal of Thrown Weapons

• The weather did not cooperate with plans to drive to Jararvellir for their practice.
• Maewyn hopes to attend a Jararvellir practice soon, but with Tax Season coming up, his disposable time is becoming very limited, and will be so until after April 17th.
• Vitaliano noted that he discovered an archery range around Trempeleau. The price of membership is $15 per year, and the course is open year-round, although some of the ranges may be too short for a powerful longbow. Some interest in using the headed building as a practice area, or possibly even holding an archery event there. Vitaliano will attend the archery club's next meeting, which will be in the first week of March.

Seneschal

• Reminder that there is a demo to be held in Viroqua this coming Saturday (the 24th). Kudrun hasn't heard from the co-worker whom she asked to fill in for her that day, so she may not be there until sometime mid-afternoon. Valgarth volunteered to be the contact person and set up.
• There have been some conflicts for the next Shire meeting, which would normally happen on the 18th of March. One of the conflicts is that the Library will not be available. This is also the case for the 11th and the 25th of March as well.
• Vitaliano and Vettoria suggested that the Shire meet at Peaberry's coffee house, as Peaberry's has been accomodating to another group that they are in. Traditionally, the Shire has not held its Populace meetings in a commercial establishment. But, based on Vitaliano and Vettoria's experiences, the owners would be willing to use the upper area and hang the banner from the railing.
• The group voted to hold the March Populace meeting at Peaberry's on the 25th.
• Depending on how accomodating Peaberry's in in March, those present conditionally decided to hold the April meeting there as well, because the Public Library is not available on the usual date.

Webminister / Chronicler

• February's White Birch made the transition to a mostly electronic distribution list. The distribution to the not-particularly-active 'Cliffies might've gone a little better if Ariella had remembered to ping those folks sooner.
• No reports due until the end of March.
• Vitaliano suggested setting up the Autumn Rose website as its own subdomain of rokeclif.org.
• UW-L will be closed for spring break during the second full week in March, so Ariella plans to use this time to put the Birches online. Discussion with Kudrun regarding converting the old paper copies to PDF as well, and placing the archives online.
• Spring break would also be an excellent time to contact the Webminister about linking and/or creating any vanity-pages. (Hint, hint...)
• Received one new White Birch donation after the close of the meeting. (Huzzah for donations!)

New Business

Autumn Rose

• At the January Shire meeting, the idea of a "superstition" theme for the 13th Autumn Rose was mooted. Maewyn mentioned that the tradition of Friday the 13th being bad luck may have dated to the Knights Templar. If he can corroborate this, we may work it into the event, particularly the fighting activities.
• Vettoria wants to know whether we've heard anything from the equestrians, as we would need additional insurance if they are to attend and/or demo.
• Vitaliano shared more details about the Feast:
  • He has found a bagpipe-player--perhaps two--to take the place of the 7'3" Scots-born piper that he'd hoped to have perform.
  • He has discovered a turnip-based dish to complement the haggis, and intends to have one vegetarian dish to go with each meat dish in the removes.
  • There is a period form of "taco" from 13th Century Spain that he'd like to implement. Unfortunately, the recipe calls for bull meat, which cannot be sold for human consumption, so regular beef will have to be substituted.
  • As discussed at the last A & S Night, he would like to build canopies for the guests of honor for a period feast look. He has an idea for a PVC-tubing based structure, covered in fabric. Donations of fabric that can be used as canopy material.
  • Failing that, clean white bedsheets that are normally thrown away by hotels can be dyed in Northshield or Rokeclif colors. If we can obtain and dye enough sheets, they can serve as tablecloths as well.
  • He would like to rearrange the normal seating in the Feast Hall to make it more period, which mostly means that no one sits with their back to Royalty, as long as it doesn't make things more difficult for the servers.
  • The ginger pork dish absolutely MUST be served when it is ready or it will turn inedible. It will be served as the second course, so we can't hold the Bard of Rokeclif contest or any other uninterruptible entertainment in the interval between first and second course.
  • The Feast will consist of four courses, one of which is dessert. Ingredients and the "Tales of the Four Pages" will be posted on the A.R. website.
  • Most of the food will actually be cooked in the room adjacent to the actual Feast Hall. Much of the prep will be done before the event.
  • Vitaliano still needs two pages (Italian or Spanish) and might need appropriate costumes for those countries.
• Alhwin plans to have an "uber-volunteer" person to ping potential volunteers at events before Autumn Rose.
• We also need marshals for most combat-related activities. We are trying very hard to find new coordinators/marshals, to allow the gentles who have helped out in this capacity in previous years to actually "play" at the event.
• The discreetly damp policy will be more aggressively enforced this year, after some folks roundly abused the privilege at the last Feast.
• The "General Public" section of this year's A.R. website will include a version of the "Amenities" page that indicates that food/refreshment from T-Bones, the Milkshake Ladies, and the Turkish coffee house will be available.
• Vettoria will need all paperwork for the merchants before the event. Bronislava is the merchant coordinator, and should make anyone merchanting aware--in the highly unlikely event that they aren't already--of the State of Wisconsin requirements.
• The merchant fee this year will be the usual donation of an item for the silent auction.
• We are shooting for combining the normal August walk-through with a partial pre-cleaning of the site, to cut down on the amount of work that we normally have to do on Thursday and Friday. Alhwin will talk to Kudrun's contact with the Fair Board to discuss the possibility of obtaining a key a few weeks in advance.
• Brighid's father has volunteered the use of his tractor for hauling equipment, trash bins, etc. during the event.
• The dumpster that we obtained from Hilltoppers was the correct size, but they placed it in a very bad location. We will correct that this year.
• Vettoria will not be able to run the silent auction this year, as she will have a four month-old baby to tend. Busta volunteered, and we will put a shout-out on the website for additional help.
• Vitaliano is toying with the idea of making part of the Feast prep a "demo", possibly the tortilla-making.
• Alhwin will be asking for entertainers for the demo part of the event.
• Brighid will be doing a variation on the scavenger hunt for the Children's Activities that will involve gold doubloons as part of a possible pirate theme.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:06 p.m.

Page last updated:  21 May 2007