[Archers] Congratulations!

[Siegfried]

I wished to step out, however, being directly addressed as I have been
in this email, I must respond to a few points:

> I still disagree with this mindset.  It holds MIC and staff hostage to
> ignorance and whim. We can be diplomatic but still aggressive in our
> defense of archery.  And I'm trying to imagine the damage done
> to MIC morale if, after months of working every evening on her archery
> course, it was canceled on the day of because some autocrat thought it
> would cool to have equestrian in our allotted space.

I suggest you work within your Barony/Shire/etc to come up with a
document that explains how the relationships between
autocrat/mic/marshals/feastocrat/etc work within your Barony, to make
this explicit for you.

> Do you think she
> would ever volunteer again? We need to defend our people more vigorously. 

Similarly, do you think that an autocrat who is being 'told' how to run
their event by each and every discipline, is going to ever volunteer again?

> "In this 'neck' of the woods, all autocrats always work hand-in-hand
> closely with their marshals, and people come to an agreement.  If the
> autocrat doesn't feel a space exists that will work with their otherwise
> event-concept for archery. Then there's no archery."
> 
> I'm sorry, but Donal had many of the same issues at Highland River
> Melees that we saw at Storvik:  1) troll was set up in his range fan. It
> would have been more sensible to move it, but instead he had
> to move the archery course  2) the time lost resetting his range
> meant that archers only got to shoot about half of his targets 3) a
> shotgun start was no longer feasible, so we had approx two dozen archers
> taking turns on the firing line - they spent more time standing around
> waiting than shooting  4) there was some kind of theme/flavour behind
> the shoot that looked fun, but it got mangled and then discarded because
> of last minute mods to the space, and 5) heavy weaps used less than 50%
> of a huge field they were allotted, while we had to jump back and forth
> over a fence to serve as road guards just so our people could shoot.

I wish this had not been brought up in public, for I have no desire to
drag dirt and muck.  But since you brought it up, I must respond.

PLEASE do not deign to discuss items of which you do not truly know the
details.

All 'problems' that occurred at HRM were *NOT* problems of the autocrat.
 At all.   All 'problems' that occurred at HRM were simply caused by the
fact that the Archery Marshal in Charge ... was not in attendance at any
of the planning meetings that were held (during which highly detailed
maps were shared, discussed, laid out, planned) ...

Nor was he in attendance on site visits.   Nor did he even show up
Friday night, early enough that setup could have been modified, given
the shoots that he had planned.  Yet he showed up with a grand plan, big
shoots, lots of newly made targets, etc.

I have NOTHING bad to say about Donal.  I love him dearly.  *waves at
and gives Donal a big hug*.  But all problems that existed there were
completely because he was not active in the planning process, and
instead just 'showed up to run a shoot'.

As for the heavy-weaps and 50% of a field.  Again, planning that shifted
at last moment.  We were:

1) Expecting siege weapons, lots of them ... at VERY last minute, our
Siege Marshal had a baby, and all siege had to be cancelled.  This was
literally the night-or-two before the event.  Layout had already been
meticulously done assuming siege

2) Optimistically expected alot more fighters than we ended up getting,
since it was a Royal Progress event.   We didn't realize the much lesser
number, until of course, about 1pm when noone else was showing up.

> I still enjoyed shooting - Donal did an outstanding job adapting his
> course. But I had a glimpse of what he really intended to put on for us
> and it still makes me angry that so much of his hard work and creativity
> was just wasted. 

Please direct your anger somewhere else than the autocrat then.

> I don't think it needs to be that complex.  We download a pdf of a range
> setup manual and hand it over to the autocrat.

That's fine.  That's a handy thing to have.  My response had been to
people who were specifically saying:  "We need to warrant autocrats and
have required classes to be an autocrat".

>   "this is your copy, you don't need to know
> the whole thing, but since you are exposed legally, lets go over Section
> xx: Range Safety Requirements together and see if you have any
> questions."

Actually, the autocrat isn't exposed legally to range safety.  The
Marshal / SCA corporate is.  Hence why the Marshal's response in such
manners, is to 'close an unsafe range'.  Not leave it open anyway
"Because the autocrat said it was ok"

>   Also, giving out a copy of our manual makes it more
> likely the doc will find its way into baronial resources and be passed
> around to other non-archer officers.  I'm not sold on this, but some
> variant of it might fit our needs.

Again, I have zero issues if Lorelei wants to create:  "An Atlantian
autocrats guide to including Archery in your event"

Place it on our website.  And allow marshals to 'gently' hand it over to
their autocrats.  More information out there is a good thing.

My responses of negatively were towards the "Lets warrant/required-class
our autocrats"

Siegfried


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