[Archers] Congratulations!

[Siegfried]

A few random observations ...

> 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.
[...]
> 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.

Of course, this situation isn't unique to archery.  It tends to be the
SCA mindset, because we are lazy and social, and so want to move in as
close as we can without moving any farther than we need to ... to just
park/setup wherever looks open.

I've these this affect heavy fields (this weekend at Siege of Glengary),
I've seen this affect many other things.

The best defense to this, is actual/proper roping off of areas, which
used to be common practice at events.  The day/night before an event,
the staff heads out with rope/caution tape/ribbon whatever, and lots of
stakes, and completely lays out the land ... and that way noone tries to
setup a tent, or pulls a car, into a 'bad area'.  Or if they do, hey,
you can point at the rope they TOOK DOWN to do it :)

> 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.

Actually, this *IS* one different aspect about how Heavy/Rapier tends to
be run, versus Archery.

In Heavy/Rapier, the amount of space you need grows greatly as the
number of fighters increases.  So quite often you have events planned
where 'just in case' you get 100 fighters, you have a large space
alloted.   But when only 20 fighters show up, well, you've got land to
spare.

Archery is different.  The amount of space (safety zone) you need for 1
archer, is almost the same with 100 archers.  You just need a little
more 'milling around' room, and maybe a slightly wider shooting line.

So that *is* one place where Archery is very different, and something
that needs made aware to Autocrats.  With archery, you've got a space
set aside, and it really is NOT malleable.   With Heavy/Rapier ... it's
always malleable, and usually the space set aside is 'bigger than really
needed', and so the mindset is always that it could be shrunk in,
assuming a million fighters don't show up.

>  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.   

Funny thing is.  My first experience with that site, was an event where
Cian of Storvik ran the archery.   And the almost entire bulk of that
'big open field' that the handful of heavies were running around in that
day, was a wonderful huge range he'd setup with multiple targets that
could be run independantly all day long.   Then the Heavy list was
basically where the Rapier list was at that event.  And the Rapier
fighters were over under the tree shade, where noone was.

I've never yet seen that site setup the same way again, and it was an
amzing setup.

Ever since, the archery is pushed over on the smaller side on the hill.

Siegfried

-- 
Barun Siegfried Sebastian Faust - Barony of Highland Foorde - Atlantia
http://hf.atlantia.sca.org/ - http://crossbows.biz/ - http://eliw.com/