St. Andrews

St. Andrews is our barony's big event, and I always volunteer to do a lot. Plus TRM wanted to attend, and they are super awesome people. But that makes the event that much bigger.

Again I volunteered to do two more champion scrolls. Oda just happened to be painting a scroll blank so she finished that and gave it to me to use, and Fiona found a blank she'd done over the summer. So that was taken care of, and I got the scrolls finished 5 whole days in advance. And I remembered to print out the cut sheets as well!

For this event I volunteered to head up the health checkpoint. The site only has one entrance, so with my 3 volunteers we'd stop the car as it pulled into the driveway, ask for ID and vaccination card or negative test, then send them along to Saravit who was in charge of telling people where to park. I actually had fun, got to hang out with friends and chat between people arriving. Slaine, Eslebeth, and Sarah volunteered to help me do the checking, and I'm very appreciative that they all put some time in with helping me, and the coverage between the three of them meant they all got to go do other things they liked as well.

Prior to the event I got an email from the Kingdom Seneschal, she sent me the sign out sheet for the checkers. And said since the BoD directions of splitting people up to check different parts of the alphabet didn't go into effect until the 15th, and our event was the 13th, I could arrange it any way I wanted. And she'd appreciate any documentation of why our version works, or if the alphabet version works. Photos would be great. So I had my son take some photos and videos of how we checked in the cars to back up that our way was better. 

Since I had 2 people checking at any point (I was one of them, and rotated through the others) when I was asked to jump in as deputy herald to lead Their Excellencies into morning court because the regular herald had to run off site for a few minutes, things were still covered. By 1:00 it seemed no more people were arriving, so I informed Oswin at Gate that I was stopping and passed off the paperwork and wristbands to him. At that point I had some food and got to hang out with friends for a little bit. After about an hour a tornado alert was on, so everybody was breaking down anything they could put away. 

After helping with that and filling in names on the scrolls, I offered to the Crown Herald to help read scrolls for afternoon court, so he let me pick one to do. I jumped onto the end of the procession line and hung out behind the entourage with my friends that were retaining until it was time for me to read. Oh, except for one point when I was called forward by my barony and inducted into the Order of Perseverance! I was really excited about that, it's the local award for contributions in all 3 aspects of the society: service, martial, and arts. Soon after that I read the scroll for my household brother, then headed back into the audience to knit and chill for the remainder of court.

Once that was done I helped clean things up from court, brought out tables for feast that I was not staying for, said my goodbyes and headed home for a well-earned adult drink.

Seeing people! In person!

When we last left our superhero...

My barony has had two in person events now! We only have one event site in the area, and it's got a HUGE outdoor space, so the events can be safely held to the comfort of the more cautious people. Me. I'm cautious people. 

I offered to do the champion scrolls. And 2 weeks before the first event (Arrows Axes and Ales, so three champions) I realized I needed scrolls blanks. Lilly Morgaine said she had one, a black hours scroll she had done just to try it out. She's freaking amazing. So she lent me gold ink and I got that one done up. Vettorio said he found a scroll blank his apprentice Oda Lally had done, so I used that and got the second one done. I decided to shoot for the stars and found a simple cadel online. I traced that and made the third scroll by myself. Which has always been a goal of mine, so yay! I'm proud of myself for that. When I posted it to facebook after the event I got a message from a gentle who's well known for cadels and he gave me a tip or two on how to improve on that. But I got those scrolls done 2 days before the event, whew.

At the event I took a turn at serving dayboard. To keep things clean as people came up to the table I would say "Hello! Welcome to dayboard, please use the utensils!" Because I had discussed previously with the autocrat that people are oblivious and would just reach in for stuff with their hands, right next to the spoons and tongs. So this was a friendly yet firm reminder. We also had sanitizing wipes to use every so often on high-touch areas.

After that I hung out with my friends a bunch, and relaxed.

Until the competitions were finished. I suddenly realized I didn't print out cut sheets like I'd intended to before leaving the house. So I begged some paper and was frantically writing out the words for the herald. As I'm halfway through that I'm told the winners names and that court should start soon. So between the chill in the air and the adrenaline from rushing to write out words my hands were a bit shaky and I'm not proud of the way the names came out. Oh well, can't be helped.

Court was enjoyable, it was late October and still warm enough to hold it on the outside stage. After that was a quick cleanup and break down and then headed home.