A fine event/demo

Today was A Fall Day at Fenmere, a cute little event that brewed up at the last minute. (The Provost had been thinking about it for a month or two, but only got the appropriate permissions a week or two ago.) It was a sort of half-event, half-demo, intended to give the new members of Fenmere a taste of the SCA.

It was small, as expected -- given the short notice, I hadn't expected a lot of people there. We got a total of around 25-30 people, including about 8 Fenmeri. The rest were from scattered around the Barony, a broad range of ages and experiences. One blast from the past: the one fighter who showed was Thorvald / Elric / Bill Weresheep, who felt that, since Fenmere was providing the fighters with space, it was important to help with their demo.

Once a reasonable number of people were there, I kicked things off by suggesting a little storytelling. I retold The Tale of the Pike Company on the Causeway that I had worked up for the Tall Tales event; Christian and Abigail followed with stories of their own. I taught Seven-Sided Backgammon to a bunch of the students. Thorvald got into his armor, and I helped him explain SCA fighting to folks; after that, Christian did a similar explanation of SCA fencing. I taught five assorted dances, and was reminded of why I love college students so much. (They really get into the joy of dancing, and are generally less reluctant to try -- pretty much everybody there danced.) Harald showed up towards the end, and we hooked him up with a girl who had been enthusing about the idea of blacksmithing.

Throughout, we talked about all sorts of SCA topics. They were already intrigued by the idea of Pennsic; I think they're now seriously interested. (So we may be looking for an encampment for a group of enthusiastic 18-year-olds next year.)

I really like this group -- they have the sense of goofy fun that has always characterized Fenmere at its best. The gender balance is wildly off (one guy out of the bunch), but this tends to be self-correcting: when the borough is made up of a bunch of cute freshmen girls one year, there's usually an influx of men the next.

So, a lovely day out, and a thoroughly successful "internal demo". I think we managed to give them a good overview of the Society, in microcosm...

A fine event/demo

Today was A Fall Day at Fenmere, a cute little event that brewed up at the last minute. (The Provost had been thinking about it for a month or two, but only got the appropriate permissions a week or two ago.) It was a sort of half-event, half-demo, intended to give the new members of Fenmere a taste of the SCA.

It was small, as expected -- given the short notice, I hadn't expected a lot of people there. We got a total of around 25-30 people, including about 8 Fenmeri. The rest were from scattered around the Barony, a broad range of ages and experiences. One blast from the past: the one fighter who showed was Thorvald / Elric / Bill Weresheep, who felt that, since Fenmere was providing the fighters with space, it was important to help with their demo.

Once a reasonable number of people were there, I kicked things off by suggesting a little storytelling. I retold The Tale of the Pike Company on the Causeway that I had worked up for the Tall Tales event; Christian and Abigail followed with stories of their own. I taught Seven-Sided Backgammon to a bunch of the students. Thorvald got into his armor, and I helped him explain SCA fighting to folks; after that, Christian did a similar explanation of SCA fencing. I taught five assorted dances, and was reminded of why I love college students so much. (They really get into the joy of dancing, and are generally less reluctant to try -- pretty much everybody there danced.) Harald showed up towards the end, and we hooked him up with a girl who had been enthusing about the idea of blacksmithing.

Throughout, we talked about all sorts of SCA topics. They were already intrigued by the idea of Pennsic; I think they're now seriously interested. (So we may be looking for an encampment for a group of enthusiastic 18-year-olds next year.)

I really like this group -- they have the sense of goofy fun that has always characterized Fenmere at its best. The gender balance is wildly off (one guy out of the bunch), but this tends to be self-correcting: when the borough is made up of a bunch of cute freshmen girls one year, there's usually an influx of men the next.

So, a lovely day out, and a thoroughly successful "internal demo". I think we managed to give them a good overview of the Society, in microcosm...