[SCA-BMDL] Coronation Thanks - Very LONG

[Karen Kasper]

Coronation is over and  I could not be happier.  It was a glorious day and everything went more smoothly than I could have imagined.  Thanks to Their Majesties, Christopher and Morgen, for doing me the honor of entrusting their Coronation to me.

It really takes an army to run an event of this size, and we had one. Every sub-autocrat did a wonderful job. All I had to do was keep tabs on everyone - and none of them needed my help for much of anything. I'm extremely fortunate in the people of the Debatable Lands and the Kingdom of AEthelmearc, who worked exceptionally hard to make the event spectacular.  There are so many people who helped (and I'm sure that I will miss some, so I offer my apologies in advance!), but here are the folks I know of, with the sub-autocrat in charge bolded...

  Arthurus, Creador, Broom, Dani, Alaric, Graedwyn, Gunther, Zoe and Konstantinos all helped with hall setup, including moving many tables and chairs and placing banners and wall hangings to brighten up the otherwise drab feast hall.  My sons Robert and Kenneth also helped with preparations, including folding all 350 event booklets and cutting the yarn for the site token ribbons.

Alastar and Brandubh, with assistance from many people including Hilda, Kenneth, Lenora, Red, Brendan, Thaddeus and others, provided wonderful food in generous quantities for both lunch and feast.  Our new King proclaimed it the best feast he had eaten in almost 20 years in the SCA.  There's an accolade for you!

Myfanwy and Muirgen, with help from Flaxy, did amazing sotelties.  The fire-breathing dragon elicited slightly alarmed delight from the crowd, especially our new Queen. 

Hilda handled reservations with aplomb, and she, Helewys, Alaric, Catriona and Arabella (among others) kept the troll going smoothly and accurately despite having over 325 people in attendance - quite a few more than we estimated.

Odriana set up and ran the A&S competition, which had so many wonderful entries I had a very hard time placing my own token.  Fredeburg's winning woodblock print was a marvel of fine detail, but many, many entries just blew me away.  Thanks for making the A&S tokens, too, Odriana - they were beautiful!

Cai ran the dancing with music from the Debatable Consort.

Giulietta and Cadell, with help from Margaret, provided their always stylish heraldry, while Elsbeth ran the consult table.

Mea and Una ran the backlog scroll display, which was full of lovely works of art.

The Debatable Consort, Debatable Choir and Coletta all provided stirring processional and recessional music for court, and the Debatable Choir performed a nice concert (though as a member of the choir, I can't blow my own horn too much).  The acoustics in the sanctuary combined with the music to make shivers go down my spine.

Cateline ran the children's activities with story-telling assistance from Brion.

Zoe, Sasha and Anias marshalled the youth and rapier tourneys, while Esa and Katherine ran the list tables, and every combatant out there seemed to have a glorious time.  

I believe Esa and Thomas, along with the marshalls, set up and took down the tourney field, but there must have been many others.  I think maybe elves were involved because when I went out to check on the list before the tournies, it was all ready, and when I went back out before the feast, it was all cleaned up.  How did they do that so fast?

Constance was our chirurgeon-in-charge and made sure that the small number of boo-boos (including some mysterious allergic reaction to squash by a kitchen helper or two) was handled.

Arabella organized the servers, and fulfilled all of my wishes for formal feast service, which we haven't seen at events in a very long time.  There was even an additional delightful surprise of pun-ishing poetry to announce each remove.  I was proud to see that EVERY Knight at the feast who was not seated at High Table was among the servers!  
   
  Tatyana made the servers' baldrics with help from the sewing circle, which really made the servers look good!

Brendan's cast metal site tokens were gorgeous, and elicited numerous compliments.

Aleea served as royalty liaison, making sure both sets of monarchs were comfortable and happy.

Robert, Leifr, Christian, Rufina and Tatyana took care of feast set up, including hauling tables and chairs from all over the site and decorating the tables for dinner.

Clewin arranged for dishwashers to keep the cooks from having to scrub pots during the day, and I know that Kardon, Thomas, Hrefna and Tofi were among the people who toiled over soapy water in the evening.

Hrefna, Leifr and Cassandra ran a cleanup crew that seemed to have half the feasters in it.  The site was enormous, covering three floors, so cleaning it could have taken many, many hours, but we had so many people helping out that it went quickly and smoothly. Thanks to Kris, Hrefna, Laurie, Gordon, Christine, Koredono, Thomas, Esa, Brandubh, Brigit, Faust, Alastar, Allesandra, and Alaric for cleaning the kitchen.  Thank you also to those who cleaned the hall: Rosalia, Broom, Bill, Paul, Langdon, Ardis, Fridrikr, Olivia, Siobhan, Clewin, Fredeburg, Risa, Margareta, Byron, Ariella, and Kazi.  Finally, Creador, Tofi, Genevieve, Hrefna, Leifr, Arthurus, Robert, Rurik, Angelik and their friends stayed to the bitter end to make sure that we left the hall cleaner than we found it.  I told Tofi that "No greater love hath a man than to fly from Caid to AEthelmearc to scrub pots and mop floors late into the night."

Creador was our site guru as always, and made sure we had access to the secret places where cleaning supplies, extra chairs and tables, and other such stuff could be found.  He was also quick with solutions for all our set up and clean up problems.

Alaric was supremely helpful with logistics in picking up the site key and making it available to whoever needed to get into the site first each of the two days.

All the royal retainers did a great job of assisting the Crowns so that things moved smoothly.   Illadore hauled and assembled the thrones so the Monarchs could look regal up there on the dais.

Their Majesties, Malcolm & Tessa, and Christopher & Morgen, made it easy by being so easy to please.  We hope we made the day special for them.

Finally, my Lord, Robert, was a pillar of support for me, from bringing the stuff I forgot from home, to wrangling my younger son, to helping with all sorts of things over the course of the event, to rubbing my feet and back afterward.
   
  I am humbled by all these hard-working people.  We have a truly wonderful Kingdom.
   
  In service to AEthelmearc,
   
  Arianna of Wynthrope
  Coronation Autocrat

 		
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