End of Year Celebration: Yule Ball ~ Saturday, December 12, 2009

Our Yule Ball was a success. We had nearly twice as many folk attend as last year. It was held at a beautiful location in the city. We had plenty of room, tons of food, and some good conversation. Next year we'll add an hour to the time, as time ran short to do all that we'd had planned.

I just wanted to thank everyone for their help, in no particular order:

• Detta – thank you for the veggie trays, baked potatoes, auction items and anything else I’m not mentioning


• Morrigan – thanks for the desserts, the favors, the decorating, the help, the auction items, everything


• Orion – thank you for carting everything (even stuff that wasn’t needed), bringing ice, cooking the food, the prize donation, the brownies, carting your own stuff for me to borrow, etc. etc.


• Cullen – thank you for cooking the food


• Wil – thank you for memorializing the occasion on film, and being prepared to suffer as one of my contestants


• Gwen – thank you for kicking Morrigan and I out of the kitchen, being willing to suffer as queen, etc.


• Robin – thank you for the bread, the willingness to always help out and for dragging Kieran’s sorry butt to the event.


• Fyonna – thank you for dragging stuff for me to use, (which we did!), the willingness to always help out, the MC work, and being yourself when other folk aren’t.


• Killian – thank you for the auction items, the willingness to always work hard, and for being a part of our rag tag group


• Tory – thank you (and your friends) for manning the doors and getting everyone there, and the willingness to become a man for an half an hour.


• Kieran – thanks for the comic relief…always!


• Gisch & Jenn - thanks for the use of the crock pot, the yummy wine, bringing the baby, and joining us yet again.


• Bruce & Rosemary - thank you for coming through again with a beautiful free location.
  

God, I hope I’m not missing anyone. I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep the last two nights, and I’m finding that my head is kind of muddled. As I write this, I just want you ALL (that includes those of you who could not be here), to know that without your help none of this is possible. What is a guild without members (& associates)? Thank you all for playing with us!

Happy Holidays!

Kyra

Fresno: Kearney Park Renaissance Faire, November 14 & 15, 2009

I’ve been trying all week to think of what to write about Kearney. It’s all sort of a haze, I’m not sure why. Well…maybe it’s because there really weren’t that many patrons there. I’ve heard that they had better entrance numbers than ever, but I don’t remember actually seeing them. We didn’t even need to station anyone at the table. It was … odd.


Let’s see…they put us right next to St. Dismas (like in the first year, but on the opposite side), and then they put a small contingent from Santa Maria (Perry) to the right of us. We were directly across from the joust, with the stone bathroom almost at our backs. It was a nice spot actually, now that we’ve got our sun shade.


You couldn’t ask for more beautiful weather. The sun was full and strong both days. There was a slight nip in the air, but not enough (during the day) to really require a cloak. Night was FREEZING, but that’s why we have a heater in the trailer.


We had a slew of visitors for the weekend. In addition to Detta & Alaistair, we had Teague, Cailin and Kathryn join us on Saturday and we had Maitiu all weekend. The kids seemed to have a good time with Kathryn on Saturday. We all had a blast with Maitiu all weekend. Couldn’t ask for a better guest.


We saw some folk that we haven’t seen in a good long while. Dame Armsmere was working with the joust guys (Knights of something or other … maybe Avalon…maybe Mayhem…I get them confused). We also had Grant, Lynda & Shannon Martyn stop by both days. It’s been about five years since we last saw them. Shannon is doing so much better. It’s nice to see the sickly baby with the chest zipper and heart operations as a healthy little girl. Orion also had some of his friends stop in with their two little boys. Made for a very busy Sunday.


Saturday Detta, Gwen, Tory and I had the opportunity to dance for the court, which is always fun. We offered to let the king & queen fire the treb, but they didn’t stop in. I think they were more impressed with the treb next door. Sunday the ropes broke on the traction treb and Don Juan had to do some quick repair work. Later in the day the sling rope broke on the main treb. Shortly afterwards the rope (I think) broke on St. Dismas’ treb as well. Guess it was a great weekend, with all of the equipment failing on Sunday.


My favorite part of the weekend was on Sunday when I was just dancing for myself with the music running…I was shortly joined by Maitiu…then by Gwen…then by Cullen…and folk just kept stepping up and joining. That was truly the best!

Community Event: IFMA Renaissance Faire, November 11, 2009

We attended IFMA's Renaissance Faire and completed a schedule of 13 dances during the event. Attending were Squire Morrigan; Lord Gavin; Sir Orion; Don Juan; Lady Fyonna; Lady Kyra; Lord Johnathan, Lady Karen & Lord James Stewart (from Saint Andrews), who acted as our talking head.

During the evening we mingled with the crowd, greeting folk and adding ambiance.

During our dance show we danced the following dances: Black Nag; Sellinger's Round; Rufty Tufty; Black Alman; Gathering Peascods; Ambassador's Pavanne; Picking of Sticks; Queen Mary's Promenade; Heart's Ease; Chestnut & the Belle Pavanne.

Here is a thank you we received for our effort:

"...Let me thank you most sincerely for gracing our event. Despite sound system lapses, your group performed magnificently. Please extend our deep appreciation to the rest of your troupe.

Raffy"

Folsom: Folsom Renaissance Faire, October 17 & 18, 2009

Ah....Folsom....

Saturday dawned muggy and warm....and pretty much stayed that way all day...getting warmer as the day progressed. It seemed at one point late afternoon as if the temperature dropped momentarily and then increased. I think it was due to the breeze dying down.

We were set up in the same place as last year, exactly, which was kind of nice, small, but right in the thick of things. We were the only guild set up on our aisle, which, I think made it really nice.

We met some new folk. Across from us was 'A Sacred Realm' (ASR) and another vendor, whom I can't remember for the moment. The lady at ASR seemed to be vastly entertained by us....especially when the Lady Anne-Marie was with us.

On the right of us were the Beekeepers. They were really sweet. Melissa & her husband have three small bairns (Kiera - 5, ____ - 3ish, and Charlie - 1). Unfortunately I didn't pick up the middle sons name. Gavin played with them almost all the time, which was good for him. Sunday they spent alot of time with us which was also nice. Kiera (yes Kyra) was such a joy. Since I didn't have my Laurie, I made due with Kiera.

To the left of us was the Bone & Leather booth. Very quiet and subdued, you never heard from them. The gentleman in there was nice enough to allow Danse Macabre (DM) to use his back stage area...unfortunately his backstage area ended up being part of our encampment. I honestly think DM's numbers overwhelmed him. I've never seen so many people participate in their group. There must have been upwards of 15 of them. As they were using it as a backstage area, they didn't realize that it was part of the encampment that folk were looking at and we ended up having some non-period items in our encampment. Sunday Don Juan discussed this with the head guy and things did improve.

Saturday we had Lady Anne-Marie with us, as noted above. With her came a maelstrom of excitment and activity. Meet and Greet was particularly delightful as the lady wowed small children and adults alike. As the lasses (Tory & her friend Marissa) and I were following Lady Anne-Marie through the shire, I was banging on the tamborine in time with each of her steps. I had tons of fun playing with my tamborine and will continue to torture you all with it...So be warned!

There were two knightings on Saturday. One for Rat at 11am at the Dauntless...which I was lucky enough to see from Meet & Greet, but not lucky enough to get photos of. And one for Captain MacLaren at 2pm, which I was able to photograph, here...

We were scheduled to join in the morning parade, do meet and greet and closing parade. Morning parade on Saturday did not happen. Sunday didn't happen, but the ladies (Fyonna, Tory & Marissa) and I decided to create our own parade. As we came through the gates there were a few nobles and some pike men waiting, so they joined in. We danced through faire screaming 'Welcome to Faire' and beating on our tamborines & noise makers. We lost the nobles about half way through, but the pike men stayed with us. When we got to 'guild row' one of the guilds asked if we were the parade, to which we shouted, yes, we're opening parade! So we got a huge amount of cheers for our 6 man parade. MacIain's was particularly loud and boisterous cheering us on. It was quite fun. Something we'll definitely have to do again if the situation arises!

Both days were very busy. Saturday was jam packed. Per Marti the gate was the largest they've seen in four years. Sunday was still busy, but slower to start. The weather on Sunday was so much nicer than Saturday, but was threatening to rain all day...and finally did about tear down time. But lightly, fortunately. Sunday's closing parade was huge and so fun. At the end they had a limbo stick set up across the gate and they made everyone pass under it. Then we all waited and cheered guests on as they left the village. Then all headed back to try to tear down quickly before the weather got the better of us all.

In summary, fun faire, lots of activity, little time, warm weather, lots of guests (gave away 1/2 the chest in knights), and fond memories.

Team Building Event: Pumpkin Maze, Lathrop, October 11, 2009

This was our final team building event of the year. The Pumpkin Maze is always fun, although next year we may want to find a new venue. The Del O'so family have commercialized their site an awful lot and now there are huge crowds. If you find a corn maze you like, please let me know so we can consider going there instead!

At the Pumpkin Maze, we were able to work (well play) together and independently. We spent time together talking and wandering the mazes, while also feeling comfortable enough as a group to separate and do individual things (some went to the petting zoo, some on the trains, some on the zip lines [yes, I did it!], etc.).

It was great to see Dirk, Elspeth & the girls. It was terrific to see what Gisch & Jenn have created. Dane is absolutely beautiful....

.

It was wonderful to see Detta and Merrick again. And best of all the ‘family’ was together…there were a few chunks missing (Dame Bri, Fyonna, Killian, Wil & Morrigan), which is always a bummer, but we were together, and it just felt right.

Anyway, those of you that weren’t there were missed. And those of you that were, were very much appreciated.

El Dorado Hills: Pirates at the Library, September 11 & 12, 2009

This was a two day event. With Friday being a school day from 10am to 2pm and Saturday being open to the general public from 10am to 3pm. The weather on Friday was really warm, but offered up a beautiful sunset...

Temperatures didn't drop until nearly 6am Saturday, with the coming of rain. Saturday had spurts of light rain followed by hot humidity most of the morning. With warm afternoon temps.

We had 1,000 kids through the door on Friday. And another 2,500 people through the door on Saturday.

We arrived Thursday to the request from Cap’n MacLaren to teach dance as well as do the treb thing, as one of his ‘teachers’ wasn’t able to make it. No big deal usually, rather difficult for us, though as we had a very small group. We ended up splitting up between St. Genesius & St. Barbara’s. So, Gwen, Tory & I took the dancing and Don Juan and Orion, ably assisted by Gavin, took the weapons demos.

We had groups on the hour and the half hour, for 20 minutes, with 10 minute breaks in between. The groups were usually 60 students per group, and were usually grouped together by grade. One of the groups St. Genesius had was actually a group of 80, 60 eighth graders and 20 kindergartners…quite a challenge.

We started trying to teach the kids ‘Haymakers’, as that’s a *very* simple dance, but the eighth graders were uncooperative and difficult to split into groups. We got them into eight different groups, and only ended up getting them half way through the dance in our 20 minutes. Gwen had an excellent idea and after that we had the girls get into a circle and then the boys into a circle around the girls and grouped them that way. It was easier. We also changed dances, and I vastly modified and simplified ‘Jenny Pluck Pears’, so that the boys wouldn’t have to touch the girls and even a baby could do it. This went over much better.

It was my observation that the Kindergartners through Second graders were much easier to teach to dance than the fifth and eighth graders.

Saturday was pretty crazy…at least until 1pm. We had lines, like Disneyland, of kids trying to fire Orion’s trebuchet. I couldn’t believe it. I took tons of photos of the huge crowds we had. At one point Don Juan had a line almost equal to Orion’s for the catapults, and Tory had a big following of folk to try on the chainmail. We were completely inundated. Crazy!

Best thing about the event: lots of grass; lots of patrons; room to fire either trebuchet; room to dance…& if we had more people on Saturday we would have, too, as it was we were completely overrun and really needed at least one more person; the people…this is another one of those locales (like Truckee) where the community is completely focused on their kids…we seldom saw adults without kids in attendance;

spending some time with the Governor’s wife Liselle, who kept us supplied with fresh cookies & sangria; and spending time with the Governor (Mykall VonTramp) who kept us supplied with fudge; meeting new folk: the Pirates of Sacramento, and being supplied with Breakfast; and spending time with old friends: the crew of the Dauntless.

Worst thing about the event: ANTS!!!!! Lack of people for dancing; lack of time (due to lack of people) to shop and visit the other groups/vendors.

Definitely worth a return trip!