Barony of Madrone Curia
Minutes for
February 8, 2016
B&B Welcome (Baron Stefan of Pembroke/Baroness Emmelina de Coventry)
- Apologies for not being at Curia last month
- A&S is coming up soon
- Lots of biz to go over tonight!!!
Seneschal Welcome and Report (HL Gera Gangolffin)
Lady Gera yields her talking time in favor of more time for a financial discussion.
Exchequer Report (HL Lianor Pereira DoValle)
Resigning as exchequer due to personal emergency.
Kingdom has been informed, so we are covered there.
Julian has been kind enough to step in and take over (Contingent)
Lady Gera will post the position and make it available
Checking: $ 6,474.19
Money Market: $ 17,670.02
Events
Close out
None.
In Process
- 3/19/16: Madrone A&S Championship (HL Emma la Rousse d’Argentan)
o Moving right along.
o Parking across the street.
o Contract done
o Insurance done
o Banquet permit done
o Menu tested—works!!
o Doing something really cool: making checky pasta!!!
o Keri-je will be running and auction. (wants to sell some of the pasta!)
o King and Queen are not coming after all
- 4/20: Shakespeare Demo for UW (external demo, not an official SCA event) (Sir Brand)
o This is a Wednesday. Assembly at 4, battle at 6. If we do produce people he is willing to make a donation to the barony.
o Late period, Agincourt, per Shakespeare.
- 5/6-8/16: War of the Baronies (Sir Rapheal the Rogue)
o Come to the War.
o Go to other events and talk about the War.
o Camping.
o Fighting.
o Jousting.
o Horses.
o Archery.
o Rapier.
o Hot Showers!!!
- 9/23-25/16: Emprise of the Black Lion (Master Guillaume Garrigues)
o Still in progress regarding land issues.
New
- Peasants:
– Tayla has settled on a date of July 8
- Crown event for 2017 (HE Stephen des Jardin, HL Gera Gangolffin)
– Volunteer to do may crown 2017
– Working on site location; grant county fairgrounds w/ Ambergard
– Or, if it’s 2 weeks after War, bid for July Coronation instead?
- Regarding a discussion of July Coronation being moved to Stromgard, Sir Payne brings forth the idea of setting up 2 or 3 sites for Kingdom Level Events, and announcing that we are the “we are the emergency event Site!! We can handle that Kingdom level event that loses its site!”
Old Business
- Baronial Budget
o Lady Gera hands out Power Point presentation for discussion purposes
(Click here for PDF version of presentation)
o Comments:
- This is potentially a challenging discussion; we are looking for solutions, not blame.
- One conversation at a time/one speaker at a time requested
o Talked about budget in December and January; did not pass contingency budget b/c no 2015 #’s at that time
o Upon review of those numbers, it became obvious we need to talk
o 2015 end of year: total loss of $7,500.00
- Gate receipts were less than projected
- Did have donations to offset gym, but only $800
- Bought pavilion
o 2016 budget: projected to lose $8,600.00.
o CAN’T KEEP SPENDING LIKE THIS!
o Puts us out of compliance w/ Kingdom Rules (need 3 years of baronial budget in reserve to handle contingencies)
o Ideas:
- Selling old pavilion
- Fund raising ideas for new pavilion
- War of the Baronies
- New structure for Emprise
- Crown event for next year potential
- Work more closely on donation handling w/ donations downstairs
- Need to talk about fight practice space
- Can we afford this space??
o Proposal to go through budget line item by line item
o Thoughts?
o Baron Stefan: largest expense we have right now is fighter/social space
- Fighters HAVE been donating money, which subsidized a good portion of the expense
- Even so, we cannot afford to keep this site without changes
- Fighters could fund the space themselves (concerns whether that would take it out of the baronial budget; take it out of the insurance umbrella; “unofficial” gives Etienette the willies)
- This location began as “fighter space,” and grew into Baronial Home
- No donations have come from any non-fighters
- Sara the Brave: when we talked about moving from Mercer to this space, we discussed that the Barony would only be putting in the same amount we were paying at Mercer Island and fighters would pick up difference in cost. Has that full differential been happening? Has not seen a donation box set up for Curia, or social, or scribal. [Lady Gera says we have not pushed, and we should.]
- Two issues there; one, we have not covered the full incremental difference;
- We had $2400 budgeted for Mercer Island
- We have for years approved a budget that has been derivative of the previous year’s budget
- The difference is $1200, we collected $800.
- The issue is not that we can’t afford the fighter side, we just can’t afford anything.
- Do we as a group of the populace sitting here in this room believe that we could, or do we want to bank on the donations covering the space, or do we want to say we cannot afford this pace end of story and if we are able to accumulate donations for 2017 revisit having an indoor space?
- How can we as a group make it work?
- Sir Rafael: definitely need to have that donation box out, or a visual of saying how much we need, and drive the donations more.
- Baroness Bergdis: MAKE IT CLEAR that we are putting it for ALL activities, not just the fighters.
- Moved to donation in May, had NO idea that Madrone was in any financial trouble.
- Baron Stefan clarifies: we are not insolvent; we are not in panic mode; but we do need to have some frank and honest discussions.
- Keri-je: start on Facebook, email, being more up front about our financial means. Again, the populace has NO idea.
- Tayla: this has been building for ten years. Six years ago the barony had between 6 and 10 events a year. We no longer have Microsoft money coming in. actively working with corporate and SCA corporate to make that happen again. 2 crown events covered us for a couple of years, but for years we have been spending more money than we were bringing in.
- Mistress Anissa: do you post minutes after every meeting?
o They are indeed posted, but there is no announcement that “hey, the minutes have been posted.” Lady Gera will address that.
- Stefan again. We have money. We have plans to make money. We want people to come to financial and be involved. We want people to be there.
- HL Aeron: work toward finding a way of tap dancing around and wording it correctly so that we can keep it out there. Fb is the fastest way of getting information out. Quick access to information. Like the idea of a donation box, can’t tell you last time he walked around w/ cash in wallet. Pay Pal Account? (Etienette shakes head vigorously.) having a way to do it electronically would work well for many people.
- Juanita: the way to get people to give you money is to ask them.
- Etienette: Story behind PayPal: we are at least a year away at Kingdom level (regarding back bill).
- Rafael: we are not in a bad position. We ARE in the position that we are not making 3 years worth of operating funds. We have to do something now so that we don’t come up shy in 2.5 years. Very good point regarding who carries cash anymore. Have to make sure we bring cash…let’s work with what we have at the moment. Use the traditional methods: visual communications, multiple donation boxes, tell people we need them to give.
- Stefan: appreciate that we ALL put $$ in the hat right now. We all see value in what we have worked to create here. The idea of having the barony come together in one place has value.
- Landinn:following up on Aeron’s suggestion: runs the twitter account; against social media policy to conduct business. You can put a reminder out, but cannot use it as primary mode of communication of SCA business at this time.
- Bergdis: when we ask for donations, it’s important to specify how much the site is costing.
- Sarah Pixie:what bank is our checking with? Homestreet.
- Etienette: still cannot do electronic transfers, even for deposits.
- Baroness Aleksandra: However, one of the things you can do is set up a bill payment where your bank will send a paper check to the baronial post office box, memo donation for fighter practice, thus creating the paper trail.
- Eden: paying for the space is important, but we are only looking at one branch of the tree. This site is only about ½ of the deficit.
- Anissa: passing the hat also shows that if you tell people, they will donate. Send something out Friday or Saturday, including donations.
- Alicia: whatever we decide to do, the website should be involved, include a visual, how you can transfer money, how you can donate, etc. calendar reminder, etc. use the website.
- Molly: whenever we talk about donations, we need to get out of the habit of calling it donations for the fighter space. Make it more inclusive.
- Bergdis: if we cannot use Facebook as the primary mechanism, use the email as primary but also put a shorter version on fb as long as it’s clearly stated on the email list; also we need to get out of the habit of budgeting events to just break even. We need to budget for PROFIT. Make the occasional event cheap, but the default should be to make money on events.
o Lianor adds that this requires that we make tough choices on sites.
o Stefan: we need to make sure that our events make money. Also we need to replace those Microsoft funds. Need to host a Kingdom event every other year minimum.
o Aeron: put all eggs in one basket?
o Rafael: need additional events beyond Crown events.
o Stephen des Jardin: when I came into the barony, it was a long time from the time I came in until the time we did a Crown event.
o Tayla: we hosted Crown events in 2000, 2008, 2012, 2014
o Stephen des Jardin: not saying that we bank on getting that event every 12-18 months, but try to make those opportunities for those events as well as making good financial decisions.
o Sara Pixie: why does war of the baronies not show projected revenue:
- Gera: no numbers from previous events, so no baseline.
o Sgt. Karrel: fundraiser, baronial auction like 12th Night Auction
- Gera:Back to Volunteering:
o Want us to make money
o Want us to use our volunteer time wisely
o Some of you have given until you have bled, but I would ask that you say “I” don’t want to do that again, rather than “we” should not do that again, so that we train up the next generation.
- Related to budget, spent a lot of time talking about this site:
o Repeats that this site is the best thing to happen to the barony in the last decade
o NOTE: With the funds brought in tonight by Sir Payne, the Fighters have come within $162 of the offset for the Monday night space.
o Moving on to remaining line items:
- 2015 spent 2/3 of officer budget
- Julian, historically speaking, the officers do not spend their budgets (or they don’t submit receipts)
- Officer training: will need new training once we have a new exchequer.
- Will have a seneschal/exchequer training up here this fall
- Equestrian guild: has been supported under Master Guillaume’s Microsoft monies
- Julian:They have been spending their own money. The barony has been holding it for them, but they have been spending it. Does not impact the barony’s bottom line.
- Rafael: one of the things that the equestrian guild is happy to do is discussing if we are not going to be able to do the Microsoft thing, we will find a way to pay our own expenses.
- College of St. Bunstable is currently in abeyance; however Sir Brand’s event may garner some interest.
- Any other specific line item issues?
- Tayla: would be comfortable zeroing out officer budgets for this year.
- Stefan: Would have to move toward having officers ask for money first, then get the money, then spend it.
- Submit request when you have one, rather than blanket funds.
- Julian: we have been reducing the officers’ allocated budgets for the past three years.
- Discussion of limits; we go around to officers present:
- A&S—zero
- Chamberlain—need your budget? No.
- Chatelaine?Yes (for meet up account, $75 2x per year) ($150)
- Chronicler?No
- Exchequer: zero
- Herald: zero
- Lists:zero
- Rapier: zero
- B&B: zero
- Archery: zero
- Thrown: zero
- YAC:zero
- Scribal: $150
- Sergeantry: zero
- Awards: $350
- Discussion regarding website: Alicia will get numbers, but for now we leave it at $150 (may go down to $125)
- That leaves us with Curia/Social/Fighter rental
- Baronial PO Box
- Storage
- Website
- Baronial Property general upkeep—zero that
- Equestrian practice: the guild will take care of its own needs
- Regalia purchase and upkeep: zero
- New officer trainingkeep it at $200
- Total expenses brought down to $6,640.00
- Difference of $2400 SAVED.
- Alicia: could we put in the projected revenue estimate for War of the Baronies to see what is left to see what donations would have to make up? Gera; let’s do that and see what is left…..
o Emma: $359 projected profit
o Rafael: $1200 (Note: still sorting out land permission issues)(Stefan commits to being the cheerleader for War of the Baronies in perpetuity)
o Emprise: $1200
- Keri-je notes that we need to think about doing more advertising for ALL of our events. Including the Emprise.
- Need more events/demos with public access. How do we get other people to pay for our game?
- Rafael: a good rule of thumb is, go to your friends and say “If I come to your event will you come to my event?” We need to do more of this. Go to Baroness’ War and say, “Come to this great event!!”
- Sara Pixie: lots of mundane parents picked up flyers, but they are going to Sir Eddie’s instead (got moved to “our” weekend).
o Conclusion to budget discussion…
- Tayla: one thing that hasn’t been mentioned, opportunity missed last year, we did not do the fundraising for the pavilion like we were supposed to. Need to do GOOD fundraising efforts.
- How can we fundraise on an ongoing basis? Need to be thinking about this. Need more event opportunities.
- Kerije takes on dessert auction for A&S
- Julian: easier for people to donate that we have a goal. We need to pay for this space. We need to pay for that new pavilion.
- Lianor: within this room we collected $125
- Mathilda: need to continue to make the populace aware that monies are needed. Need to know in order to contribute.
- Alicia: while we are adding to the list of things that we should invest to for the future solvency of the barony, something that I would like to see more of is training on running events. Education on how to bring up the next generation of event stewards.
- Sgt. Karrel: one of the sgt training classes is event steward class. April or May? Coursework is being put together for this!
- Gera: we want to keep this space!!! Donations, publicity, ownership, communication, all of that. Budget deductions, etc.
o We have a direction.
- Enzio says he will take ownership of a donation bucket for Curia and Social.
o Budget will be emailed to the list; take commentary; approve by the end of the month via phone conference.
New Business
Officer Reports
New officers:
Officer positions accepting applications:
- Gold Key Deputy
- Rapier Marshal Deputy
- Family Activities coordinator
- Chronicler/blogger
Reports from Guilds, Officers, Subgroups
Guilds:
Culinary (HL Ysolt of Wind Hill)
Dance (HL Ranulf Mirthe)
Buon giorno! Come ‘sta?
Perdonne, per favore; my apologies for being late.
Jan 9th Wyewood 12th Night (Did not attend)
Mistress Sarah de Bonneville taught dance; some music played by Jorunn Allaksdottir on recorders.
Mistress Sarah was pleased and impressed by Jorunn’s Skald-style (sung and chanted with harp) performance. Jorunn sang about ducks and duct tape, and she got the populace to sing along on the chorus.
Jan 11th Madrone Social
Master Trahaern led dance. HL Soelig Swetegle and HL Alen visiting from Aquaterra. Music by HL Padreig on fife and tabor, playing arrangements he prepared of various dances. (Ranulf joined later, playing recorders.)
Feb. 6th Blatha an Oir Candlemas (Did not attend)
Failed to inquire as to entrants in Baronial Bardic contest or winner; hope to include in next report. Sorry.
Upcoming:
Feb 13th Dragonslaire Candlemas and Baronial Bardic contest.
OT but P: Seagirt
Piffaro (the Renaissance Band) performs and leads a Renaissance music workshop
March 6-8 Kingdom A&S/Bardic Championships
HL Padrieg plans to enter.
March 19th
Madrone A&S/Bardic
Good luck with your projects, and I hope this finds you and your loved ones happy and healthy.
Sincerely,
HL Ranulf Mirthe
Equestrian (Mistress Annisa)
Monthly meetings continue- see the MEG website for dates and location
Monthly practices start this month after the winter hiatus. See MEG website for dates and location.
Planning continues for horses at two Madrone events this year.
http://madrone.equestrianguild.org/dynamic/
Pewter (Master Sean O’Conner)
Archery (Mistress Shadhra Aliya)
Practice is on hiatus until Spring 2016.
Arts & Sciences (6/17) (HE Aeron Corrino)
The Arts and Sciences continue vigorously in Madrone.
- Juanita Lynn will be attending the meeting this evening to meet their Excellencies in person and talk about the Sewing guild.
- I have acquired 5 judges thus far for Baronial A&S championship, and will hopefully have another 4-5 in the coming weeks. We have at least 3-4 champion candidates, I need to check with Their Excellencies to see if there are others I’m unaware of.
- We have a class being taught by His Excellency of Aquaterra at A&S on enameling.
- I am still working on ideas for a bardic themed class to round things out, suggestions on this one are very welcome.
- A donation of material for new baronial champion hoods has been confirmed and I will be working with Adriana to set the patterns for them.
- I would like to discuss with His Excellency the possibility of him making chains for the champion medallions because he does beautiful work and I think it would be I nice legacy to leave the barony regalia with when his term as Baron comes to its close.
- The culinary guild continues their most excellent reconstruction work apace in anticipation of the A&S dinner, as well as working out planning on upcoming events.
- I presume that all is well with the Pewterers Guild as I’ve seen no reports of fingers being impaled with chisels or scorching from molten metal.
- Scribal continues industriously enlarging both the barony and the kingdoms stockpile of charters
- Our baronial A&S champion has created an online forum for creative endeavors on Facebook, I am currently working on creating a list (as comprehensive as possible) of past A&S champions so that we have some better institutional memory but also so we can try to create albums in the online forum of the work that past champions have been doing since their tenure as champion.
- Music and dance practices continue frequently and other than these things it seems to be a rather pastoral winter for Madrone’s artisans
I will be attending this evenings meeting.
Aeron
Branch Marshal (5/17) (Don Enzio Bandinelli)
Chamberlain (4/17) (HL Karrel der Ertmundigender)
Greetings,
Have annual inventory to do, any suggestions on a date/time for a work party? Will need volunteers.
Coordinating with A&S event steward for Baronial Arts & Sciences & Bardic Championship on March 19.
Nothing else on the short term calendar.
Karrel
Baronial Chamberlain
Chatelaine (6/16)(Baroness Bergdis Thorgrimsdottir)
We had 2 new email or Facebook inquiries in January, 1 brand new, and 1 with some past history of the SCA. We also had 5 new members in the meet-up group. I have provided information, and generally encouraged the new contacts to come to a Social (Madrone or Porte de l’Eau) as their first activity. We had a few new people at the Month Baronial Social.
Bergdis Thorgrimsdottir
Chatelaine for the Barony of Madrone
Chronicler (vacant)
Family Activities Coordinator (vacant)
Herald (6/16) (Lady Matilda Stoyle)
No written report as of Curia
Lists (2/18) (Luaithrend inghean Uilliam)
Lists is on hiatus for season.
Rapier (12/16) (HL Renzo di Venturius)
No written report as of Curia.
Scribe (6/16) (HL Rignach of Argyll)
No written report as of Curia.
Thrown Weapons – (HL Klaufi Hafrsson)
Greetings does THL Klaufi Hafrssonn, Madrone Thrown Weapons officer send to the officers and populace of the Great Barony of Madrone!
As I am once again likely not able to attend tonight’s curia and “frank financial discussion”, I would like to address Thrown Weapons budget request for fiscal 2016
In understanding and appreciation of the financial state The Barony finds itself in, I hearby withdraw all requests for monies for the 2016 season.
Yes this will create a hardship for us to continue practice, but the financial health and well-being of the Barony is of far greater import.
I will be soliciting donations from the participants once our practices resume in the spring which will hopefully cover our previously requested maintenance costs, and if our soft targets fail this season, we the throwers of the Barony will either cover the costs ourselves outside of the Barony, or we will solicit other branches for bales.
If donations cannot cover the maintenance of baronial property, we will simply discontinue its use and make due with what we have. I do not wish to add to the barony’s troubles by placing an undue financial burden at the feet of the populace, and to be fair, if we throwers can’t cover our own costs, we have no business asking the populace to pay for our sport.
Yours in most humble service,
Klaufi Hafrssonn
Thrown Weapons Ranger, Barony of Madrone
Web (8/16) (Lady Alicia du Bois)
I continue to receive feedback and suggestions for our Baronial Website. This is wonderful and I welcome more!
What happened in January:
Baronial Website Project:
– Met with the Seneschal at 12th Night. Website will be moved from Joomla! to WordPress by end of Q1 2016 (March 31st). Content/design will stay as-is for now with a new look and feel, better organization, added features, etc. coming later.
– Migration Process is about 50% complete. During migration and until further notice, please let me know if you make any changes to the Joomla! site so I know to copy them over to the WordPress site.
Website Maintenance:
– verified forwarding addresses for registration and event steward email addresses.
Respectfully submitted,
The Honorable Lady Alicia du Bois
Webster of Madrone
Youth Armored Combat Marshal (Lady Sara Pixie)
I attended the Marshals meeting at 12th night. I ran the Tournament on Saturday the 30th at Ursalmas. I collected background check paperwork for 4 YAC marshal renewal and 2 new marshals. Regular practices are starting back up in Feb.
Lady Sara Pixie
Canton of Porte de l’Eau (Baroness Aleksandra Lavrovna)
Will be holding a demo/practice at Marymoor Park on May 14
Lots of stuff will be happening there! Fighters! Rapier! YAC! A&S!
Contact Baroness Aleksandra for more info or to help!!!
Will be creating Facebook Event.