[Archers] Congratulations!

[jaynardone at comcast.net]

I would ask that please in the future all refrain from using names when in these discussions, most items can be discussed without names. Sigfried I have replied to you and we do have first hand knowledge as we said because we were the ones that raised the issue in the first place. No one was finger pointing to the autocrat and in past emails where I discussed this months ago it had always been tied to the MIC. The incident last year where I almost shot that person was also in the end the MIC's responsibility. Our point which is getting twisted into personal attacks for some reason is that on most of these occasions the autocrat is either shoe horning archery into places it shouldnt be or has very little to no knowledge of what our safety rules require. Again really falls to the MIC to work with them. I see all of these posts that claim "its so simple, its easys, yada yada" yet it is still taking place and not being worked properly. As I said to you in private, I will do everything in my power to assure that no one has the chance of getting hurt because of ANY reason. That should be the push of all marshal's but I assure you it is not, for whatever reasons. 



This is an issue that effects the Kingdom and not Baronies only. As Lorelei posted our push is Kingdom wide not directed by Barony wants. No one is saying anything about burdening the autocrats with anything more than a simple instruction of archery and our rules. It seems it is a select few here that are trying to make a mole hill into a mountain and there really is no need. I was hoping the autocrat could help be the first line of defense to be aware when the MICs for whatever reason are not doing what they are supposed too. If you look at the events I have been using as reference, there was no one to watch over the setup until most of us got there to shoot. Things got recognized and corrected, but not always easily or accepted openly. Would be nice to avoid these issues all together by a bit more planning up front. Posture how you may but this is something that needs fixing and can be fixed or at least made better by a bit more training, on the Marshal's side and the autocrat. There should also be consequences for actions that put others in harms way. I dont believe any of us want to run anyone off, after all we are all here for fun and all volunteers but I have yet to see anything happen when a MIC obviously is showing signs of problems. 



All good discussion.... 



Janyn 





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Siegfried" <siegfried at crossbows.biz> 
To: fenrisulven at comcast.net 
Cc: archers at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org 
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 2:20:46 PM 
Subject: Re: [Archers] Congratulations! 

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/ 
_______________________________________________ 
Archers mailing list 
Archers at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org 
http://seahorse.atlantia.sca.org/listinfo.cgi/archers-atlantia.sca.org 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://seahorse.atlantia.sca.org/pipermail/archers-atlantia.sca.org/attachments/20100927/fb41f914/attachment-0003.htm>