Greetings!

Autumn fast approaches, bringing with it the time for indoor amusements. To help welcome the season, I would like to invite everyone to Autumn Masque—A Fancy Dress Revel, Rapier Tournament and A&S Championship (see separate announcement for Championship details).

Date: Saturday, October 18, 2008 Time: 12 p.m.-9 p.m.; rapier tourney at 2 p.m. Place: Columbia County Fairgrounds, Pavilion Bldg., 58892 Saulser Rd., St. Helens, OR Fees: Adults $7, Youths/Children ages 3-16 $5, Under 3 free; $3 non-member surcharge does apply

Join us for a vast array of pleasures and entertainments—a masque (short play), a rapier tournament, a decorated rapier helmet contest, the Golden Torc design contest, live music, dancing, a decorated mask competition, bardic presentations, games, a potluck finger-food feast, and the Three Mountains Arts and Sciences Championship (notice of intent needed by September 30). And of course there’s always relaxing and visiting with friends.

Our Feast Director is HL Morwenna Pengrech. For the feast, the Barony will provide main dishes and bread. Please bring a finger food side dish to share with the crowd!

Golden Torc Contest

Format is 8.5" x 11.0" Leave space for calligraphy Leave a 2.5 inch circular space for the seal Leave 1 inch border around the piece

This is a people’s choice contest. There will be a $20.00 Art Media gift certificate for first, second and third place. The winner will be announced in court. Voting will begin at 3:00 PM and end when the feast begins.

We hope to see you at the Masque!

In Service, HL Giana Visconti

For questions about the event contact HL Giana Visconti, autocrat: GianaVisconti [at] comcast.net For questions about the feast, contact Morwenna by way of Giana (e-mail above) For questions about the A&S Championship contact Lady Qaratani, A&S Minister: qaratani [at] gmail.com or Their Excellencies (address below) Send letters of intent to Their Excellencies Alfric and Jill: alfricandjill [at]comcast.net or call them at 503-408-1376 For questions about the Golden Torc competition, contact HL Eleanor de Sackville: cknutson3 [at] aol.com

Greetings!

Our Barony seeks its next Arts and Sciences Champion! Come, show your prowess in the arts and sciences and vie for the title at Autumn Masque, Saturday, October 18, 2008.

Requirements: Three entries of any type, either art or science, and appropriate documentation. Entries will be judged on documentation, workmanship/craftsmanship, and design/aesthetics.

**Because of the short notice, works in progress are acceptable.

Notification of your intent to compete must be given by September 30, 2008 so we have plenty of time to line up judges for you. Notification can be verbal or in e-mail or other written format and should be given either to Their Excellencies or to Lady Qaratani, A&S Minister (contact info below).

Contact Information:

Their Excellencies Alfric and Jill: alfricandjill [at] Comcast.net or 503-408-1376 Lady Qaratani, A&S Minister: qaratani [at] gmail.com

Please feel free to forward this information to any interested parties. Thank you!

Documentation Tips Compiled by Giana Visconti August 2, 2007

Almost everyone I have talked to—former A&S champions, former competitors, people who have won contests other than championships—has told me the same thing. First do the research, then make the project and write the documentation. Fionna, one of our former Three Mountains A&S Champions, calls it, “the old ask the question, then answer the question.” Or, as Mistress Arlys says, “FIRST you pillage, THEN you burn!”

A few other tips: First, make sure you read and follow the criteria for the contest you are entering. You can have an absolutely wonderful project, but if you don’t present it and your documentation in the manner specified by the contest rules, you’re going to lose points.

Also: 1) Try to find at least 3 picture exemplars (or text descriptions from primary sources) for each phase/piece of your entry. Paste the pictures or quote the text in your docs.

2) Summarize each section of the docs in a topic sentence. Highlight or bold it.

3) Point out where non-period techniques were used and why. I use red text for this.

There is no time for the judges to read all of your documentation so by highlighting the topic sentence, using red text for OOP techniques and including lots of pictures...you have made their job a bit easier and given them much of the info they will be "grading" on.

...and finally, present your documentation to a "practice audience" of "judges" at least 3 times before the competition...and make them give you REAL feedback/critique.

There are some really good resources for documentation on the An Tir A&S page under the resources section: http://www.currentmiddleages.org/artsci/resources.htm

One of these resources is the entrants’ handbook for the Kingdom A&S Championship (you can find it here: http://www.currentmiddleages.org/artsci/resources.htm). Read this (don’t worry, it’s short). In particular, for documentation, read pages 6-9; there’s even a nice, bulleted list of things to put in your documentation. Keep in mind that this is for the Kingdom competition, so your documentation for a local contest may not need to be as extensive (read: long). But understanding what goes into Kingdom level documentation will help you pare yours down to a reasonable length for a smaller competition without losing the important parts of the documentation.

There are also links to papers written by past champions outlining their take on how to do documentation. They are all good resources and have a lot to offer. I highly recommend that you spend some time reading them; there are only five of them, and even when you follow the links provided in some cases, it won’t take that long, and it will be time well spent.. There are even, in some cases, some helpful charts and lists that will really be useful for putting together good documentation.

Finally, also on the resources page, there are examples of two research papers and a link to a bibliographic style guide (MLA style). Again, take the time to look through this. Take the time to look at any documentation that you might have access to (probably best if it’s from someone who has done well in the competitions they’ve entered). Search the internet for articles on SCA documentation, academic research and documentation, and any research papers or documentation you can find, especially if they are in the same area you are working in. You are putting your time and effort into researching and creating your project, and you are taking the time to enter the competition. Give yourself all the benefits you can by taking the time to learn good documentation procedures.

A few extra things to remember:

*Documentation does not have to be long; it only has to be good and thorough. *Judges are people; they are doing this judging as volunteers; you might want to write something interesting to read. (See the online article linked on the An Tir A&S resources page: “Documentation is Not an Obituary”: http://www.greydragon.org/library/docisnotobit.html ) *Remember that the judges don’t always have a lot of time to look through your documentation. Make it easy for them to find the especially important sections—use highlighting, bold text, colored text, section headings, page breaks, etc. to make things easy for them to find. *Be prepared to answer questions on things you may not have put in your documentation. Don’t get upset. This is because the judges want to know more about your project and your process, not because they are trying to trip you up. *We do these projects for our own personal enjoyment and education. This is a learning process. Not winning the contest is not the end of the world, and you have not actually lost anything. After all, you still have a wonderful project or two that you’ve finished, and you’ve probably learned a great deal while doing it. *It’s all right to make mistakes. If you find you have made a mistake, just plan for what you would do differently if you were doing the project again and continue on. *Making modern substitutions for period methods or materials is all right. Just document what changes you made, how it would have been done in period, and your reasons for the changes. *Edit! Read your paper out loud—to yourself or anyone else who will listen—to see if it makes sense, has good flow, etc. And get someone else to read it, too, for basic spelling and grammar errors.