[Archers] Congratulations!

[Jay Nardone]

Fenn good re-cap. Lorelei, this is what I was talking about. The autocrats are not as involved with  event planning as they should be. I know I am generalizing but I think there are more than a handful of marshal’s up this way that will back me on this. Archery in Atlantia continues to grow and this is a great thing, but the last minute changes and cancelations are really damaging in the long run. I really feel in my heart that autocrats should have some sort of archery planning section added to the university classes so they can at the very least understand what our safety rules are and what we are looking for at events. This is in no way a finger pointing at AC’s, but they absolutely need to be more involved and up to speed with the MIC’s well before the events. This is perfect example of things that were planned being changed at the last minute, which obviously for extreme reasons will always occur. The “shoehorning” of archery into unacceptable places needs to stop, for safety and obvious reasons.

 

Janyn

 

From: archers-bounces at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org [mailto:archers-bounces at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org] On Behalf Of fenrisulven at comcast.net
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2010 3:31 PM
To: archers at atlantia.sca.org
Subject: Re: [Archers] Congratulations!

 

Here is the After Action on the Storvik event.  I'm sharing so that newer autocrats and MICs get a sense of what to expect. Hopefully you wont be caught flat-footed

 

Also, please feel free to send any critiques or ideas re the event to Holly or me.  We would appreciate any input on what to improve for next time. 

 

 

[...]

 

 

Lorelei: "I contacted the autocrats group and asked that this detail be included in their Unevent classes in some way."

 

Yes please.  We had a few stumbles at Storvik this weekend:

 

1) On the day prior as we were setting up safety zones, the autocrat wandered over to inform us of a decision to allow camping on the hill.  Right next to the clout target.  We were adamant in saying "no, that area falls within our safety fan."  We tried to be polite about it, but I'm afraid the autocrat may have taken offense.  Its likely she was just weary from being pulled in a dozen different directions, but she reacted as if our new rule was negotiable, that we were just refusing to give up a luxury.  In the end we compromised, allowing the use of camping space further back behind the hill, and moved the clout in much closer to maintain the safety fan. We lost about an hour of setup time working all this out. And we lost about 25% of our range. 

 

2) Holly had a "special" clout in store for us that had to be scrapped. I've seen several archery events spoiled in this manner - the MIC has a theme or stage that gets limited because they had to reset their course when bits of their space were lost. Autocrats might be more sympathetic if they understood that an Archery Course is like Feast - if you take away the entree or the desert, it spoils the effect your cooks were going for. We can still shoot on a spoiled course, but its not the experience the MIC wanted to serve up. 

 

3) On the morning of, we lost more space to parking.  Several vehicles pulled in too far and crowded the firing line. There would have been no place for archers to move back to once they were done firing. We were lucky to catch most of the owners in time, but its just another example of how our ranges are the first area to be carved up when there's a "shortage" somewhere else.

 

4) We also were not min/maxed for space.  The site has a huge field, all of which was reserved for Heavy and Rapier.  They actually used only 25% of it.  The corner of the field opposite of Court would have given us more space than we know what to do with, and without displacing the other martial events. So we may want to start wrangling with autocrats for space as soon as they announce their event.  Before they allocate it to Heavy and Rapier.  Just because we've always used a certain space in the past doesn't mean that we can use it now.   

 

5) There was a remark from event staff along the lines of "that new rule is going to kill archery in Atlantia".  This reinforces our concern that, as we press the need for space to comply with the new safety rule, event planners will decide that having archery just isn't worth the hassle involved.  There is going to be a fine line between protecting our range fans and scaring off autocrats. 

 

So we need someone (Janyn) to teach the autocrats at Unevent and University.  Someone (Janyn) to champion our safety requirements, but also someone (Janyn) who is diplomatic and funny enough to win them over.  We could also have him tour Atlantia to give an Archery Safety Lecture at every business meeting.  This would have the added benefit of pulling him off the practice range, hamstringing him so the rest of us can catch up.  :)

 

BTW, none of this is meant to be critical of Storvik.  It was the autocrat's first event, and it came together nicely.  There was something magical about the day that took me back to my first set of events. 

 

 

Cheers

Fen 

 

 

--- Atlantian Archery.  Nothing exists within 100 yards without our explicit permission ---      

 

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