[Archers] April Acorn Letter ...

[Siegfried Sebastian Faust]

First of all, I wish to welcome all the new members of this mailing list 
.. upon checking records, it seems there was something to the tune of 40+ 
archery marshals who were not on this mailing list.  I'm not sure how that 
happened, but it has now been fixed, as I was about to send a few messages 
to the list so 'fixed the problem' first.

To the new members, don't worry about the sudden couple of messages, it 
isn't normal for this list.

Now, to the real point.   Following is an advance copy of my archery 
marshals letter that will be printed in the April Acorn:

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Unto the archers of Atlantia does the DEM for Target Archery send this missive:

I wish to inform you of a number of changes that have occurred for Target 
Archery in Atlantia.  They are:

1) The Royal Round rules have been 'tweaked' to more closely reflect the
actual manner in which they were being run, and the updated copy of the
rules can be found at the Kingdom Archery
website:  http://archery.atlantia.sca.org/

2) Target Archers are no longer required to sign waivers at practices.

3) A new set of SCA level Target Archery rules have been released, which 
basically are just a reformatting of the current set of rules.  However, I 
do recommend that all archers go read through the new rules to ensure you 
are up to date. You can find them from the Kingdom Archery website, or the 
Society website.

4) It has been decided that the 'no obviously modern items' ruling, which 
applies to the Heavy and Rapier fields of combat, does NOT in fact apply to 
Target Archery, as may have been reported in the past.
     However, I personally wish to challenge all target archers out there 
to take a look at their gear for blatent modern items.  To think twice 
about wearing those white tennis shoes or wheeling a bright yellow plastic 
gear box to the archery field (eh hem, I'm guilty of that one), etc.  The 
archers of Atlantia have done an excellent job on this, but there is always 
room for improvement.
     To the Target Archery marshals of Atlantia, I similarly charge you to 
take a look at your shoots, and to try, as best you can, to avoid the 
blatantly modern.  What does that mean?  Well standing at the shooting 
line, you can't tell that foam is foam.  It's just some colored 
material.  You can't tell what an archery net is made from, etc.  I don't 
mean any of that.  What I do mean, is when shopping for targets, pass over 
the multicolored, tie-died, teddy bear, and instead pick the nice brown 
one.  When painting targets, instead of drawing an obvious image of 
'Barney' -- while hated by all, quite an obviously modern item -- and paint 
a dragon instead.
     Again, none of this is being required, but I challenge you to take 
that extra step, to help present to the audience that they are watching a 
medieval archery tourney.


___________________________________________________________________________
THL Siegfried Sebastian Faust                         http://crossbows.biz/
Barony of Highland Foorde           Baronial Web Minister & Archery Marshal
Kingdom of Atlantia          Deputy Kingdom Earl Marshal for Target Archery
http://highland-foorde.atlantia.sca.org/   http://archery.atlantia.sca.org/