Present: Rich Mueller, Ann Peters, Margaret Kirkpatrick, Karen Bastien, Glenn McDavid, Sarah Shaftman
Reporting by E-mail: Eric Ferguson
Some of this issues that came up at the meeting were amplified, corrected, clarified, and occasionally even resolved in subsequent e-mails. In the interest of making a more useful document, the results of those discussions are included here.
Eric got the permit for firing muskets at the park. There was some discussion firing a mortar as well, but that is is not going to happen: The mortars are in the garage, access to which is now blocked by snow. The muskets and supplies had been stored at the Yoders, but they were not returned there after Mankato [as we learned later]. Presumably the Captain has them.
Tamaye will host the soup course.
Sarah will gather and disseminate course menus, unless in the interim she can find another victimvolunteer.
Margaret had the paper goods. Sarah took them home and has reorganized them. Annie will transport a small supply of them between courses along with a demo singlestick (see below).
As of the meeting we had no indication that this event was going to happen, but on December 6 we received an e-mail from Perry Vining:
The 17th Annual Historical Faire at the Northbridge Mall will be held February 12-13, 2011. This is the start of our 25th season so we are looking at having a lot of fun. I noticed that the Scottish Ramble is another weekend, so I hope that lots of you decide to come and enjoy the "camaraderie"
We will discuss this at the January meeting.
Status of contract? Sarah will write an article for the January and February newsletters. Rich would like to hold a marching drill with pikes on both days. We don't know how many of our events will be on the official schedule and how many we can schedule on our own. Since the meeting Liz Michaelson has emailed us:
As things are coming together it looks like CT will again be in the north lobby. I would really like CT to provide a presentation in Courtroom 326 about the history of Scottish mercenaries as portrayed by CT. We've not done that in a very long time. Final schedule not yet complete. I'm waiting for confirmation of performance times from the pipe bands and also kirkin' details from SAS. I'll have more as it becomes available.
We have an offer. Board approval pending. We will discuss it at the January meeting.
Captain: Absent
HCF: No report
(draft due to board 12/21, final version 1/18/2011)
There was a consensus that we need at least an inventory of equipment and supplies in the Spring. Glenn has sent Sarah a copy of the inventory from 2006.
CaptainLieutenant: Pending the inventory, we have plenty of powder and can probably
cut the budget line of $350 in half. Bruce agreed that we have plenty of powder, and noted that we cannot
get nearly as good a price if we order less than a full case (25 cans). He suggested that we not
include any power in the 2011-2012 budget and wait until Spring 2012 for another purchase. Sarah asked
David and Rich to make a complete inventory of the powder we have, just in case we are short of a
particular variety. The cannon is a big unknown. It will certainly run up powder consumption.
It is scheduled to arrive this Winter.
HCF: We need more candles but $80 seems excessive. Margaret will revise that figure. We could use some pottery, esp. pitcher and bowl for a washing station. Jas.Townsend or Smoke & Fire may have something. Jay and Tracy Henderson might be a better choice.
From the Quartermaster:
We need about 50' of quarter-inch hemp rope and 100' of marline to serve the ropes for the new leather tent grommets at about 18" per grommet. We usually buy rope from wherever it happens to be convenient; tarred marline is available from GreenBoatStuff.com, American Rope & Tar, or Sailrite.
Serving a rope is wrapping the ends with marline (tarred hemp string) to prevent unraveling.
Cook's Tent: There was some discussion of brass grommets for the ridge pole holes. They would not be easily visible from the ground outside except by NBA players. After the meeting the Quartermaster said that these would not be period and he will not approve an expenditure for them. In any case there is a question about whether the fabric is strong enough for any kind of grommet. We will check on the state of the tent when we open up the garage in March or whenever the weather permits (note for February meeting).
Johndevous will need to be budgeted. It was not on the original list of events. Expenses are food for three days, outhouse rental, and trailer hauling to Lewiston.
If we can get non-members to pay to participate there may be some income to partially offset this, but we need to be concerned about the additional workload on the kitchen. Two or three extra, no problem, but twenty extra would be a lot of additional work.
Budget history: In 2008 trailer expenses were 118.68 and food was $216.43. Seventeen members were listed as
attending for a per Diem food cost of $4.24. In 2009, we paid $114.78 for trailer hauling and $169.47 for food.
Attendance at Johndezvous 2009 was(at least) 17:
John, Marcia, Maeve, Sorcha, and Fionn O'Duggan
Laura, Kathryn, Carl, and Jerry Swenson
Ann Peters
Mike McCarty
David Vavreck
Rich and Gracie Mueller
Margaret Kirkpatrick
Karen Bastien
Betsy Bolton
(based upon photos of the event on Marcia's Facebook)
Bruce suggest that we might ask members to contribute something for the food and Johndevous, and perhaps also at muster. If they pay something for the weekend, it makes the event more important to them.
Sarah has been working on the budget and is sending drafts to David, Margaret, and Bruce for their feedback.
Mike McCarty is working on armor repairs, e.g. replacing leather straps.
Apparently still with John O'Duggan. This may require board follow-up.
Rich will check with Mike, who worked on these at Big Island.. We do not have enough pike heads for all of the Virginia pikes. We could buy more, but do we need to do so now? We cannot field enough pikemen to use all pikes with heads that we have. Bruce has the contact information for the metalworker who made our last four pike heads.
The long (Virginia) pikes have been headless since their acquisition. 15 were were purchased in the mid 1990s for use at a battle reenactment in Virginia that didn't allow pikes with metal points. We may need headless pikes for another such event.
The QM would like to see the pike heads on the current oaken pikes transferred to the Virginias. Currently 4 of them have heads. It would be good to verify how many of the original 15 we still have.
(see also Membership meeting). One should be brought to First Footing and to the February membership meeting so that craftsfolk can examine it with a view toward making hilts so they can be safely used for practice. They are at David's and will need to be transported to those events.
We will examine all the tents in the Spring to see what repairs are needed. Rich know someone who repairs tent canvas.
Historically Clann Tartan has expected members to purchase their own tents after their first couple years in the regiment. The consensus of the meeting is that this requirement is no longer realistic given the current economy and the low recent attendance at events. No sense in discouraging members from coming to events. We will continue to need some trooper tents for sleeping and for storage. In particular, Rich wants to keep the smallest trooper as a powder tent. Check #5 for possibility of repair.
We will make an inventory when we wax/oil the woodware (see January drill).
Check with Bruce, who has evidently been taking home tables and benches and resealing them a few at a time. (Attempts to organize work parties for this purpose were foiled by weather.)
Three of the folding benches are missing. We should get replacement seating. There was a couple at Big Island who make the same model: Wind River Trading, Lynn and Lucinda Nelson, 21949 Lake Hook Rd. Hutchinson, MN 55350. Phone 1-320-587-9278.
After the meeting Quartermaster advised us that the design of those benches is not period and the replacements should be more historically accurate.
Since in period the army did not provide seating, perhaps members should be encouraged to bring their own. The trick is to make sure people do not buy furniture that is wrong for us.This would also help keep the trailer load down. Such stools would be a good Johndevous project.
David summarized the requirements:
Given that we moderns are wimps and whiners by comparison to the people we represent, however, we do allow some furniture.
And as we portray our marquis tent as a tavern, we allow furniture there, too.
If we are going to continue allowing furniture in our camp, what we must do is take into account both modern and period requirements.
Modern requirements include that it is both collapsible/packable, and affordable - individual members can choose to give up 2 or 3 cubic feet in their own vehicles to have an awesomely accurate joint stool, or to spend as much as they choose to, but we do not have those luxuries with the Colonel's trailer or budget.
Period requirements include that it represents furniture that might be used by our class (working) in our time (1630) and in our place (a military camp in northwestern Europe). It should be based on as solid documentation as possible - design, material, construction.
As stated above, though, documentation for soldiers using furniture in camp is lacking. Any furniture we do allow, then, must at least reflect the other period requirements - our class, location, and era.
Glenn reminded staff of this image from 1637. Since two type of stools are being used as improvised missile weapons *, such designs should certainly be light enough to meet our needs.
Attendance is down. What can be done to get more people there? Additional pike drill is important, especially if we will be using the Virginia pikes, which are more difficult to handle. Some suggestions were made for the Captain to review:
It was also noted that attendance at fiber guild is down. We have a very busy calendar, perhaps too busy for our current small membership.
Oil woodware; presentation by Anthea?
Library
Clothing: Bodices and/or cut hose?
See what hilts/guards have been made by our craftsfolk.
This is very important. A particular issue is that there are very few members with a vehicle that can haul the Clann trailer
We need to have a new brochure and business cards. Karen asked if we have any testimonials.
What do we do that attracts attention?
We need to break the recruitment work down into small tasks that can be delegated. Karen and Rich will work on developing such a list of discrete recruitment ideas.
The economy hurts.
We have a gap in our summer schedule. With White Oak and Perham gone there is nothing in August. Sarah will do a newsletter article inviting members to look for possible events. There are constraints on the schedule, notably that in September school is back in session, limiting the availability of families with children. Furthermore, the shorter late summer days limit the time for setting up camp after a long drive.
Hudson is a very nice event. We need more like that. Perhaps we can find more school gigs like Woodville, although that, being by a definition a school day event, is a problem for some members.
Scribal work, e.g. ink making, could be a possible muster activity.
Rich says the phone number previously listed for him in the newsletter is not correct; his is (651) 583-4264, and Dave Olson's is (612)290-0375.>
Sarah noted for the record that our stoneware supplier is Jay Henderson Artifacts
Next Staff Meeting: Thursday, January 6, 2011 at Sarah's house.
(linked from above)
*Since the stools were being thrown in protest against the catholicizing tendencies of the 1637 Anglican Book of Common Prayer, they could also be called anti-missal weapons.
