As we come into the last couple of weeks of August with some great events the next few weekends I’m cautioning that COVID is currently going around. Multiple people during and after Pennsic have tested positive. Please consider testing before attending an event. If you feel unwell do not attend the event. If you test positive before the event do not attend the event. There will be another one next year! Please respect people who choose to wear masks while attending events. If you do test positive after an event, please consider letting people know so they may take precautions.
Their Majesties have chosen Viscountess Alessandra Luciana Giancomo to replace myself as Kingdom Seneschal at 12th night. I know the Kingdom will support her as much as everyone has supported me. I believe she will be a fantastic Kingdom Seneschal. Let’s wish her good luck!
As usual, the Zoom link will be shared to everyone on the evening of. If you have any questions please let me know. – Attia, Kingdom Seneschal seneschal@antir.org
AnTir Event Stewards, Seneschals, and General populace
It has been brought to the attention of the Office of the Kingdom Seneschal and the Office of the Kingdom Chronicler that the Microsoft Forms link used to submit event copy to the Kingdom Chronicler has been experiencing technical issues. As this glitch potentially effects the viability of our events, we are asking all event stewards to do the following immediately:
1. Double-check The Crier to make sure your event copy has been published. All events must be published in the Kingdom newsletter for the month the event is held. E.G. May Crown event copy must be printed in the May issue of The Crier. Please check to make sure your event was published correctly. If it was, no further action needs to be taken.
2. If your event copy was not published in the Crier, please reach out to the Kingdom Seneschal and Kingdom Chronicler via email (seneschal@antir.org, criereditor@antir.org) with your event copy. Your copy needs to include the following:
– Name of the event
– Date of the event, with opening and closing hours (e.g. June 1st 8am – June 14th 5pm)
– Name of the sponsoring branch and any co-sponsoring branches
– Name(s) and email address(es) of all primary event stewards
– Gate Fee
– Site name and address (e.g. Main Street Park, 123 Main Street, Anytown, WA)
– Event description
3. Going forward, all event copy needs to be emailed directly to the Office of the Chronicler at criereditor@antir.org. Please do not submit via the MS Form until we have worked out the technical issues and have reported it as being functional. Note: Deadlines for event copy publication are listed on the Kingdom Calendar. The Crier is published on the 2nd of each month. Event copy must be submitted no later than 11:59:59pm PST on the first of each month. The Crier is published a month in advance, so if you want your event copy published in the July issue of The Crier, you will need to have it submitted to the Office of the Chronicler no later than June 1st.
We apologize for this technical issue and are working to make sure all of our events are covered. We appreciate your patience and flexibility as we make these corrections.
Important Notice about Proof of Membership at Gate
Receiving a membership card in the mail is now optional when renewing (or obtaining new) memberships through the SCA portal. In fact, the default choice for mailing is No.
For those working Gate this means that proof of membership will increasingly be shown by phone, tablet, or even a printed copy that looks nothing like the blue card that has become so associated with membership over the years.
It’s important the Gate workers understand and know what to look for, so they know that more than the blue card is accepted. Below is a sample picture of what is sent immediately upon payment through the membership portal. This IS proof of membership.
Additionally, a Gate Myth that needs to pass into the ether – it is NOT necessary to see a person’s signature on the back of their blue card (if they still have a card).
Tip for those with the new proof of membership: take a screenshot and save the image in your photos on your phone so it’s both easier to find and it’s accessible when at a site where there is no internet or cell service.
Greetings to the Barony of Dragon’s Mist. As previously mentioned the Crown has reopened the polling for the Barony.
We are thrilled with the feedback and support shown for Mistress Lucia and Master Iago. Our concerns lie with the response rate of the poll.
There are limitations that the Corpora of the SCA imposes on the Crown when selecting a Baronial Coronet. These limitations are meant to ensure that the wishes of the populace are heard when the Crown makes an appointment. In order for the wishes of the populace to be understood, the response rate of a poll for a new Baronial Coronet is very important. The response rate allows the Crown to understand the wishes of the Barony and prevents us from violating Corpora.
The time approaches to select our Heirs who succeed us to the Thrones of An Tir. On Saturday, May 20th, we will host our Crown Tournament which will be structured as an “Ursulmas – style” tournament. The combatants will be divided into 8 erics which will be fought as round robins. The top two from each eric will progress into a sweet 16, standard double-elimination tournament bracket. The winner of the finals will be determined by best of five bouts. All An Tir legal weapons and weapon styles are permitted. The Crown requests all shields follow standard An Tir size conventions.
Due to changes with the SCA’s membership system, it is highly encouraged that all combatants and inspirations bring proof of membership to the event, either paper or a digital image.
Competing for the Crown of An Tir is a great privilege and the victors will embark on an exciting journey. Now is a good time for combatants and their inspirations to read up on Kingdom Law and familiarize themselves with the duties of the Crown. We encourage everyone to bring banners, personal heralds, musicians, etc., to add to the pageantry of the day. We look forward to seeing everyone on the field of honor.
We are delighted to announce that the 48-hour Scribal Backlog Challenge is kicking-off today under the stewardship of Dáma Maminka the Bohemian. This amazing project is designed to match scribes with scrolls for individuals who weren’t able to receive custom scrolls at the time the award was given. The creation of original scrolls by the Scribes of An Tir is a generous gift of skill and artistry to our people.
Over the next 48 hours, 39 scribes from across An Tir and the Known World will be participating in this challenge. We offer to each of these artists our encouragement, support, and undying appreciation. Please join us in celebrating the scribal community of An Tir! #AnTirScribalChallenge
This is the agenda we were working off of on Sunday. Please look at the final Curia notes for the finished product.
CURIA AGENDA – January
1. Words from Their Majesties
2. Principality Seneschals
a. Summits – Seamus O’Caellaigh
Summit s welcomed new Coronets this last quarter and have seen Prince Weylyn and Princess Lin Dis take the Thrones, Coronets, and mantles of Office. We thanked Their Excellencies Bato and Emma for their stewardship during their Reign.
The last quarter has been busy for the Summits. Membership numbers continue to be pretty consistent with pre Covid numbers, and event participation is doing well in most places. Some of your smallest shires are feeling some burn out with only a few people to take the burden of running a branch, but the Principality is starting to focus on helping those branches grow and gain more bodies to carry the load.
We had an all peer meeting at Winter Investiture and came up with some ideas to help the Principality continue to thrive in these post pandemic times. The Principality also ran a Service Collegium that had classes on most offices and major roles within our game. Training people to take offices, positions, and run activities makes the Principality run smoother and we hope to do more events like that again.
This last quarter saw the Shire of Southmarch come out of suspension and they have a full slough of officers ready to make the branch run smoothy and be successful.
Overall the Summits are doing well and continue to get healthier.
b. Tir Righ – Kheron
The Principality of Tir Righ is doing well. The branches are working well to support each other with hosting events and event planning for the year is taking place. Branches are being reminded to get their Event Information on to the Calendar so that the Royalty of An Tir can determine Their Progress.
November Coronet was held and Tir Righ has Heirs. Princess Alessandra and Prince Saif recognized Viscountess Bernadette and Sir Argyle as the rightful Heirs. They will be leading The Principality into the Spring as The Coronet after February Investiture. Due to a variance in our laws we were able to hold our Archery Championship that day as well. Lord Drekah from the Shire of Danescombe was victorious.
The populace is appreciating that a lot of the Peerage and Business Meetings have moved to an online format, allowing more time for getting back to socializing, building connections and transferring knowledge.
Report activity continues to be fairly high with gaps in specific areas. We are still seeing an influx on new people attending events, and demo activity has been positive.One of the main focus points for the Officers of Tir Righ, for the next quarter, is working on creating succession training handbooks, this is still an ongoing project.
3. Kingdom Officer Report Summaries
a. Arts & Sciences – Duchess Stjarna
In November we held Kingdom Bardic Championship. We had 7 amazing Entrants who put on a great show. Our Champion for the next year is Colette la Trouvere. She has already started encouraging more bardic opportunities.
The Bardic Championship and Collegium share an event site, and this year HRM chose a different format. We ran the Bardic Championship on its own schedule. The positive side to this is that TRMs were able to devote Their attention on the performers and I do believe that I will suggest this again next year as the competition grows. The one thing that I would like to suggest for next year is that we run the Bardic Track of Collegium in the main ballroom space with the Bardic Competition. Many of the classes were cancelled or not attended because of the participants being involved or wanting to support the Competition. If we run them in the same space, we can have multiple classes in the ballroom when the space isn’t needed for the competition. The classes can flex around the schedule of the Competition.
As the year is ending, we are preparing for Kingdom Arts & Sciences & Rapier Championship. We have adapted and overcome having a change of venue and date. The Intent to Enter form was posted changing the cutoff date to January 6th, 2023 and the Documentation to be turned in by February 6th, 2023. Both dates are earlier than normal.
My Web Minister Deputy was able to update the webpage to reflect the changes for KASR.
Next on my list is to update the Kingdom Site. I have a few new deputies and most of the ones on the website haven’t been active in years.
b. Black Lion – Fina MacGrigohare
Heraldry continues to be carried out in a hybrid model with consultations happening both online and in person. There is also an active presence of An Tir heralds on the Heraldry discord channel. Additionally, we have seen quite an influx of court reports as in-person activities are flourishing.
With the success of the Virtual Known World Consult tables, I would also like to start working on the ability for the Kingdom College to accept online submissions. I think this would be a great way to increase accessibility as well as streamline the submissions process. We are continuing to look at the steps necessary to make this a possibility including necessary changes to the College’s financial policy and creating a deputy position for the College’s Exchequer to handle PayPal responsibilities. I have been in contact with our kingdom Exchequer, kingdom PayPal deputy, and the Laurel office Exchequer talking about the logistics of this so that I can present a proposal to the Crown on how it could be possible to implement this and we are working to lay all the ground work for adding this to the College’s submissions process. I think we are close to having a proposal ready to present to the Crown and Curia.
An Tir had previously submitted the Award known as the Sanguins Thorn to the Laurel office as “the Sanguine Thorn”. Under the precedents of the College of Arms at the time, “Sanguine” was not able to be registered. That precedent was recently updated by the College of Arms. With the approval of TRM Octamasades and Achaxe, we submitted a request for reconsideration to return the name of the award to “the Sanguine Thorn” as it was originally submitted during the reign of Morgan and Livia.
Additionally, we have submitted paperwork to register a name and badge for the award known as the Alimentum Vitae. The “alimentum” portion of the award name could not be documented for registration purposes; so to preserve the intent of the original award name and with the consent of TRM of Octamasades and Achaxe, it has been submitted as the “Ordu Vitae” with an accompanying badge of “checky or and argent, on a lotus blossom in profile, a flame argent”. Both of these are in the submissions process with the College of Arms.
The College is currently accepting applications for the offices of Boar Herald, Armory submissions deputy, and Corounne Rouge, roll of arms deputy. It’s my hope to have those offices filled shortly.
In joyful news, Master Iago ab Adam, OL, has been named as successor to the office of Wreath Sovereign of Arms, the Society Arms Herald. He will be taking over from Oddr Þiálfason, OP. Both of these fine gentles have been and continue to bring great honor and word fame to our Kingdom through their service to the Society College of Arms.
c. Chatelaine – HL Una
Covid took its toll on the Kingdom in many quiet ways which have come to light recently for the Chatelaine, mostly in warrants but reporting and emails are also an issue.
These are just a few difficulties that I have run into since taking over the office last year. A large part of this I believe is due to the 2 year break where officers taking over did so without having to really “work “the office so a lot of information was lost when a new person took over. This is in no way their fault or their predecessors’; it just is.
Reporting is still an ongoing issue with most branches. With the work on the warrants, it has come to my attention that there are several branches that are not using the stage.antir.org/ branch emails but their own personal emails which explains several issues. The number one reason for this that I can detect is the new Chatelaine are having problems logging into their emails due to password problems. There is also a problem with warrants in the fact that I have not received new warrant information from branch and even Principality Seneschals when a new Chatelaine steps up and the branch Chatelaine have not retained this information themselves, so it has been very challenging to get the warrants information. Without HL Tova Fransdottir the Kingdom Chatelaine Warrants Deputy’s tireless determination in getting this information the warrants list would be a very sad thing indeed and I am extremely grateful for her hard work in this area. Now that I am aware of these problems, I will take steps to correct them. All branch Chatelaine are being encouraged to join the An Tir Chatelaine Facebook page so we can have better communications and discuss the challenges pertinent to the office and what is required of them as branch officers for An Tir and SCA Inc. as a whole. I am happy to say several branch Chatelaine have now joined the group. Since I am not able to attend 12th Night, I will be holding a zoom meeting later this month with the branch Chatelaine to see how I can best serve the branches in resolving the email and reporting problems. Other than that, the reports I am getting are positive and encouraging. They talk of interest and growth throughout the Kingdom.
d. Chronicler – Tatiana
This is my last Curia report, as effective this meeting, this office has been officially transitioned over to my successor. Please welcome HL Kendryth Filia Gerald as your new Kingdom Chronicler. She and I are going through a training period to help ensure a smooth transition. I will also be supporting Kendryth as she gets through publishing her first issue of The Crier. Please remember that anything officers or Crown need to have published must to be sent to the Crier editor (criereditor@antir.org) no later than the first of the month. It would be great as well if a heads-up could be sent ahead of time to ensure that adequate space can be allotted.
This last quarter has been a busy one for our office as I wrapped up a few projects. The most exciting and public-facing one is The Crier Archive, which is now available on the Kingdom website. Every issue of The Crier starting when An Tir was just a Principality in 1971 up to the most current issue is available to members of the populace. My thanks to Dame Ellen Fraser for her work in tracking down every issue so we can have a complete archive. That was an incredible accomplishment!
In the background, we have updated the EIFs with the correct link to The Crier Copy submission form. As well, the legal releases for photographer, model and creative content have been transferred into O365 Forms making it much easier for everyone to complete these forms on either your computer or mobile device. We are in the queue to get these links posted onto the website. In the meantime, the Chronicler can send the link directly to anyone needing to complete a release.
The William Blackfox Awards were recently announced. This in a Society award for excellence in the world of chroniclers, across all branches and kingdoms. An Tir submitted 5 nominations this year, and we won the Best Written Contribution to a Kingdom Newsletter category, for Maestro Eduardo’s Eat This Book column. As well, a commendation for Best Regular Feature to a Branch newsletter was awarded to Isabella de Walingforde for her regular Gaming Corner in The Looking Glass, published by Barony of Glymm Mere. You can read all the details about this in the latest issue of The Crier.
Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my team for everything we have accomplished together over the last two years. Being a Kingdom Officer is a big responsibility and a lot of work, and it takes a group of dedicated and reliable volunteers to successfully run an office. My primary people included HL Kendryth filia Gerald as my reporting deputy, Baroness Aniko Melyes as my Crier deputy responsible for doing the design and layout of the newsletter, Baroness Alessandra da Montefeltro who is our Curia Clerk, and Dame Ellen Fraser as Kingdom Crier Archives deputy. It has been a great experience being Kingdom Chronicler and made even more so by being surrounded by such a competent and talented team. Thank you, each and every one of you for your contributions to this office, and to our Kingdom. As well, my gratitude to the populace who responded with a YES when I asked for articles, stories, poems, art work, and photography to publish in our newsletter. In my termwe produced 24 issues of The Crier and in every issue you found a column about food from Maestro Eduardo, and a game from HL Isabella de Walingforde. During her tenure as Kingdom A&S Champion, Duchess Eleanor de Bolton shared her love of medieval gardening with a regular column, and HE Cormac Mor graciously allowed us to print some of his very thought-provoking articles. There are so many people who allowed us to publish photos which brought the articles and court reports alive. There’s a more fulsome list in the latest issue of The Crier, but I wanted to mention just a few key contributors here. Thank you all for making my job producing the newsletter so much easier and fun.
I am now officially retired and would happily welcome any visitors should you venture to the northwest reaches of the Kingdom, in my little home by the sea. The tea is always on.
e. Earl Marshal – Althaia filia Lazari
Martial activities are currently in their winter lull. Some branches continue to hold practices as weather permits, and there’s excitement building for Ursulmas and Queen’s Rapier Championship in the coming weeks, but overall things will be quiet until we are well into spring.
Officer Changes — My current warrant is valid through May 2023, and I’d like to extend beyond that point to shepherd activities through another tournament season and the implementation of a number of manual updates. I am looking for a number of deputies currently: I am close to finalizing a new Thrown Weapons Officer and have a tentative candidate for Lists Minister. However, I am still eagerly seeking someone for Youth Armored, Youth Rapier, and Inlands Armored Combat. Later this year, I expect rapier, archery, and missile combat will be changing. Summits and Tir Righ are also likely to see changes in multiple officers.
Kingdom Event Planning — I have been communicating with the teams running Queen’s Rapier Championship and May Crown about martial activities so they have the information they need for a successful event. I’m hoping to get more information about An Tir West War plans this weekend, and then see how I can support their planning. I’m also going to see which local events in our Kingdom I can travel to in 2023 now that US-Canadian border restrictions have been lifted and my modern job duties have changed.
Authorization numbers went up a little for rapier from the end of 2021 to the end of 2022, and doubled for our youth armored and rapier programs to a dozen participants in each. The other sports all held steady. The youth programs are still below critical mass to have viable programs, but it’s trending in the right direction thanks to some very enthusiastic individuals willing to travel: Katryne MacKim, Rashida bint Yusuf, and Sarah Pixie in particular.
Experiments = The target siege tests are going well. We’re now into a new stage: figuring out how to safely allow people with no siege experience to shoot for score, and how scoring should work for a specific competition or an annual cumulative competition like target archery and thrown weapons. An Tir was allowed to join the Society minimum armor experiment for rapier and cut & thrust in August; and that has met with a very enthusiastic response, especially with the “new normal” in terms of hot weather. The only problems reported have been a few scrapes and bruises, at least some of which would have happened with normal armor. An Tir has chosen to do some experimentation with the spears the Society approved for the rapier field to test out the best products and phase these in gradually. A discussion is being held about those weapons at 12th Night this weekend, and fighters can try them out at the Sunday martial practice. (Thank you to Milo of House Awry, Stephen the Sinister, Arqai Ne’urin, Feradach mac Tralin, and Piaras Mac Toirdhealbhaigh amongst others for managing these projects.)
Equestrian Planning — An Tir was just starting to get used to horses throughout site before the pandemic, and 2 years off saw a set-back in that at the same time as we have some riders who want to quickly move things forward. No one has been hurt, but there have been issues with people being uncomfortable with horses unexpectedly in close proximity in a small area. The prior and new Kingdom Equestrian Officers and I are continuing to talk about how to smooth encounters between riders and other SCA participants in the future. The Society Equestrian Officer has been consulted at times as well.
Please let me know if you need additional information. Thank you for this opportunity to serve An Tir.
f. Exchequer – Aislinn
See Financial Committee Report.
g. Web Minister – Saito Mitsukage
h. Seneschal – Attia Prima
Seneschal’s office is busy! We are working on an improvement process for both Calendar, and Kingdom Events. With the calendar we want to make it less intensive for the web team and put a few things in the hands of the seneschals and event stewards. We will keep everyone updated. We recently noticed a need for the Kingdom Event Stewards to be able to access the vasts amount of knowledge about what is needed at Crown and Kingdom events. This is currently being worked on. I would like to remind everyone that September Crown, 12th Night, May Crown and July Coronation are the Crown events. Kingdom A&S and Rapier, Collegium and AnTir West War are listed in Kingdom law as Kingdom events.
Live Streaming Deputy:
Mission: Provide event accessibility and SCA engagement to populace members who cannot attend events.
Scope:
Livestream events on the Royal progress where connectivity and volunteers make it possible
Livestream royal courts at a minimum; other activities as volunteers are available
Serve as a resource center for branches and other organizations wanting to livestream
Update:
We are currently limited by the number of volunteers, especially on-site.
We have introduced live commentary for some events (on-site, remote, and hybrid), which has been popular among viewers.
We have streamed several events in the last quarter, including; Collegium, Summits Investiture, and Stromgard Yule and Glymm Mere Yule.
For 12th night we are switching to 1 hour camera operator and communications shifts to attempt to get more people involved in the team, and not keep utilizing the same 3 volunteers over and over (to avoid burn out and build our team).
3M Yule was not streamed as TRM’s did not attend for royal court.
Some events ran through the FB pages only and not YouTube due to a lack of Wifi on site; events were streamed by Countess Rauokinn directly to the kingdom page
As always, viewer numbers are likely inflated, due to the way Facebook counts auto-started videos and partial views and that some events had multiple streams and no way to eliminate one person viewing both parts of the event.
Classes
–3 StreamYard production classes were held and Lord Sindri trained 7 new volunteers.
Events since last report:
No were recorded and uploaded later, due to a lack of signal on-site:
One ethereal court was held (outside of our responsibilities but reported here for ease of tracking) 50 views on Facebook and 32 on Youtube
And events livestreamed:
Tir Righ Coronet-1,000 on FB, did not run on YT
Glymm Mere Yule- 400 views on Facebook. Did not run on YT
Summits Investiture- 232 views on Facebook, 51 on YouTube
Stromgard Yule – 664 views on Facebook, 28 on YouTube
Collegium – 1078 views on Facebook, 515 on YouTube
12th Night (numbers TBA)
New Branches Deputy – His Grace Styrkarr
Current projects and status are as follows:
Shire of Druim Doineann (REINSTATEMENT) – Fearghus is main contact, jlee10@hotmail.com. Still working with Fearghus about this. They are building a house in Port Angeles and everything on hold still, they just moved.
Shire of Midhaven (REINSTATEMENT) – Monique is the main contact, ladyhawke106@gmail.com. We are actively in-process. Your office is helping with current zip-code specifics. They are in contact with the Exchequer’s office. I have sent them a to-do list for reinstatement and they are moving forward. No movement this quarter since to-do list sent.
Shire of Hartwood (SHIRE-TO-BARONY) – Elphin is main contact, hartwood.seneschal@tirrigh.org. We are in regular contact. They are in the early stages of putting together their package. We are looking to have about 1-2 years of post Covid-era data before going to Kingdom and the BoD.
Shire of Fire Mountain Keep (REINSTATEMENT) – Main contact Sybil, maniacalgleam@hotmail.com. VICTORY IS OURS! Reinstated July 2022. Group has been quiet on my end. Update email sent as a polite inquiry was responded to and they are happy and active as a group again.
Canton of Caladhport – (UPDATE) – Formed successfully last year and the group is doing well. I have remained in contact with the group to monitor for any issues. They are actively hosting Kingdom-level events already with help from their barony.
Calendar Deputy – Solbella haTayeret Nothing much to report… keeping up to the best of my ability! Looking for a new calendar deputy.
Collegium November 2022: They will not be at Curia, I have their final report. The Event was at a loss, at $2×388.76. Which is pretty good considering all the issues surrounding this event. I have forwarded the final report to Curia Clerk. I was told that they sent reports.
12th Night 2023: Will be at the meeting. I do not have a formal report at this time, as I am sure they are pretty busy right now.
Kingdom A & S, in Glymm Mere: They will be at Curia, No formal report at this time, I know it is coming and will forward when it comes in.
May Crown in Vulkenfeld, hosted by Wealdmere: Will be at the Curia, Formal report has been received & forwarded to curia clerk.
July Coronation 2023 : Have two nibbles but they are not getting any support from the locals.
September Crown 2023: One bid in and one bid coming
Collegium 2023 (Is this going to be an event next year?)
