[MR] Ymir Thanks from the Co-Autocrats

[ThatUrsula at aol.com]

Unto all to whom these presents come,
Greetings from Valdemar and Ursula!

Although we’re sore from head to toe, and could still use some sleep, we can definitely say that we had a grand time this weekend.  This was possible because of the hard work and dedication of so may people.  In the interest of keeping court time short, we postponed our thanks to be conveyed here in full.  (We gave up on putting it in any kind of order):

To the original Autocrat, Baron Alaric Domnullach, our thanks for trusting us with the task of carrying on for him, and for his knowledge and good suggestions and patient ear when we needed to babble on (and on…).

To our fantastic head cook, Lady Idonea de la Mere, who, in our minds has earned her place among the culinary legends of this Kingdom.  Her experience and level-headedness made it possible for us to keep our attention on the many other facets of the event, as we knew that the kitchen was in good hands.  She has already thanked her crew, but we add ours to hers.  Great job, everyone!  I did not hear a single complaint about the quality of the food.  I saw a person who does not like seafood chowder polish off two bowls of the chowder served at Ymir.  When I was carrying a full tray of apple berry crisp back to the kitchen in the dark past the grilling crew, one of them saw a corner of the tray. “Is that crisp?” he said.  This was followed by a chorus of:
   “Crisp?”
   “Is that crisp?
   “She has CRISP!?”
(I was lucky to get my arm back.)

To Lord Gaston du Valmont, Marshal-in-Charge, who was another calm and steady hand in the chaos.  Not only did he marshal the heavy tournament, serve as the Merchant Liaison, and organize the Tourney field layout, but he also crafted the 2 beautiful 6-board chests with celtic knotwork creatures burned into the tops, and he and His Highness Cuan MacDaige made 8 centergrip round shields so that everyone in the tourney would be able to use one.

To Lady Rosalind de la Mere, Rapier Marshal-in-Charge, many thanks for the detailed information that she provided for the event web page, and her work in keeping everyone happy on the slip-n-slide that was our tourney field.

To Lord Christopher mac an Conaing, who organized the Free Scholar Tourney with such style and grace.  There were something like 20 Champions competing, who raised over $3,100, which was donated to the American Breast Cancer Foundation.  It was Lord Christopher himself who cast the beautiful rose tokens that themselves accounted for $250 of the total.  


To Lady Gyssel die Spacz, our Head Troll, who had the nerve wracking task of working out the cabin assignments, keeping track of reservations and keeping the Troll table manned and dealing with the paperwork of the aftermath, and allowing us the use of her two 2-way radios.  Many thanks!

To His Excellency, BARON Wystan Sacheverell, for being there at the opening of the site, lifting, toting, hauling, and anything else in sight that needed to be done, and organizing and running the parking crew, not to mention helping to stack tables and sweep the feast hall on Sunday, and for the many other things I'm sure that he did that we didn't know about.

Speaking of parking, many thanks to Lord Robert Maccuswell, who volunteered on the spot and took on traffic and parking control at the busy intersection near the tourney field during the peak of the arrivals.  Thanks also to Lord Oddr for manning one of the parking lots, and to Lord Rupert for taking the last shift on Friday night to allow Lord (now BARON) Wystan to finally get some sleep.

To Lord Matsura Suetsune ("Cho") for organizing and running the Archery competition and striving to provide interesting targets – and for bringing the firewood.

To Lord Juan Carlos Castillo de Coronado of Raven’s Cove, and his Lady wife Rebecca and their son for their work in allowing us to offer the experience of Thrown Weapons once again at Ymir, and for the great prize (a hand-made throwing axe) for the victor.  I wish that Juan could have seen Lord Angus enthusiastically accepting his prize in court!

To Lady Maddalena Salutati, Heavy Weapons MoL, and Lord John (Rapier MoL) and their staff for organizing the mind-boggling madness that is the MoL table at Ymir.  We also thank Maddalena for her fine suggestion of offering pre-registration for the fighters on Friday night.  I’m sure that this made life much easier for many folks on Saturday morning.  We also thank her for delivering her pavilion (though, due to a SNAFU, we didn't end up using it) and delivering 2 of the badly needed radios and the Elvegast banners that graced Pine Knoll Lodge.

To Lord Dunstan (newest Companion of the Order of the Golden Dolphin, and of the Silver Nautilus) for yet another fantastic day of Children’s activities, based around our Viking theme.  The sight of a bunch of 4-7 year-olds with hand-made foam swords (complete with fuller grooves and hilts) charging a shield wall of 4-7-year-olds with hair-raising war cries and murder in their eyes put a lump in our throats.  We also thank him for running a grand Bardic Circle in the Troll/Unseated Feast room (I think it ended at something like 1:00 AM).  The rune tokens were great and made a bigger impression than I think he realizes.  If you missed that Bardic, you missed a great time.  (Get him to sing you his pun song sometime…)

To Lady Tangwystl ferch Morgana for the great ideas and organization that led to what was probably the first official Parents & Toddlers get-together in the Kingdom, and to what was probably the first Children’s Tea as well.  We heard many great things about it from many people.  It was one of the things that made Ymir really shine.

To both Lord Dunstan and Lady Tangwystl for their fantastic work on Baron Alejandro's Golden Dolphin scroll.

To Lady Geva de Lisle and her crew for making sure that there was enough Gatorade, water, oranges and pickles to keep our fighters and spectators on their feet.

To Lady Ren Morgan, who served as the event Chirurgeon in spite of the two broken ribs that she recently sustained (that we didn’t learn about until Sunday).

To Lady Sveva Lucciola, who did such a wonderful job of organizing the Arts & Sciences competition, display and classes.  Thanks also to Lady Tegan de Moreton for donating a handmade necklace as one of the prizes; and to newly Laureled Mistress Rachel de Johnston for sponsoring the documentation competition and donating the beautiful cloak clasp for a prize; and to Lady Rowen the Shiftless for sponsoring the Illumination competition, and to Lord Gaston and Lady Rosalind for sponsoring the weapons container competition.  It's another point of pride for us that the arts were so strongly represented and supported.

To Lady Fuil and her crew for the AMAZING transformation wrought on the feast hall from their sheet walls and (did I say AMAZING) round shields that decorated the walls.  (She even had a hidden CD player playing ambient sounds that made it sound like a snowstorm was howling outside the hall!)

To Lord Danr Bjornsson for serving as Hall Steward, Server Coordinator and A&S Judge!

To Lord Oisin de Raengier MacDonald and the rockin' crew from Attillium for their tireless work in the kitchen, during set-up and helping out with Troll.

To Lord Tankred Bras-de-Fer for handling the Baronial court, and to Lord Michael Batcock for his strong voice at Royal Court.

To Lady Ellen of York for volunteering to run dance and leading the dancers so capably on Saturday night.

To Lady Kateryn Rous for the fantastic idea of renting the restaurant patio heaters that made the evening court and fencing more bearable for many of us.

To Lady Adriana la Bretonne dealing so patiently with the back-and forth of Royal Liaison, and for making sure that Pine Knoll Lodge was nicely decorated.

To Master Nikulai for the use of his notes from previous Ymirs and for his good advice.

To MASTER Callistus Gill, Master Efenwealt Wystle and Mistress Aénor d'Anjou and Baron Alaric for the use of their pavilion walls to enclose the gym for court, and to Lord Alain de la Rochelle for the big reel of parachute cord that we used to hang the pavilion walls, and to the kind folks who offered their rugs for our use at court, even though we ended up not needing them (hooray!).

To Lady Ysolt la Bretonne for handling the task of Housekeeping with dedication, grace, and a good sense of humour.  Many call this a thankless task, but believe me, we've thanked her many times in our hearts as the weekend progressed.

To Lady Livia da Torta, who in spite of a horrifying week, ran Newcomers' Point and the Pages' activities and helped with serving and clean-up, and congratulations on her induction into the Order of the Kittyhawk!

To Lord Xavier de Lyon, for once again taking on the mantle of Grillmeister, and for going out and buying a pair of 2-way radios when we realized that we would have only 4 of the 10 radios that we expected to have for staff, and for helping to scour the site for trash and for helping to make sure that the cabins were cleaned out on Sunday.  And congratulations on his induction into the Order of the Kittyhawk!

To Lord Malcolm Beru for also buying a pair of 2-way radios, when he learned of our need for them, and for making an emergency copyshop run, and for helping with communications and the gargantuan task of site clean-up.

Thanks to Lord Girard le Bourgiugnon for his help with site clean-up and for the use of his pick-up to collect all the trash from the field and cabins.

Thanks to Lady Irmgart Hasenschlaf for the use of her two 2-way radios.  Our job would have been much harder without them.

Thanks also to Lord Steafan O' Reilley and His Excellency, Baron Rodrigo Falcone for lugging pavilions, the baronial eric and all the other needful Baronial thingumies.  It's always a relief have people of whom you can ask for something and know that it will arrive!

To Baroness Benefse ar Rashid, for her wisdom, serenity and good advice in matters financial, and for her help at the Troll table during the first rush on Friday, and for her aid to the Free Scholar Champions Tourney in counting up over $3100 in donations.  (Yay Free Scholars!)

To Rebecca the Contrary for the great welcome cakes which gave us a badly needed sugar fix, got us through Finn's late night vigil, and for the fantastic Golden Dolphin scroll that she crafted for Lord Dunstan.

To the many folks who helped with troll, waterbearing, heralding, MoLing, marshaling, cooking, cleaning, serving, helping with the children, giving classes, judging A&S, carrying and helping out in so many other ways…among these were Lady Mor the Merry, Baron Alejandro Mateo Raimrez y Mendoza, Lord James of Middle Aston, Anwen of Aberystwyth, Brittany Lewis, *Lord* (hooray!) Damian Archer, His Highness, Cuan MacDaige, Lady Mordeyrn Tremayne, Lord Eogan Macalpin, Lord Elspeth Macalpin, Lady Haseka Chernykova, Ziggy & Nuri, Beatricce Villani, Lady Helwynn Ivelchild, Mistress Isabel Ulfdottir, Lady Magdalena Vadi, Lady Odile von Strasbourg, Lady Phillipa Tillinghast, Lord Piero Antonio Volpe, Lady Trephina la Broderesse, Max Patterson, Lord Wulfram der Jager, Alarice von Rothenberg, Narfie, Sook and his Lady Wife, James of Buckston, Lord Declan MacDockery, Baroness Lucia Bellini, Alexander of Kappellenberg, Tariq ibn Kalil, Lord Artus Falconieri, Lady Freya, and newcomers (rock on!) Luke Savitz and John Davis and so many more.

We've left a huge thanks for last:  to Anders (not Andres) Knudsen (whose first event, I think, was last Ymir).  He was among the first on site.  He assisted with setting up pavilions and directing merchants and other guests to their set-up spaces.  He helped with parking and with troll and with hall and site clean-up.  It was a mark of his worth as such a strong addition to the event staff that we gave him one of the few 2-way radios that we had for staff use.  He was everywhere, and not only ready to do whatever we asked of him, but found other things to do on his own.  We were at all times glad to have him there.

If we missed anyone, please accept our apologies.  We are grateful for all the help and support that we received, and hope you all had a wonderful time.

Yours in Service,

Lady Ursula von Bremen and Master Valdemar Wendel Bayard