[SCA-BMDL] Ice Dragon Challenge - Additional

[Jennifer.Strobel at BNYMellon.com]

To the populace of the Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands does Odriana 
vander Brugghe bid greetings.

There have been a few questions and comments that I would like to address 
as well as some encouragement I'd like to give.

Firstly, group entries absolutely count.  Please let me know if you're 
doing a group entry so that I am sure to get the names of the group 
participants for the tokens.

Secondly, there are some strong feelings about offering a cash prize and 
questioning its appropriateness in our context, and I would like to 
approach that directly.  Clearly, as I'm offering it, I have no problem 
with offering cash prizes as incentive for entering an Arts and Sciences 
competition.  My goals for this challenge are:

1. Increasing participation in the Pentathlon at the 2011 Ice Dragon.
2. Ensuring that there are sufficient and diverse extrinsic motivators to 
build some internal motivation to participate.
3. Putting a structure in place to assist in the success of the 
participants in the challenge.

Offering the Klauwaards Prize addresses the second item as does offering 
tokens and publishing the names of the participants in the Althing. 
Different people are motivated differently.  I chose to cover as many 
bases as possible.

The most important outcome is people having fun with the Arts and 
Sciences.  The Pentathlon at Ice Dragon is being used as the excuse for 
doing so.

I will be publishing a schedule for the workshops this weekend and will be 
including an informal get-together in a couple of weeks to talk about the 
challenge and to share ideas.  There will also be classes at BMDL 
Twelfhnight - the announcement for that will also be going out this 
weekend - let me know if there's something that you'd like to learn or 
something that you'd like to teach in that venue.

If you have any ideas about how you would like to either participate or to 
support the participants, run with it - there have already been a couple 
of generous offers from people offering to be a resource.  If you're going 
to have a coordinated activity, I would appreciate a heads up only so that 
there aren't conflicts of time/effort and so that I can add them to the 
Baronial calendar (http://www.debatablelands.org/calendar.html).

If you need space for a meeting or a class that you'd like to run, there 
are a number of options for locations to hold these kinds of gatherings 
including:

- Local libraries: Many have meeting rooms or space that can be used for 
meetings, call for availability.
- Public schools: Your tax dollars do support the buildings and 
neighborhood organizations frequently use public school space (ex: Boy 
Scouts/Girl Scouts).
- Carnegie Mellon University: Contact Mistress Margaret Makafee 
(grm at andrew.cmu.edu) to arrange a reservation.
- The Winter Fighting Site: (Shiro, please correct me if I'm wrong) There 
are classrooms available for our use on Sundays during fighter practice.
- Your Place of Worship: Often churches will allow their spaces to be used 
for meetings free of charge. I'm assuming that this is the same for other 
places of worship.
- Borders/Barnes & Noble: There are often spaces with couches and tables 
where small groups can meet and the cost is normally the purchase of a 
beverage.
- My Home: I have space that I am happy to share.  There's even overflow 
parking so you don't have to figure out how to Tetris cars into my parking 
areas.
- Other: If you have other ideas, please share them.

Regardless of how you're motivated or how you would like to participate, 
there are opportunities for you to join in the fun.  If you're not sure 
how to participate/support the cause, contact me and I will do my best to 
guide you.  If you have ideas about how to make this challenge better or 
more fun, then go with it.  This is something that everyone can 
participate with - even the children of the Barony (my daughter won her 
division of the Children's category last year and there was a six year old 
that entered last year's Pent).

I am looking forward to your participation in this challenge and excited 
to see what will be entered in the competition.

Written this twenty ninth day of September in the year two thousand and 
ten at the confluence of the Three Rivers in the center of the Most 
Remarkable Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands in the third year of the 
reign of the Boy Mayor, Luke.

OVB





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