Present: Leo, Rosie, Thomas, Eleanor, David, Aethelwulf, Dafydd, Lily, Cat, Marieke, and a soon-to-be new Freeholder, Deborah, known in the SCA as Octavia Columella.
OLD BUSINESS
Arts & Sciences: The EK Laurel’s Challenge has several Freehold entrants. (This is not to be confused with the EK A&S Challenge.)
Website: Rosie has done great work with the shire website’s A&S section. Lily will be updating the Fencing page soon. Any officer who wishes to add content to their website area should contact Marieke.
Heraldry: Dafydd has received and answered some questions. The Freehold armorial on our website continues to grow, and non-approved arms are welcome. Dafydd is hoping to produce a physical armorial at some point.
Lists: No, really, lists… we have a bunch of projects we’d like to do as a shire, or for the shire – who’s keeping a list? (Post-Meeting Update: Our Seneschal!)
Server Badges: Somebody from outside our shire asked about whether there’s a badge for servers at feasts. Not really… but Marieke says the Freehold has several nice white Aprons with the Freehold arms imprinted on them, from way back, newly rediscovered. They will be added to our List of Chattels.
Freehold Populace Badge: This still hasn’t been corrected on our website. Marieke will ask Lisabetta if she’s had a chance to re-draw our badge as it should be.
Access to “banned” list: Somebody from outside the SCA had asked if they could access the SCA’s list of banned participants. Thomas received an official answer: no, not the list we use internally. However, the SCA Board Minutes list this information as each ban or revocation takes place. These minutes are public, and a diligent person could harvest this information for their own use.
Always Be Chatelaining: We still need to make contact with Odd to make a plan to get some of the little SCA cards into people’s hands.
Officer Email: Thomas reminded officers to check their Gmail Officer Email at least once a week, please.
Archery: It was mentioned that Odd’s site doesn’t have an available indoor bathroom. Tearlach has offered his range in the past, but it’s only 20 yards, and rocky – a bit hard on arrows. Aethelwulf will check about using his grandmother’s place in Grand Isle – there’s a suitable field there.
Shire Online Library: Thomas told us more about his vision for this. He would like to include things like PDFs, photographs, and links to outside sources. We discussed the merits of hosting this information on the Freehold website (what’s our capacity limit?) versus putting it on a GoogleDrive. We also thought about the amount of work involved in gathering, organizing, and vetting the information. Marieke is willing to work on the website angle but doesn’t want to get involved with GoogleDrive. Perhaps we need a deputy for that.
Plastic Barrel Armor Workshop by Dietrich: No new developments; this is better done when we can meet again in person.
Youth Quest Update: Eleanor and Rosie are developing a plan for youth to create favors with materials they have on hand. Later, when in-person activities resume, the favors can be given to worthy or inspirational recipients chosen by the youth.
NEW BUSINESS
Officer Reports: Thomas checked to make sure all officer reports due have been submitted to Kingdom.
Re-Opening: For Fencing and Fighting practices, Lily and Aethelwulf feel that, even though VT state parameters allow this, it still feels too soon, and we might be looking at late June for resumption of practices. For resuming SCA events, presumably at some point this summer, we want to be sure not to do that too soon, either. It’s even harder for kid’s activities, and Eleanor feels we should wait until we can do these safely. David said it’s possible we can resume archery at some point, by keeping proper distances, and not sharing equipment.
Facebook Groups: The Kingdom Social Media Officer reminds us that official shire Facebook groups must be set to “private” (ours is), and recommends prior approval of posts by moderators (we don’t do this now). We are not allowed to discuss non-SCA events on the official communication channels.
June event at Coldwood: Sir Stephen is looking into hosting one of the Crown Tourney feeder tourneys as a day-long event (no food provided) at Coldwood on Father’s Day Weekend – more info will be forthcoming.
Online Freehold Event: Thomas wondered if we wanted to hold an online event, while we wait for things to open up. He suggested a demo with an online chat interface. Leo suggested a Zoom meeting with breakout room for different guilds. We could also do some sort of meet and greet or activity fair for new members. Thomas might create a poll for this, to see what the shire wants to do.
Notes by Marieke