[Artemisia] Re: Artemisia Digest, Vol 38, Issue 22
Robert Woodruff
notfrmmars at comcast.net
Mon Nov 13 22:19:17 CST 2006
Dearest Therasia,
I am delighted that I have been the catalyst for your inner curmudgeon. I
sincerely hope your feeling better and that I will see you at Estrella. What
a joy to read your musings.
If you, or anyone else that is in the sound of my typing who is not going to
Estella this year, would like to donate something of a reward to those who
are going, it would be greatly appreciated. This donation could be in the
form of garb that you no longer wear, or that piece of armor that has fallen
out of favor, or perhaps a class in the recipients area, taught by a peer.
Any thing will do and be greatly appreciated by those to receive this thank
you from the generous populace of the Kingdom.
Thank you for the air time,
Robert Bedlam
----- Original Message -----
From: <artemisia-request at lists.gallowglass.org>
To: <artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 5:08 PM
Subject: Artemisia Digest, Vol 38, Issue 22
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. RE: Toys for Tots Report (Dawn Tavares)
> 2. More Accomodations Info for Estrella Site (Dawn Tavares)
> 3. Reasons to Volunteer??? (feeble attempt at humor plus a rant)
> (Catherine Helm-Clark)
> 4. Re: Reasons to Volunteer??? (feeble attempt at humor plus
> arant) (Allen Hall)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 11:30:39 -0700
> From: "Dawn Tavares" <dtavares1 at hotmail.com>
> Subject: RE: [Artemisia] Toys for Tots Report
> To: artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org
> Message-ID: <BAY103-F327E40FAFA8C2BDF54D7C6FCF40 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>
> Forwarded with permission from the Arrows' Flight list.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Other awards that Lord Finlay was too shell-shocked to notice: :-)
> Lord Padruig received his Award of Arms
> Lord Stephan the Other received a Golden Gryphon's Talon
> Lady KyneWynn the Kind received her Golden Scarf (long overdue, IMHO)
> His Lordship Broka Vay received a Golden Sun in Splendor
>
> Also, not only did Allegretza win the Arts and Sciences competition,
> but she is also the Shire Arts and Sciences Champion. :-) Congrats,
> Allegretza!
>
> Other memories from the evening--I loved listening to CJ the
> Amnesiac's violin playing and Katherine's tin whistle solo and also
> the awesome "Song for Arrows' Flight" composed and sung by m'lady
> Mariel (sp?). Oh! And the look on Allegretza's face when I called
> her name as the A&S Champion....PRICELESS. The food was superb and I
> think Lady Ash and Jacque simply outdid themselves. A better feast
> couldn't have been hoped for. Lady Bronwyn did a good job of
> child-wrangling, and the Viking Relays were definitely a favorite.
> Thank you all for a very fun event! Lord Finlay and Lady Asa--you did
> us proud.
>
> --Lady Ellisif
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> Also of note: Many of the (peckish but no longer starving) children of
> Arrows' Flight received charms for having completed various sections in
> the
> Page School. One fine young lad advanced from Cupbearer to Page. I'm sure
> the Lady Bronwyn will be more able than I to list the names and honors;
> give
> her a couple of days to recover.
>
> The children of SAF also gifted The Crown with a lovely banner of quilt
> blocks decorated by the youth and constructed by Bronwyn. Her Majesty
> high-fived all of the presentors and was then nearly smothered in
> pint-sized
> hugs.
>
> Young Lord Aaron the Bear received the Honorable Vicar Morgan his very
> first
> Page School charm, the bee for Service. The award was a great surprise to
> Aaron, but no surprise to the rest of us, given that he's the grandson of
> the Honorable Lady Bethoc and Lord Broka. Such a quiet, thoughtful young
> man
> could not help but be of service unless he was tied to a tree and covered
> in
> ants. :)
>
> Lord John the Rat served as a somewhat dazed herald for His Honor Morgan.
> Her Miniature Highness Sara Jezebel joined the youth of Arrows' Flight in
> serving feast with grace and no spillage.
>
> My personal compliments go to the daughters of Lady Kyne Wynn. Their duet
> and trio harmonies during feast made me feel as if I were sitting in a
> cathedral listening to fine madrigals. I do hope they bring their lovely
> voices to Solstice.
>
>
> Aurora de Portugal
> BLS
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> All-in-one security and maintenance for your PC. Get a free 90-day trial!
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:29:02 -0700
> From: "Dawn Tavares" <dtavares1 at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [Artemisia] More Accomodations Info for Estrella Site
> To: artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org
> Message-ID: <BAY103-F1935F3F10369A7F131EE12FCF40 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>
> More details on hotel research, gallantly provided by our beloved Maestro
> Niccolo.
> (It matters not that Caid may possess his body; his heart, so he tells me,
> still belongs to the ladies of Artemisia.)
>
> Aurora de Portugal
> BLS
>
> ~~~~~~~
>>Blue Mist was the only hotel or motel in Florence...
>>at about 4.5 miles from the site.
>>
>>I found two motels in Coolidge, about 14 miles from
>>the site. The Moonlight Motel couldn't give me a firm
>>quote this far out, but the current rate is $55/night
>>for two beds with refridgerator and microwave, and
>>slightly higher with a kitchenette. The Grande Vista
>>Motel quoted me $65/night for two best with
>>kitchenette. Dining choices in the area are
>>sufficiently limited that I would call a fridge and
>>microwave necessities.
>>
>>Amenities in the two towns:
>>
>>Florence -- Convenience stores, a couple of
>>mom-and-pop restaurants, gas stations.
>>
>>Coolidge -- all services, including full service
>>restaurants and grocery stores.
>>
>>All of the motels are western highway style drive-up
>>motels without lobbies. Both towns are small and
>>pretty remote -- nobody is going to swing through
>>Florence or Coolidge to make trouble. All the motels
>>appeared basically clean and well-maintained.
>>
>>The only other place within a half-hour drive was a
>>Best Western about 22 miles to the north of the site,
>>Gold Canyon Inn & Suites, who quoted me $133/night for
>>two beds.
>>
>>The site itself compares very well to Estrella
>>Mountain Park. One word...green! The site actually
>>has ground cover. We'll have the site entirely closed
>>to outsiders other than school visits and the
>>inevitable reporters. The site is remote enough the
>>townies wouldn't drop by even if they were allowed to.
>> If you drive, the last 2.5 miles to the site all
>>along a dirt road, though a very well-maintained one.
>>(My little Scion averaged 50 mph with no trouble.)
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get today's hot entertainment gossip
> http://movies.msn.com/movies/hotgossip?icid=T002MSN03A07001
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 16:22:33 -0700
> From: Catherine Helm-Clark <no1home at onewest.net>
> Subject: [Artemisia] Reasons to Volunteer??? (feeble attempt at humor
> plus a rant)
> To: artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org
> Message-ID: <98EC5652-4BD9-400D-B8C4-322F2227D261 at onewest.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> I will warn you all now that it's a very very very Grumpy Therasia
> today, so while I know I should resist grumping all over the
> following, since I know it is sent to encourage us all to do a good
> and very desirable thing, of while I heartily approve, my Inner
> Curmudgeon has taken over my fingers and I just can't help myself...
>
>> Greetings most noble populace of Artemisia,
>> Considering Volunteering at Estrella this year? Still considering
>> going to Estrella this year? Here is a top ten list of why you
>> should go to Estella War this year and, of course do some
>> volunteering while you are there.
>>
>> 10. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you
>> nothing that you have received - only what you have given.
>
> There's this hallucination I have every now and then when I think I'm
> someone called Adj. Prof. Helm-Clark at this strange place called a
> university - which doesn't at all resemble what I know a univeristy
> to be, like the one at Wien, where I visited once and heard the
> learned Doctors of Philosophy and Divines of the Church lecture from
> the pulpit of the Karlskirche about those realms of learning which
> Albertus Magnus from Melk calls the Ars Liberalis.
>
> But in this hallunication I have, Prof. Helm-Clark says quite
> emphatically that the above statement numbered ten (which I think
> should be denoted in the more familiar Roman system as x) is most
> certainly refuted by the first and second laws of thermodynamics -
> not to mention the law of mass balance...
>
>> 9. No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
>
> Actually, it depends on who is doing the accounting...
>
>> 8. With a sweet tongue and kindness, you can drag an elephant by a
>> hair.
>
> ???!!!????? Oh come on! Why the bleep should I want to even try the
> above suggested method of moving an elephant when everyone knows the
> way to move an elephant such that it will willingly follow you
> wherever you lead is with an open jar of peanut butter???
>
>> 7. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens
>> can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
>
> Now this is only one position possible out of three in answer to the
> ongoing debate as to who is right: B. F. Skinner (there is no true
> free will since all our thoughts and actions are the consequence of
> pre-existing conditions of causality) or Nietsche (one person - the
> "uber-mensch" - is the only agency that can change the world). While
> the above statement represents the middle ground (and in my humble
> opinion is the closest to the correct position on this debate), this
> is definitely room for doubt as ongoing modern discussion has
> demonstrated.
>
>> 6. Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you
>> just sit there.
>
> It is extremely arguable that if you get run over, that you were on
> the right track...
>
>> 5. It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that
>> no man can seriously help another without helping himself.
>
> Leaving the deeper philosophical questions of just what is implied by
> the above statement, what I want to know is: what about the other
> half of humanity left out of that statement?
>
>> 4. I am a recipient of unconditional love; I am a volunteer!
>
> According to the literature of the particular ethical monotheism of
> which I am most in favor of, unconditional love is not conditional
> upon a person's record of volunteering their time to any cause.
>
>> 3. If you don't believe one person can make a difference, you have
>> never been in bed with a mosquito.
>
> Ah, so I guess we're playing it both ways: here's a statement that
> appears to support our late 19th/early 20th C. German philosopher who
> stared into the abyss a little too long, in contradiction to
> statement 7 above.
>
> Besides, if we take statement 3 at face value here, it only
> demonstrates the difference one mosquito makes, not necessarilly one
> person...
>
> Let's not even think about what that person and that mosquito were
> doing in bed together...don't even go there!!!
>
>> 2. How wonderful that no one need wait a single moment to improve
>> the world.
>
> Other than the grammatical problems of the missing predicate in the
> first clause, I'm having a bit of a problem here seeing how a simple
> statement of fact about the timing of one's volunteer efforts is
> going to help me here to volunteer at Estrella, three months from
> now. What this statement most poignantly leads me to think is that I
> really need to get off my butt TODAY and get my act together to
> volunteer at the soup kitchen that the church I belong to runs every
> Sunday afternoon. Not a single one of us should wait to do things
> like this - so why wait for Estrella???
>
>> 1. The rewards far out weigh the cost of travel, and the journey
>> will be fun.
>
> Past experiences clearly demonstrate that the "fun-ness" of the
> journey is highly debatable. Just ask around... As to whether the
> intangible rewards of volunteering at Estrella outweigh the cost,
> well, it's like this (warning! warning! Rant coming on! warning!):
>
> For the last few weeks, there's been a discussion on the Grand
> Council list as to whether the next edition of the known world
> handbook and other SCA publications should be essentially delivered
> preferentially through means solely or mostly online. I'm glad to
> say that the folks from Artemisia that participate in the Grand
> Council appear to be not in favor of such an approach at this time.
> What does this have to do with volunteering at Estrella? Well,
> everything.
>
> Let me explain (and also to say that this issue has gotten under my
> skin in a really big way). The folks who support a brave new world
> of SCA publications through preferentially online models are looking
> at the problem from a cost-benefit analysis point of view that we in
> the SCA need to move to more modern models of fostering the growth of
> SCA membership, including a implied stance that it is not good
> business sense to be subsidizing costly paper publication of things
> like the known world handbook for rural and isolated newbies in the
> isolated and out-of-the-modern-online-mainstream places of the world,
> like, well, Chicken, Alaska; Salmon, Idaho; Tyson, Vermont;
> Wallabong, New South Wales; Murdoe, South Dakota or Lovell, Wyoming
> (where there have been and in many cases, still are SCA members...).
>
> There are several problems where, but out of all of the the problems
> I could list, what I want to point out is what I believe to be the
> "values problem" that's implied here. Such a viewpoint, arguably a
> defensible one if one subscribes to a particular way of thinking
> about people as merely consumers, discounts all the intangibles that
> make the SCA the SCA. In Therasia von Tux's SCA, which I believe to
> be the same as Conrad's SCA, Casamira's SCA, Alan's SCA, Azir's SCA,
> Cariadoc's SCA, the von Markheim's SCA, Flieg's SCA and THE
> Listmaker's SCA, the known world was created out of nothing by
> individuals who heard about this wonderful little group that wanted
> to reconnect to a world gone-by where the important things in life
> were chivalry, courtesy, politeness, puissance in service of knight
> errantry, kindness, and a code and mode of ethical behavior: people,
> like Cariadoc, who invented the Middle Kingdom out of nothing but
> inspiration after seeing an SCA demo at WorldCon in San Francisco in
> 1968 or so; like Waldt von Markheim, who founded one of the four
> founding groups of Caid, who heard about the SCA from a mutually-
> intrigued friend; like Grumbaer, called the founder of Calontir, who
> heard about the SCA in 1970 or so from a stranger about the SCA one
> dayon a street corner in St. Louis; like Rowan, who read about the
> SCA in a magazine, made a landsknecht from scratch, hopped an
> airplane from Sydney and flew to this week-end long event called
> Pennsic 12 to meet people, went home and founded Lochac from out of a
> known world handbook along with some interested friends and a hundred
> phone calls and letters sent back and forth across the Pacific Ocean.
>
> This whole discussion on the Grand Council List has been eating at me
> and gnawing at me and leaving me in a state that that poor man who
> married me calls "thunk." I've been feeling a really major rant at
> the Grand Council list coming on for at least a week now. I wrote a
> lot of it in my head yesterday as El Hermoso Dormiendo, that poor man
> who married me, and I drove home yesterday from the booming
> metropolis of Salmon, Idaho, population 3110 and home of a couple of
> SCA members, who I hope are still around (because I don't think I've
> seen them lately and I promised some serpentinite as loom weights to
> one - which I have since acquired, but haven't remembered to
> deliver...). And the drive also left me thinking about the gal in
> Lovell, our sole member in that little town, who I hoped to visit
> sometime this summer to do some scribal stuff with but never made it
> out that way, contrary to my expectation for this last summer's
> planned road trips (why, yes, I AM feeling guilty about this). And
> it left me thinking of my friend, Baron Aldred from Dreibergen, from
> the group that Waldt von Markheim founded in in 1968 with three
> friends, who spent two years, TWO YEARS!!!, driving three hours one
> way every other weekend from San Bernadino to China Lake in the
> middle of absolutely nowhere in the Mojave Desert in the mid-1980s to
> help a couple of interested newbies found an SCA group in a small
> town in the middle of nowhere. So I ask you, in what business model,
> in what cost-benefit analysis, in what way do doing business for the
> SCA do we consign these people where there is no SCA nearby to the
> bin of "too-costly to bother with or make paper publications
> available"? It's the same business model that makes everything that
> Cariadoc and Waldt and Rowan and Aldred and the folks who started the
> groups in Montana that didn't exist when I joined the SCA and the
> hundreds of others who started groups or helped others to do such
> things so stupid and foolish and wasteful and not at all business-
> minded. <sarcasm on> Why obviously, the SCA and they all would have
> been better off if they had been using a more consumer-oriented
> business model... <sarcasm off>
>
> Excuse me, last time I checked, the SCA was not someone's business
> model where some nameless newbie in the rural wastes of North Dakota
> or Pyrope Station, South Australia or Cape Town, South Africa was an
> expense we would be better off not incurring. Just ask Rowan who
> traveled across half the world in order to begin that which became
> the kingdom that proves the world must be flat - because if the world
> were a globe, all those people in Lochac would have fallen off by now...
>
> So finally, in conclusion (you hope...;-) that is why, when we get
> down to the bare bones of things, volunteering at Estrella OR ANY
> OTHER SCA VENUE outweighs the costs it took to get there, wherever
> there may be. And that is also why you all had to put up with my
> running on at the mouth again, this time about why 10 sugary-drivel-
> like backwards-listed quotes from so-called famous people annoy the #@
> $&*! out of my Inner Curnudgeon. Yes! Give me drivel or give me
> mental-floss!!! (No offense meant, dear Robert - intent means a lot
> in the SCA, at least in my version of the SCA, and I know your
> intentions are not only good but sterling.)
>
> Yeah, give me a few more days and it's going to be a known-world-
> class rant on the Grand Council list because I'm steamed... What
> you've just seen here is the pressure cooking off from my Inner
> Curmudgeon. What will land on the Grand Council list in a few days,
> assuming that that halluncination called Dr. Helm-Clark - who spent a
> fair bit of time in the last year thinking and reading up on business
> models and business plans for non-profits - has any spare time left
> to spare for writing it up. After all, when you're me or my
> hallucinations, it's not wise to miss sleep just to write a rant or
> two - some of us, especially my Inner Curmudgeon, need our less-than-
> ugly sleep...
> .
>> Quotes from various famous people.
>
> So the aforementioned ten (well, ok, nine and half) reasons to
> volunteer at Estrella demonstrate quite clearly, I think, that being
> famous does not imply the ability to think and/or speak clearly.
>
>> Please, join us at Estrella this year, volunteer for the fun of
>> others and for yourself.
>> Robert Bedlam, Kingdom Volunteer Coordinator
>
> If I can get there, Robert, I certainly will volunteer - as should we
> all. But it's not about fun, though fun it certainly can be.
> Sometimes it's not fun, sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes it's
> thankless, occasionally it's misunderstood, discounted and ridiculed,
> often it goes unnoticed and sometimes it's plain horrific. No, it's
> not about fun. It's really about things that are worth trying and
> worth doing. It's really about something quite intangible and yet
> very very real. It's why the SCA can still be important when
> measured on the scale of doing things like helping in a soup kitchen
> or flying to New Orleans to work in a Red Cross Shelter on one's own
> nickel (as one SCA member I know did for several weeks last year).
> It's all about what I like to call the founding thoughts of the SCA,
> something that I was fortunate enough to be told about one day over a
> cup of coffee in the kitchen of the founder of the SCA: it's the
> belief that knight errantry should be and can be real, that at the
> heart of this game what we're doing here is to rediscover that which
> is "worthy of all honor" in an increasingly selfish and secular world
> where cost-benefit analyses are more important than courtesy and
> generosity.
>
> Okay, the Inner Curmudgeon is going to stop now so the Hallucination
> of Research Scientist can get some work done...
>
> ttfn,
> Therasia von ExtremelyGrumpyToday
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:07:43 -0700
> From: "Allen Hall" <earlalan at srv.net>
> Subject: Re: [Artemisia] Reasons to Volunteer??? (feeble attempt at
> humor plus arant)
> To: "Kingdom of Artemisia mailing list"
> <artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org>
> Message-ID: <004201c70780$e84b5d50$6401a8c0 at Della>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=response
>
> VIVAT! VIVAT!! VIVAT!!
>
> -Corisande
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Catherine Helm-Clark" <no1home at onewest.net>
> To: <artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org>
> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 4:22 PM
> Subject: [Artemisia] Reasons to Volunteer??? (feeble attempt at humor plus
> arant)
>
>
>>I will warn you all now that it's a very very very Grumpy Therasia today,
>>so while I know I should resist grumping all over the following, since I
>>know it is sent to encourage us all to do a good and very desirable
>>thing,
>>of while I heartily approve, my Inner Curmudgeon has taken over my
>>fingers
>>and I just can't help myself...
>>
>>> Greetings most noble populace of Artemisia,
>>> Considering Volunteering at Estrella this year? Still considering going
>>> to Estrella this year? Here is a top ten list of why you should go to
>>> Estella War this year and, of course do some volunteering while you are
>>> there.
>>>
>>> 10. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you
>>> nothing that you have received - only what you have given.
>>
>> There's this hallucination I have every now and then when I think I'm
>> someone called Adj. Prof. Helm-Clark at this strange place called a
>> university - which doesn't at all resemble what I know a univeristy to
>> be, like the one at Wien, where I visited once and heard the learned
>> Doctors of Philosophy and Divines of the Church lecture from the pulpit
>> of the Karlskirche about those realms of learning which Albertus Magnus
>> from Melk calls the Ars Liberalis.
>>
>> But in this hallunication I have, Prof. Helm-Clark says quite
>> emphatically that the above statement numbered ten (which I think should
>> be denoted in the more familiar Roman system as x) is most certainly
>> refuted by the first and second laws of thermodynamics - not to mention
>> the law of mass balance...
>>
>>> 9. No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
>>
>> Actually, it depends on who is doing the accounting...
>>
>>> 8. With a sweet tongue and kindness, you can drag an elephant by a
>>> hair.
>>
>> ???!!!????? Oh come on! Why the bleep should I want to even try the
>> above suggested method of moving an elephant when everyone knows the way
>> to move an elephant such that it will willingly follow you wherever you
>> lead is with an open jar of peanut butter???
>>
>>> 7. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
>>> change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
>>
>> Now this is only one position possible out of three in answer to the
>> ongoing debate as to who is right: B. F. Skinner (there is no true free
>> will since all our thoughts and actions are the consequence of
>> pre-existing conditions of causality) or Nietsche (one person - the
>> "uber-mensch" - is the only agency that can change the world). While
>> the
>> above statement represents the middle ground (and in my humble opinion
>> is
>> the closest to the correct position on this debate), this is definitely
>> room for doubt as ongoing modern discussion has demonstrated.
>>
>>> 6. Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just
>>> sit there.
>>
>> It is extremely arguable that if you get run over, that you were on the
>> right track...
>>
>>> 5. It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no
>>> man can seriously help another without helping himself.
>>
>> Leaving the deeper philosophical questions of just what is implied by
>> the
>> above statement, what I want to know is: what about the other half of
>> humanity left out of that statement?
>>
>>> 4. I am a recipient of unconditional love; I am a volunteer!
>>
>> According to the literature of the particular ethical monotheism of
>> which
>> I am most in favor of, unconditional love is not conditional upon a
>> person's record of volunteering their time to any cause.
>>
>>> 3. If you don't believe one person can make a difference, you have
>>> never
>>> been in bed with a mosquito.
>>
>> Ah, so I guess we're playing it both ways: here's a statement that
>> appears to support our late 19th/early 20th C. German philosopher who
>> stared into the abyss a little too long, in contradiction to statement 7
>> above.
>>
>> Besides, if we take statement 3 at face value here, it only demonstrates
>> the difference one mosquito makes, not necessarilly one person...
>>
>> Let's not even think about what that person and that mosquito were doing
>> in bed together...don't even go there!!!
>>
>>> 2. How wonderful that no one need wait a single moment to improve the
>>> world.
>>
>> Other than the grammatical problems of the missing predicate in the
>> first
>> clause, I'm having a bit of a problem here seeing how a simple statement
>> of fact about the timing of one's volunteer efforts is going to help me
>> here to volunteer at Estrella, three months from now. What this
>> statement most poignantly leads me to think is that I really need to get
>> off my butt TODAY and get my act together to volunteer at the soup
>> kitchen that the church I belong to runs every Sunday afternoon. Not a
>> single one of us should wait to do things like this - so why wait for
>> Estrella???
>>
>>> 1. The rewards far out weigh the cost of travel, and the journey will
>>> be
>>> fun.
>>
>> Past experiences clearly demonstrate that the "fun-ness" of the journey
>> is highly debatable. Just ask around... As to whether the intangible
>> rewards of volunteering at Estrella outweigh the cost, well, it's like
>> this (warning! warning! Rant coming on! warning!):
>>
>> For the last few weeks, there's been a discussion on the Grand Council
>> list as to whether the next edition of the known world handbook and
>> other
>> SCA publications should be essentially delivered preferentially through
>> means solely or mostly online. I'm glad to say that the folks from
>> Artemisia that participate in the Grand Council appear to be not in
>> favor
>> of such an approach at this time. What does this have to do with
>> volunteering at Estrella? Well, everything.
>>
>> Let me explain (and also to say that this issue has gotten under my skin
>> in a really big way). The folks who support a brave new world of SCA
>> publications through preferentially online models are looking at the
>> problem from a cost-benefit analysis point of view that we in the SCA
>> need to move to more modern models of fostering the growth of SCA
>> membership, including a implied stance that it is not good business
>> sense
>> to be subsidizing costly paper publication of things like the known
>> world
>> handbook for rural and isolated newbies in the isolated and
>> out-of-the-modern-online-mainstream places of the world, like, well,
>> Chicken, Alaska; Salmon, Idaho; Tyson, Vermont; Wallabong, New South
>> Wales; Murdoe, South Dakota or Lovell, Wyoming (where there have been
>> and
>> in many cases, still are SCA members...).
>>
>> There are several problems where, but out of all of the the problems I
>> could list, what I want to point out is what I believe to be the "values
>> problem" that's implied here. Such a viewpoint, arguably a defensible
>> one if one subscribes to a particular way of thinking about people as
>> merely consumers, discounts all the intangibles that make the SCA the
>> SCA. In Therasia von Tux's SCA, which I believe to be the same as
>> Conrad's SCA, Casamira's SCA, Alan's SCA, Azir's SCA, Cariadoc's SCA,
>> the
>> von Markheim's SCA, Flieg's SCA and THE Listmaker's SCA, the known world
>> was created out of nothing by individuals who heard about this wonderful
>> little group that wanted to reconnect to a world gone-by where the
>> important things in life were chivalry, courtesy, politeness, puissance
>> in service of knight errantry, kindness, and a code and mode of ethical
>> behavior: people, like Cariadoc, who invented the Middle Kingdom out of
>> nothing but inspiration after seeing an SCA demo at WorldCon in San
>> Francisco in 1968 or so; like Waldt von Markheim, who founded one of the
>> four founding groups of Caid, who heard about the SCA from a mutually-
>> intrigued friend; like Grumbaer, called the founder of Calontir, who
>> heard about the SCA in 1970 or so from a stranger about the SCA one
>> dayon
>> a street corner in St. Louis; like Rowan, who read about the SCA in a
>> magazine, made a landsknecht from scratch, hopped an airplane from
>> Sydney
>> and flew to this week-end long event called Pennsic 12 to meet people,
>> went home and founded Lochac from out of a known world handbook along
>> with some interested friends and a hundred phone calls and letters sent
>> back and forth across the Pacific Ocean.
>>
>> This whole discussion on the Grand Council List has been eating at me
>> and
>> gnawing at me and leaving me in a state that that poor man who married
>> me
>> calls "thunk." I've been feeling a really major rant at the Grand
>> Council list coming on for at least a week now. I wrote a lot of it in
>> my head yesterday as El Hermoso Dormiendo, that poor man who married me,
>> and I drove home yesterday from the booming metropolis of Salmon, Idaho,
>> population 3110 and home of a couple of SCA members, who I hope are
>> still
>> around (because I don't think I've seen them lately and I promised some
>> serpentinite as loom weights to one - which I have since acquired, but
>> haven't remembered to deliver...). And the drive also left me thinking
>> about the gal in Lovell, our sole member in that little town, who I
>> hoped
>> to visit sometime this summer to do some scribal stuff with but never
>> made it out that way, contrary to my expectation for this last summer's
>> planned road trips (why, yes, I AM feeling guilty about this). And it
>> left me thinking of my friend, Baron Aldred from Dreibergen, from the
>> group that Waldt von Markheim founded in in 1968 with three friends, who
>> spent two years, TWO YEARS!!!, driving three hours one way every other
>> weekend from San Bernadino to China Lake in the middle of absolutely
>> nowhere in the Mojave Desert in the mid-1980s to help a couple of
>> interested newbies found an SCA group in a small town in the middle of
>> nowhere. So I ask you, in what business model, in what cost-benefit
>> analysis, in what way do doing business for the SCA do we consign these
>> people where there is no SCA nearby to the bin of "too-costly to bother
>> with or make paper publications available"? It's the same business
>> model
>> that makes everything that Cariadoc and Waldt and Rowan and Aldred and
>> the folks who started the groups in Montana that didn't exist when I
>> joined the SCA and the hundreds of others who started groups or helped
>> others to do such things so stupid and foolish and wasteful and not at
>> all business- minded. <sarcasm on> Why obviously, the SCA and they all
>> would have been better off if they had been using a more
>> consumer-oriented business model... <sarcasm off>
>>
>> Excuse me, last time I checked, the SCA was not someone's business model
>> where some nameless newbie in the rural wastes of North Dakota or Pyrope
>> Station, South Australia or Cape Town, South Africa was an expense we
>> would be better off not incurring. Just ask Rowan who traveled across
>> half the world in order to begin that which became the kingdom that
>> proves the world must be flat - because if the world were a globe, all
>> those people in Lochac would have fallen off by now...
>>
>> So finally, in conclusion (you hope...;-) that is why, when we get down
>> to the bare bones of things, volunteering at Estrella OR ANY OTHER SCA
>> VENUE outweighs the costs it took to get there, wherever there may be.
>> And that is also why you all had to put up with my running on at the
>> mouth again, this time about why 10 sugary-drivel- like backwards-listed
>> quotes from so-called famous people annoy the #@ $&*! out of my Inner
>> Curnudgeon. Yes! Give me drivel or give me mental-floss!!! (No
>> offense
>> meant, dear Robert - intent means a lot in the SCA, at least in my
>> version of the SCA, and I know your intentions are not only good but
>> sterling.)
>>
>> Yeah, give me a few more days and it's going to be a known-world- class
>> rant on the Grand Council list because I'm steamed... What you've just
>> seen here is the pressure cooking off from my Inner Curmudgeon. What
>> will land on the Grand Council list in a few days, assuming that that
>> halluncination called Dr. Helm-Clark - who spent a fair bit of time in
>> the last year thinking and reading up on business models and business
>> plans for non-profits - has any spare time left to spare for writing it
>> up. After all, when you're me or my hallucinations, it's not wise to
>> miss sleep just to write a rant or two - some of us, especially my Inner
>> Curmudgeon, need our less-than- ugly sleep...
>> .
>>> Quotes from various famous people.
>>
>> So the aforementioned ten (well, ok, nine and half) reasons to volunteer
>> at Estrella demonstrate quite clearly, I think, that being famous does
>> not imply the ability to think and/or speak clearly.
>>
>>> Please, join us at Estrella this year, volunteer for the fun of others
>>> and for yourself.
>>> Robert Bedlam, Kingdom Volunteer Coordinator
>>
>> If I can get there, Robert, I certainly will volunteer - as should we
>> all. But it's not about fun, though fun it certainly can be. Sometimes
>> it's not fun, sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes it's thankless,
>> occasionally it's misunderstood, discounted and ridiculed, often it goes
>> unnoticed and sometimes it's plain horrific. No, it's not about fun.
>> It's really about things that are worth trying and worth doing. It's
>> really about something quite intangible and yet very very real. It's
>> why
>> the SCA can still be important when measured on the scale of doing
>> things
>> like helping in a soup kitchen or flying to New Orleans to work in a Red
>> Cross Shelter on one's own nickel (as one SCA member I know did for
>> several weeks last year). It's all about what I like to call the
>> founding
>> thoughts of the SCA, something that I was fortunate enough to be told
>> about one day over a cup of coffee in the kitchen of the founder of the
>> SCA: it's the belief that knight errantry should be and can be real,
>> that
>> at the heart of this game what we're doing here is to rediscover that
>> which is "worthy of all honor" in an increasingly selfish and secular
>> world where cost-benefit analyses are more important than courtesy and
>> generosity.
>>
>> Okay, the Inner Curmudgeon is going to stop now so the Hallucination of
>> Research Scientist can get some work done...
>>
>> ttfn,
>> Therasia von ExtremelyGrumpyToday
>>
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>> Artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org
>> http://lists.gallowglass.org/mailman/listinfo/artemisia
>
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