[Artemisia] library demo challenge--do you remember?

[John Lawler]

The Shire of Crystal Crags organized and held three demos. One in Kalispell, 
one in Columbia Falls, and one in Whitefish, MT. We also had attendees at 
the Barony of Sentinels Keep's demo as well. We had well over 125 kids at 
our first demo, 150 at the second and we lost count after 200 at the 
Whitefish demo. One thing that helped our attendance is that we had very 
good media coverage. I organized the demos and each time I contacted the 
papers weeks before to allow them time to run a story BEFORE the event. That 
way it would be fresh in people's minds before the event and not oh shoot we 
missed it after the event. Also most TV stations have a free community 
calendar that they allow you to post an event. ours was actually mentioned 
on the air as well as appearing on the calendar shot. The pictures we have 
so far are posted on the Shires web page www.crystalcrags.org. And others 
will be added soon. We actually have pictures from attendees that sent them 
to us after the event. As for thank you letters, I can scan them and send 
them off. I will also send the newspaper article they did as well.

One thing my wife (youth coordinator) did was have the kids make a favor for 
the fighters to wear. I have all of mine and I wear them to every event. 
That was the best reward of all!

And probably the best thing we have done so far that has had the most impact 
was the making of boffer weapons. We now have about 10 boffer swords and we 
have two boffer marshals (youths from our Shire) that actually organize and 
run the boffer fighting, under adult supervision. But it really seemed that 
the kids actually listened to the marshals more than the adults!

At the Columbia Falls library the librarians downloaded pictures from our 
website and made flyers to hand out and also made bookmarks with the 
fighters' pictures on them. It was really neat to see our pictures on stuff 
the kids would actually take home. I will try to send some of these as well.

And the final result: we picked up about 12 new members as a direct result 
of the demos and media information.

Yours in service (especially to the smalls)

Ely
(who loves boffer fighting with the kids as much as heavy combat!)

An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can still hold on to one blade of 
grass and not fall off the face of the earth!


>From: "Rebecca Mikkelsen" <mikkelsen_rebecca at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: Kingdom of Artemisia mailing list 
><artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org>
>To: artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org
>Subject: [Artemisia] library demo challenge--do you remember?
>Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 07:24:01 -0600
>
>Before summer began I issued a challenge--organize a demo at your local 
>library and win books!  The books are waiting . . . I have yet to receive 
>documentation from anyone about their group's demos.  Little Cote du Ciel 
>did 3 demos with a 4th one completely rained out.  Here are the rules again 
>for those who forgot:
>
>1--send me proof of a demo at a library to promote summer reading 
>programs--a letter of thanks from the library, a flier, a photo, etc.
>2--tell me what you did.  (If you did an activity that would be fun at an 
>event, tell me about it and I will forward the idea to the person in charge 
>of Kingdom youth activities.)
>3--the children of Cote du Ciel will decide who had the best demo, and 
>several children's books will be on their way to your group to add to your 
>group's library, to donate to a local library, or to give as prizes/gifts.
>
>I can't wait for the mail!  If you have the technology (scanner, digital 
>camera, etc), you can send everything via e-mail.
>Mistress Rebecca Chadderton
>Rebecca Mikkelsen
>171 South 300 West
>Logan, UT 84321
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Artemisia mailing list
>Artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org
>http://lists.gallowglass.org/mailman/listinfo/artemisia