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Report: Hearth and Home Collegium - Nov 2001 Updated: Aug 27, 2002

Pictures from the event

• M'lord Balthazar, along with helping the event staff in various ways, has a page of pictures with people, places, and dancing.
• Rejoycing.com has a few pages of pictures online as well. (New site tracked down, JAN 2005)

Ambience
Æthelwynn and many volunteers (including Drake, who brought boxes of scrumptious spicy chicken wings!) decorated the site Friday night and Saturday morning. There were banners on the walls and swashes billowing from the ceiling. The tables were adorned with cloth runners and greenery. Rich azure cloth was hung in the hall and over the windows in the dressing rooms. Yes, indeed, we really spruced up the place. ;-)

"Porters will be available upon your arrival..."
I think this was a great idea in theory - and still is, especially for those weary from a long ride. Think of it: you finally arrive, someone comes up to help carry your stuff. I was planning to oversee the porters, but I spent the morning inside.

Classes
Most of the planned classes took place and they were good. Elizabeth had folders made for 100 attendees (credit to Balthazar and his sister) - each with a schedule, pen and paper.

Lilias's sewing class was planned to last the first half of the day, but it was extended to last the entire day due to the wishes of the diligent students. Christianna wasn't up for teaching, much less standing(!), but managed to make it to the event in the afternoon.

Youth combat and other children's activities
The only age group with more than one fighter included Borgar's son Christopher and a newcomer known as Caleb, from Beau Fort. Lesson: youth combat is generally more successful at larger fighting events, like Fighters' Collegium!

The children's classes all went well and there were about twelve kids at the children's feast. Giovanni and Yseult came up from Tir Briste to help Molli and Geoffrey and Aislinn who came from Sol Haven to give the children their very own feast and entertainment. For a time, Devin O'Quinn entertained the young audience with a tale or two.

Court
Earl Michael Bohun took a squire. Chandani presented a number of woven circlets suitable for the Crown to give out as regalia for Awards of Arms. Doing so, she related the tale of how they came to be, saying something akin to this:

"I am but a visitor here in this land. I bring you a small token of gratitude from a land far away to show appreciation for you and your subjects' great hospitality. It has been noted that it is customary in this kingdom to award good gentles who have contributed in some way to the benefits of the people and the land circlets of metal to wear upon their brow. This custom of recognition is well received.

Only a few moons have passed since last I crossed the desert sands in my journey back to your land. While traveling the egdes of the shfting sands, our caravan came across a curious grove of trees. There were no more than a dozen trees that sprang from the golden sands, reached high toward the sky, then its branches fell back down, touching the sands in which its roots were buried. These trees had no leaves, but instead had long thin strands that danced in the warm breezes. Baked by the hot sun and nourished by a mineral rich underground stream, the strands had turned to sparkling gold.

As our camel train passed by, I was able to reach out and grasp a few of these precious strands of glistening richness. In the weeks that followed on our journey, I worked the strands together into the circlets you have before you, each one as unique and individualistic as the heads of the people they are destined to adorn. Please accept these as a token from my homeland. Peace Be with You."

Royal treatment
Prince Artan said he'd been warned about how well he'd be treated at a South Downs event. You could say his "fears" were realized. We took good care of him. ;-)  ... Notably, Carol Jane did the decorations in his parlor and an elegant gift basket.

The prize raffles
In theory, these were a good idea too. I really fumbled on this. When we tried to get a winner at court, it was too dark for people to read their ticket numbers! When I tried again late in the feast, four times, people either didn't have their tickets or those people had left the site... (sigh)

Lesson: What I should have done is had the person's name on the back of each ticket so that all I had to do was read out the name.

The feast
The feast was good and had a good amount of food. (I've been to PLENTY of feasts where people had stopped eating after the third remove.)

Since Court ran past sunset (later than expected), I scrapped the idea of clearing the hall so that people come back in and have food already on tables with candles lit. Peers and households still got the headstart, though.

Rather than having a person come up from each table, I led a team of servers and bade them attend to two tables of (ideally) eight people each.

Regrettably, one well-meaning person chose at one point not to approach the hall steward (me) for concern of their table not being served. This led to an extra platter of meat going out that should have been reserved for the kitchen crew. Other than that, things went smoothly and the servers had a good time.

Meanwhile, up at high table, the Prince and Mistress Rhiannon, with amusing creativity and generosity, made droll sculptures from fruit and bade me present them, with all due dignity, to Peryn and Rhydderch.

The revel
There was a LOT of dancing. Weeks before the event, I'd said that I'd like to see dancing until two or three AM. Didn't happen. We'd ALL had a full day. We were done dancing around 10 and with plenty of helpers closed the site around 11. (Which is pretty much like our 12th Night parties here.)

"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign..."
Placing all of the SCA signs - especially the direction posters in a rather strong shade of yellow - was my doing. Since we changed to a new site only a few weeks before the event, I think the signs were a Good Thing to Have. Vyncent helped me on Saturday in a big way. After we closed the site, he helped keep me awake in good company and pulled down the remaining signs in return for a ride back to his abode.

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