A Tale of Two Events
May. 4th, 2009 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqIt's been awhile since I posted something other then a quip. Well if I can't write when I'm taking a day off sick with, then when can I write?
Last weekend I went to Bitter End for one of Avacal's premier archery event: Silver Arrow.
I did not have a good start. I got a $200 speeding ticket before I even left the city. For the record, three other people on my flist got speeding tickets that weekend too - April was speeding month in Alberta. Also, I've got nobody to blame for myself. The cop got me fair and square almost simultaneously with me thinking "Geez, I'm really speeding right now, I better slow down or I'm fucked." That's when I saw the cop and thought "I'm fucked".
Driving up to the event with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hislittlekitty, I was mad at myself for doing it. But then I reasoned, I've never had a bad time at a Bitter End event. You'll put this behind you.
So I got there and I hung out with lots of cool people. I shot a tournament and came in second, earning myself a nice juicy ounce of silver. The feast was delicious. And coming back from the event I had a nice drive home and conversation withhislittlekitty. On balance, it was a good day.
This weekend was Beltaine. It's sad because this event had the potential to be perfect - the running of the event was superb. It didn't do well for entirely external reasons. Basically people stayed home. Understandable given the fact that we've had events almost every weekend recently and May Crown is coming up.
In hindsight, we really should have cancelled the event months ago, when we looked at the calendar and realized the proximity of Beltaine to May Crown. Imagine if the same people had run an event in the fall - it would have been spectacular.
The reason why it ended up that way was ultimately psychological. We pick the dates for events in Avacal well in advance - this is so that there are no conflicts between the assorted branches. So way back in February of 2008, we picked the date of Beltaine 2009. Then, months later, we won the bid for May Crown. We looked at the calendar, acknowledged that they were close and fell into the mental trap of thinking the event was set in stone. Of course it wasn't and we could have cancelled Beltaine and opted for something else provided it didn't conflict, but we didn't. By the time it occurred to anyone, it was too late. We had everything set up.
Even so, things could have been OK. We suspected it would be a small event, but people could have showed up at the last minute. They didn't. Asminyata points out, we got a lot of donations for the plethora of leftovers, and we'll be using other leftovers for the Hafla (aka the Montengarde Welcomes You to May Crown party).
I bought some leftovers and I've turned them into Jambalaya.
Anyway, I think the people who pulled off Beltaine deserve a big round of applause.
Oh, and I ran (rather then competed in ) an archery tournament for a change. Everyone seemed to have a good time and sang its praises. Phew. I was really worried it would flop. I'm glad it didn't.
Last weekend I went to Bitter End for one of Avacal's premier archery event: Silver Arrow.
I did not have a good start. I got a $200 speeding ticket before I even left the city. For the record, three other people on my flist got speeding tickets that weekend too - April was speeding month in Alberta. Also, I've got nobody to blame for myself. The cop got me fair and square almost simultaneously with me thinking "Geez, I'm really speeding right now, I better slow down or I'm fucked." That's when I saw the cop and thought "I'm fucked".
Driving up to the event with
hislittlekitty, I was mad at myself for doing it. But then I reasoned, I've never had a bad time at a Bitter End event. You'll put this behind you.So I got there and I hung out with lots of cool people. I shot a tournament and came in second, earning myself a nice juicy ounce of silver. The feast was delicious. And coming back from the event I had a nice drive home and conversation with
hislittlekitty. On balance, it was a good day.This weekend was Beltaine. It's sad because this event had the potential to be perfect - the running of the event was superb. It didn't do well for entirely external reasons. Basically people stayed home. Understandable given the fact that we've had events almost every weekend recently and May Crown is coming up.
In hindsight, we really should have cancelled the event months ago, when we looked at the calendar and realized the proximity of Beltaine to May Crown. Imagine if the same people had run an event in the fall - it would have been spectacular.
The reason why it ended up that way was ultimately psychological. We pick the dates for events in Avacal well in advance - this is so that there are no conflicts between the assorted branches. So way back in February of 2008, we picked the date of Beltaine 2009. Then, months later, we won the bid for May Crown. We looked at the calendar, acknowledged that they were close and fell into the mental trap of thinking the event was set in stone. Of course it wasn't and we could have cancelled Beltaine and opted for something else provided it didn't conflict, but we didn't. By the time it occurred to anyone, it was too late. We had everything set up.
Even so, things could have been OK. We suspected it would be a small event, but people could have showed up at the last minute. They didn't. As
minyata points out, we got a lot of donations for the plethora of leftovers, and we'll be using other leftovers for the Hafla (aka the Montengarde Welcomes You to May Crown party).I bought some leftovers and I've turned them into Jambalaya.
Anyway, I think the people who pulled off Beltaine deserve a big round of applause.
Oh, and I ran (rather then competed in ) an archery tournament for a change. Everyone seemed to have a good time and sang its praises. Phew. I was really worried it would flop. I'm glad it didn't.
