[Archers] WoW incident update

Mon Oct 14 12:18:48 PDT 2013

I have received an email from Sir Afshin regarding his squire’s action causing this incident.  Sir Afshin has tasked his squire to READ the Atlantian Archery rules to better understand our concerns.

I say we all need to give a rousing HUZAH to both Sir Afshin and his Squire Aaron should we ever meet them in person.  This is the type of behavior our society is supposed to be modeling!

cog

From: Janyn Fletcher [mailto:janynfletcher at comcast.net] 
Sent: Monday, October 14, 2013 2:01 PM
To: 'Cameron deGrey'; 'John Atkins'
Cc: archers at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org
Subject: RE: [Archers] WoW incident

Cameron agreed this is a “marshal activity” issue not a heavy vs archery etc… We would no more walk into the active list field than they should our archery ranges. Sounds like it was taken of properly and I congratulate everyone for doing the right thing!

Janyn

From: archers-bounces at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org [mailto:archers-bounces at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org] On Behalf Of Cameron deGrey
Sent: Monday, October 14, 2013 9:56 AM
To: John Atkins
Cc: <archers at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org>
Subject: Re: [Archers] WoW incident

I believe that the issue was only his reluctance to heed the Marshall in charge. If any Marshall from any practice tells you that you were in an unsafe area for the event they are responsible for. You listen. Period.

Best efforts were made to clear equipment off the field prior to the shoot. COG (or others) went out retrieve equipment put it on the correct side of the line.

After the first incident if he would've come up to us and asked us to either pause, or stop, if it was a time issue etc. I think anyone of us would've been more than happy to go assist him.

I don't mean this in a bad way, but is it just a case of ignorance? Sometimes there's no way to get out of the situation without feeling like you can do more…

Is there a lesson from this? Is there value in teaching a heavy the rules of archery lines and vice versa? 

Nobody wants to be in the squires position, not thinking that you were doing anything wrong and then having a group of people publicly telling you that you are doing something wrong… I feel for the guy.

But if ANY marshal calls hold and issues a command, you listen, period. Ask questions later.

After this incident I got very frustrated with myself for being upset, and I publicly apologize for anything I said or did, but my chief concern was safety. 

YIS Respectfully, 

Robert Cameron de Grey 

Sent via baby dragon 

On Oct 14, 2013, at 8:48 AM, "John Atkins" <cogworks at triad.rr.com> wrote:

Archers,

During the Champion’s Shoot at War of the Wings an incident occurred that I would like to flesh out for all on this list and those who were participating in the shoot and witnessed it.  First a description of the incident.

As archery is typically located in the “back forty” of most event sites it was my intention to bring it out for the populace to view, much like the Grand Exhibition Tournament at Gulf Wars.  Thus, two hours before court I set a range on the battle field behind but within view of where court was going to be held.  There were several fighters still on the field doing pickups but I set the range such that we were shooting away from them and left them plenty of room to do their thing.  As we were shooting one squire began walking down the tree line about 60 yards away from our shooting line.  However, he continued walking until he, unknown  to him, entered our 45 degree safety zone/cone.  We shouted to him that he was going onto a live weapons range (we had to shout due to his distance from us).  He responded that he was “just trying to find his stuff” left on the field.  Reluctantly he moved out of our safety zone.  However, he then got his truck and drove into the back of our range, about 75 yards down range, got out of the vehicle and resumed his equipment search.  Again we shouted with no response.  As Baron Achbar was near us, we asked him to “talk” with the young squire, which he did and ultimately the squire left the field, obviously not happy.  In both cases as we were telling the squire he was in our safety zone and to clear the field, he responded that he was “too far away” to be an issue.  However, when he drove his truck on the field I  had a few “volunteers” to “put a shaft or two in his tire” to make the point that our weapons could easily carry the range at which he was.  As I am mostly a lazy person and did NOT want to deal with the paperwork, we did not shoot the squire nor his truck, haha.  However, when I relayed the story/incident to Doubghal, our site coordinator, household brother of the squire and a heavy himself, he said it would be no issue, When I reminded him of the paperwork, he said it would be no issue if we buried the body!  J  (That’s Doubghal.)

I believe this incident brings up a few points.  Most non-archers have no clue how powerful our weapons are.  In this case with all Champions on the line, their weapons could easily fling a shaft 150 yards or more.  As many of them are hunters hitting something at 100 yards is a very doable thing.  In fact, after the champion shoot, just to prove the point, they set a target at about 85 – 100 yards and shot at it.  Many do not know the skill of the better shooters in the archery community.  There is the perception that if they can move, archers will not be able to hit them.  i.e. All we can hit is s static target.  Read Cam’s Facebook post to clear that misperception.  There are several other issues represented and wrapped up in this incident that, as archers, we are all painfully aware of.  Generally heavies hate archers unless we are on their side and hit what they point out.  I believe there is also the perception that archery is what a heavy does when they are “too old” to continue fighting.  Again as archers these are issues we all know about but what’s important is the relationship between the archery community and the heavy community.

Now the MAIN point of this post is the what happened afterwards.  When I talked with Doubghal about it, he said he would talk to the squire’s knight, Sir Afshin.  Apparently that was done because Sunday during break down Sir Afshin came into my camp with his squire and apologized for the incident.  This was a difficult thing for the squire to do because he felt he was treated in a less that chivalrous manner during the incident.  Perceptions are perceptions but I believe the main point here is that the squire apologized for the incident and I believe he should be commended for that.  We parted on amicable terms and I believe Sir Afshin and his squire should be applauded for their follow up action.

Christophe of Grey

Archery MIC for War of the Wings

_______________________________________________
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/20131014/73f8c48e/attachment-0002.htm>