It's a lovely Mosaic.

I did another month of notifications as Mosaic Herald. I'm definitely feeling confident in what I'm doing now.

There were a few things I noticed about OSCAR vs the Blue Tyger LoD vs my spreadsheet and some inconsistencies due to human error. I let the other heralds in the Blue Tyger office know, sent out my email notifications and put up notices on Facebook and to the Gazette. Afterwards I realized there's one other bit I could do, and that is to include a link to the LoD when I post to FB and Gazette. So I'll do that next month.

Calligraphy! I finished one backlog scroll and started the pencil practice page for the final one. I emailed the backlog deputy and let her know I'd be mailing those out shortly, but shortly has come and gone. Oops. I have off work the week between Christmas and New years, I'll be sure to finish it then if not sooner.

I decided to stop doing two unofficial roles. I was not finding any satisfaction in them anymore, so I have resigned from House Three Skull heavy list captain, and as one of the mods for the Giftmas all year long facebook group. The relief I feel after giving those up confirmed it was the right thing to do.

New Job, New Scrolls.

Just after Pennsic I was offered the job of Mosaic Herald. This is the person who sends out notifications after a submission has finished kingdom (first) level commentary. As opposed to Mural herald who sends it out after Laurel (final) level acceptance/return.

I jumped at this chance, as I've often heard grumblings from people that once they submitted something they never heard anything back. Sometimes OSCAR gets cranky and refuses to send out the emails. Sometimes they wind up in people's spam folders and don't get seen. So, since we have kingdom personal and office gmails set up now, why not use it to send them out? Ok, maybe it takes a bit longer to send them out one by one instead of in a batch, but if it helps the notifications get seen then I'll do it. Also the Oscar system seems a bit complicated. But I'm sure it worked for many years. Mostly.

Anyway! I officially started last month, with the submissions done right before Pennsic. That was 27 emails, 33 items to send out. Some emails were both name and device. I did the spreadsheet and sent the emails in one evening. This month's batch was the first round from Pennsic. 34 emails with 49 items. The spreadsheet alone took me one evening. Since I was cramming to do a scroll for an event I had to spread out the emails over 3 days. I had messaged Brigantia and thanked him for starting me in this job the month before having to do the Pennsic ones!

I went back to the instructions I was originally given, as the results sit in Oscar waiting to be processed and emailed. But since I'm not doing it that way I went back in there to delete them. It wasn't difficult to figure out, just tedious going through all the ones that are sitting on the server and finding each separate one and deleting it, then going back to the list and finding the next one. It looks like there's a bunch of old notifications sitting on there that nothing was done with them, but I don't know if it was Mosaic level stuff to do, or Mural. So I'll leave any one I'm not currently working on alone for now.

I posted a note of what happened to the Kingdom (unofficial) facebook page and sent an email to the EK Gazette with the same wording. Since I know not everybody is on facebook. Just the majority of us, heh.

I also went back through notes on facebook and updated my baronial OP. Fixed a few entries and added a bunch of people.

As for scrolls, I've still been working on the last 2 backlogs I signed up for. I have the illuminated pages from Fiona and the words from Aislinn, I just have to get the calligraphy done. The one I'm currently working on is being a problem child, as the spacing is either too cramped or too much extra space. But I think I finally got a good balance and got the pencilled words on there, now I just need to ink it. I also did the calligraphy for a friend's AoA, the baronial heavy weapons champion, and the baronial brewing champion. Beyond the scrolls I did way too much at St. Andrews, and did very little at Arrows Axes and Ales.

Next weekend is Crown Tournament. Which I volunteered to either herald the lists or be a list runner, wherever I was needed more. I will also offer to help read scrolls in court. I think I've got the projection down, but in order to be heard and try to remember to enunciate and slow down so my An Dub accent doesn't muddle the words I don't have a good flow when I read. I want to work on that. I'm sure it'll get better with practice.

Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach...

There are many people in my family who are or were teachers. There's even more of my friends who are teachers. There is good reason why I'm not a teacher. My thought process is "I can take 2 hours to teach a person how to do a thing, or I can do it myself in 30 minutes." It's frustrating for myself when I know that part of the SCA and the Peer track is teaching others.

I've wrangled feast serving for a handful of events. For St. Andrews, Lily volunteered to be in charge of feast servers and asked me to teach her how to do it. There's so many little things that I just *do* and don't think about that it's difficult for me to lay out step by step what to do. And I wanted to bug her about "Have you nailed down volunteers yet? Have you done this yet? Have you done that yet?", but I didn't want to be a micromanager. Luckily she's intelligent and has common sense and is very receptive of my suggestions. So either I'd be on top of her so much that she'd get resentful, or I back off and toss her emails as I think of things and hope for the best. I went with the latter, confident that she'd be on top of things. Of course I had volunteered to be one of the servers so if things did go pear-shaped I could step in and help get it sorted out.

Unfortunately things never go to plan. All the hiccups that happened at feast were not the fault of the servers, and there was nothing we could do to prevent it or fix it. But Lily was watching, trying to keep our end of things going smoothly, I was hovering nearby her see if there was anything I could do to help. The other servers were people from her household and I know the specific ones that were helping were good ones. I told her at the end of the night that usually feast isn't quite so frantic, and it's much more relaxed. But she did a good job and now she knows how to do it. So there's 2 people in the barony that feastocrats can go to for heading up serving.

Pennsic Shenanigans.

I was very busy at Pennsic this year. I did so much that I can't remember all of it. First off I was acting herald, since our pursuivant wasn't able to go to War this year. So I lead the barony for opening ceremonies and heralded baronial court during the week.

I was determined to do more at Herald's point this year, so I signed up for 2 shifts at the Herald Admin Shack scanning and sorting completed paperwork. I was in a groove, it was my happy spot. Sadly the third shift I volunteered for, I was supposed to go right after the bridge battle ended on Thursday. But the battle ran long. I asked my sister to stop in there and let them know, once battle ended and I got back to camp to shower she told me they were just about finished with the paperwork anyway. So I got myself unstinky and headed over there. The few heralds left said they didn't know why there was a shift scheduled for that day/time, as herald's point was closed by then anyway. But I felt better stopping in there so it didn't seem like I was blowing them off.
I also stopped off another time midweek, but they didn't have a spare computer for me to use to do consults, so I went off to the art tent to color in paperwork for 2 hours.
I did stop off there Thursday morning as I had a spare hour, but the first computer wouldn't start up, and the second computer finally let me in, but I suddenly realized I had no idea what the procedure was for doing consults at Pennsic, so I was probably more a hindrance than a help. I'll try again next year at the beginning of the week to learn how to do them.

I also went to two ASL classes so I could learn more for doing sign heraldry. I learned a bunch of stuff, but I'm not sure if it was useful for a beginner silent herald yet. I'll have to let it roll around in the back of my head and in my hands to see how much use it will be.  I also happened to sit very near the silent herald during EK court, so I was watching her. I saw her the next day by Cooper's store and stopped her to ask about a specific sign she was using. I have tentative plans unless I chicken out to do silent herald for Arrows Axes and Ales in November.

I think the rest of the things I was running around doing were not particularly service, so I won't include them here. But lots of little gifts given, witnessed bigger awards given to family and friends. Not nearly enough time spent by the campfire. But I really enjoyed my Pennsic, I think it's one of the best I've ever had.

Herald has leveled up!

A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to up my herald game. So I sent an email to Blue Tyger and Brigantia with my qualifications and asked if they had any position openings in the next year.

I got an email back from Blue Tyger offering for me to join in on their slack sessions. So I've been doing that the past 2 weeks, and getting more confident on my contributions to the discussion. It's confidential submission stuff, so I can't document here what's going on, but my help seems to be warmly appreciated! They like me! They really really like me!

I signed up for some shifts for Pennsic at Heralds point, doing admin entry stuff if needed. I am committing myself to helping for those two shifts and am determined to pop in other times to help out where I can. While I'm not even 90% confident on my consulting sans the ability to say "Let me check and I'll get back to you" I know there's plenty of backup to look over my shoulder, so I'm jumping in with both feet and offering to help with submitters.

As I told my sister, I know it takes like 30 years to become a Pelican, so if I don't start now, then it's just that much further out that I can hope for it. Heralding is what I am most confident at and enjoy the most, so that is where I'm going to concentrate my efforts in growth. Also heralding is very enjoyable and heralds are such fun people! So: learn, grow, help, and have fun while doing it. Yes, thank you!



I'm still working on scroll backlogs. I started pencilling out the words for one while I was on vacation with the extended family last week. The other night I started inking the calligraphy, and after about 3 or 4 lines I noticed that some words were spread out and others were squished together. It was seriously not acceptable for me. And besides, it was just a practice/layout page, so I'm not upset, I'll just start over. But that will be the last time I try working on scrolls while at the beach house. Too many mundane people around, especially kids age 11 and under. I meant to do another pencil layout tonight, but got caught up in helping Blue Tyger office hours again. And my cat settled down and was purring in my lap, so I obviously couldn't move. It'll get done tomorrow.

It's been "quiet".

It's been fairly quiet since I went to Balfar's challenge. My service has been in small ways. I've been continuing to moderate the Giftmas group. I've been doing calligraphy on scrolls. I made a seneschal hat for my seneschal. I've been helping people with heraldry submissions. I've been stalking the Wreath and Pelican heraldry meetings to try to absorb more knowledge. I am giving advice to two local people who are interested in being book heralds, as well as being deputy and answering questions to my pursuivant herald.

So nothing exciting for you all to read about, but still doing what I can where I can.

Some mistakes were made

Last weekend was Balfar's Challenge.

There were good things, I got to talk to a new friend that I haven't gotten to chat much with previously. I got to chat with a few new people. I got to help read scrolls in court. Two friends got awards and I contributed calligraphy on the scroll for one of them.

There were not so positive things. It was cold and windy and off and on rainy, so I didn't get to do as much as I was hoping, I was busy huddling to keep my hands warm. I didn't include some standard wording on the scroll that was supposed to be in there. Which probably lead to my friend not getting the "For the first time I introduce". I called Their Majesties as Their Excellencies.

I'm determined to do more and do better next RP.

So many awards!

Yesterday was the Coronation of Ozurr and Fortune. The event was jointly hosted by both An Dubhaigeainn and Ostgardr.

I had signed up to be a "trollnik", meaning go along the check in lines and make sure people had their blue cards out and ready, give them the stamp so they didn't have to attempt to write out "An Dubhaigeainn" on their check, etc. My shift was 11:30-2:30. I got on site at 11, trolled in myself (the area was mostly empty), went in to watch Wilhelm and Vienna's last court. Around 11:30 I went over to the still empty troll tent and said "I'm here for my shift to help keep the line in line. Orrrrr, if you don't need me I could go back to watching court?" Oswyn laughed at me and said to go back. Yay!

At 2:30 my friend Vetra was getting protegeed to Misstress Suzanne. There was a contract written up by Vetra's husband Maestro Vettorio. He was handed the cut sheet and asked to read it out. He passed the paper over to me. Ok, sight unseen, here we go. Sneaky me, I had asked Vettorio a few days prior on how exactly Vetra's name is supposed to be pronounced for another thing later in the day. Nailed it.

Around 3:30 I went looking for Sir Zhigmun to sort out scroll reading. I told him about the style of reading Ervald's scroll that would make him most happy, he wrote me in as the reader. I had also contacted him a month ago asking to read Vetra and Ellen's scrolls, as well as my son's AoA scroll as soon as I found out he was getting it at this event. He said "There's a problem with Ellen's scroll" and I got worried it hadn't arrived in time. No, he had it, but it was a musical scroll meant to be sung. I said nobody wants to hear me sing, let the bard do it.

During the awarding of count/ess to Wilhelm and Vienna, I suddenly realized I wasn't give the cut sheets to look over while I was talking to Sir Zhigmun . Oh well, I'm a decent sight reader, it will be fine. And then Hi! I got called in for a Silver Tyger award! (The scroll!!! The scribe read my EK wiki page and actually used their cat to make real paw prints across the scroll! I freaking LOVE this scroll!!!)

But after that I stayed close by the stage so I could pop forward when it was a scroll I had offered to read. I forgot/didn't know that a few other friends were also getting awards and was disappointed that I didn't get to read for them. But the way my throat was by the end of the night I'm glad I limited myself to what I did.
When Severus got called up, Sir Zhigmun said "I have a stunt herald for this one." Ozurr says "Oh, really? Hey, do you recognize this herald?" I grinned at Severus. He rolled his eyes and said "My mom." But I saw that he was secretly pleased.

I had so much fun reading Ervald's scroll. It was described by one person as "wrestlemania style", and another as "Full Chaucer". So much fun, and the laughter and applause I got says the audience really appreciated it. More importantly Ervald really appreciated it. "Just how I would have done it!" he said.

After feast I was on schedule to run the shuttle from the church to parking. I packed up my things and put them in the car knowing I'd be driving during cleanup, let Vetra know my tablecloth was still being used by the table so she could claim it for me. She decided that two cars would be good for the mass exodus, so Jordan and I were doing the circuit. A little after 9:30 she and I were both waiting at the church for passengers for ten minutes, so I said I was going to park and head back inside to help finish cleaning.

At 10:15 we were declared done and went home.

It was a really good day. Lots of friends got great recognition, everything from an attendee's point of view went very well, and now we collapse and have an Irish Wake for this event.

Little service here, little service there.

Before the An Dub schola event, which is also our A&S and bardic champions event, I was asked to do the calligraphy on 2 scrolls. Fiona did the illumination on one, Lily on the other. They just did borders and let me choose which one was for which. Since I'm terrible at and honestly find no joy in word smithing I went to Slaine for those. I was quite happy with how they turned out. And I've been saving up empty copy paper boxes at work, so I cut out the tops/bottoms to make some quick and dirty (not nice and fabric finished) scroll sleeves. I even remembered to print out cut sheets.

I got to the event, which was held on a Suffolk County Community College campus. There's no site fee, no dayboard. In previous years a few people have brought food to share, so I made up a big batch of honey butter and bought a loaf of sliced crusty bread. Because no SCA event is complete if it doesn't have honey butter and bread! I asked permission to use and printed out 2 copies of a charge group lesson that Yehuda had made up years before while he was Elmut. Because I knew I had at least 2 (and probably only 2) people that were interested in learning more than my usual "absolute basic heraldry for the beginner". I also brought along my laptop in case anybody wanted help with their EK Wiki pages, but nobody asked about that.

The honeybutter turned out to be widely liked, I taught Slaine and Lily how to determine charge groups. I took a class on how to write award recommendations. Then the bardic performances happened, and the 2 A&S entries were discussed. I was told who each winner was so I could put their names on the scrolls, and I suddenly realized that Fiona won the A&S champion spot. And I had done the A&S wording on the scroll she illuminated. Everybody was so very amused at this.

Put away my things, helped straighten up, then home.

So much servicing!

Yesterday was Dragonship Haven Investiture and Kings and Queens Bardic Champions.

I was asked by Onora last month to do calligraphy on a Court Barony scroll, as the one hand I know would suit it perfectly. And I've been asking my scribe friends if I could help with scrolls. I thought the best way, but involved, for us to do with with my lack of experience is if she sketched out the art so I would know what size the calligraphy area needed to be. I would be able to do the words without worrying about messing up art with my mistakes. And I can do it in 2 days. So she could take her time with the art, and if something happened that required the scroll be done completely over I could do my part quick. As it happend I dripped some ink on the page and had a minor freak-out while trying to blot it up. I texted Onora and she said it was fixable. So I finished my part and made the pass off back to her to finish in time for the event.

Due to a long search for parking I got to the event just in time to see my friend Lada be called up to be put on vigil for laurel. After dayboard was eaten I had my chance to visit her ("Are you doing ok? Do you need to go to the bathroom? I can sit here for a minute while you take a break.") I was chatting with Ryan just outside her vigil room. Suuder was guarding and being in charge of the list, but he had to go do a Runnymead thing. So he asked Ryan to take over. After a few rounds Ryan needed to go do a thing as well, so he asked me to take over. I ended up doing it for over an hour until the end. It turned out to be a lot more interesting than I had thought it would be. Person goes in to visit, they get 5 minutes. After 3 minutes open the door so the noise from outside is their warning to wrap it up. Take down names. The most fun part of it is I got to meet new people and put names to faces. I chatted with them for a minute as they got put on the list and then again as they were waiting to go in. So that was cool! Also, it was good to help out multiple friends by doing this. The only down side is my wrist was really hurting from holding the book, my phone for timing, and the heavy spare charger because my phone's battery was getting low.

The end of the visitors was about 4:00, just as it was planned to finish up anyway. I had been told previously to go to the Royal Room at 4:15 to be given a scroll to read in court, so I found Audrye and was given a written sheet. I was very happy because it was a nice simple name and not Gaelic or Norse or anything! I saw the edge of Onora's scroll a few pages down and asked if I could see it. She said "Of course you can, you made it!" I said but I hadn't seen the art part, I did the calligraphy first. It turned out freaking gorgeous.

I had been instructed during court to go up to the stage during the MoD elevation. So I watched to see how others were getting up and down, there's a side door that leads to the backstage area. Cool. I snuck up during the ceremony, and after they call vivats I walked behind the Rose banner to stand next to Treannah. Welcome gifts were given to newcomers, and then Audrye nudged me up front and cued what I should say. "Their Majesties call forth Patrick Michael". I thought for a second and then whispered to Audrye "I did say Majesties, and not excellencies, right?" After 4 years of being baronial herald it kind of became autopilot. I called up the order when I was cued, then read out the words (Scroll forthcoming. Sorry dude.). Since he was being given a silver wheel I then after reading the scroll and leaving the stage went down and welcomed him into the order as I went back to my seat. Later on as we were saying our goodbyes Onora said to me her husband was surprised because I'm usually so quiet. He was stunned that I could be so loud! I said "Awww, thank you! What a nice compliment!"

Court continued on, and I saw the scroll I helped with being given out. As it was read and shown off I started flailing in my seat with glee. Vetra looked at me with a quizzical look. I flailed some more. She asked "Why are you so excited?" I gestured to the stage just as it was said "Calligraphy by Violet Hughes" She said "Oh!" and flailed with me. Yay, my first scroll given out in Royal Court! King Wilhelm then said "You all have to see this scroll. It is amazing!" Hell yeah it is, Onora does beautiful work and I'm so excited she asked me to contribute.

So: 1) worked on scroll. 2) read a scroll in court. 3) Brute squadded for a vigil. 4) made new friends. A very good day!

Giftmas all year long

Around Christmas somebody came up with the idea of Giftmas. People post their Amazon wishlists and prowl through the lists and pick something off a person's wish and send it to them. I played too, sent out a few gifts, and received a few gifts.

After the holidays Her Excellency Honig decided it needed to continue on past the holidays and she set up a facebook group. Annie (I can never remember her SCA name) set up a spreadsheet on her google drive, and I said I love playing with spreadsheets and offered to help. So we alphabetically listed everybody and their wishlists, and any extra comments of things not on the wishlist they like. Such as dog photos, somebody to take walks with, coffee and naps, Pokemon Go friends, etc.

After a few days the number in the group and subsequently the spreadsheet has exploded. As of typing this entry there are 167 people on the spreadsheet and 301 people in the group. I didn't want to let the entire spreadsheet be opened up for editing, but I figured out how people can leave a comment and then Annie and I can transfer those comments onto the sheet. People haven't really caught onto that, and every 4th post to the group is "Why don't you pin the spreadsheet to the top?" (It is pinned, you have to look under "announcements"). But slowly it's coming along and everybody is having fun posting photos of the gifts they've been receiving. There's even been a couple of posts of people asking who hasn't gotten anything yet, because they want everybody to feel the love. It's amazing! This is My Society. *heart emoji*

I also had an idea this afternoon and started another tab on the sheet so people can list their shop if they make and sell stuff. Because I know that we as a group love to support small businesses as well, especially if our friends are putting their heart and soul into the craft.

I know this isn't specifically SCA / protege related, but it's a project and I haven't written in this blog for a bit. So that's a thing I've been working on.