Early history of Windy Meads
Oct. 31st, 2007 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjI posted this in comments on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sarahbellem's journal in response to a question about the early administrative history of the (SCA) Shire of Windy Meads and figured I should put it in my own journal in case I ever want to find it again. (Some of the verbiage only makes sense as a response to an invisible question.)
* * * * *
I entered UC Davis in the fall of 1976. At the time, I was aware of the SCA from a newspaper article or two (in San Diego) and although I'd never connected up with the organization, I had it in the back of my mind that it was a cool group to look into. As it happened, during the 76-77 school year, there wasn't an active SCA group in Davis. At some time in the recent past, there had been a student group that called themselves the College of St. Merrick (misc. spellings -- never registered). The group had included Mark von dem Falconsfenn (sp?), William of Briardust and his lady Jeanette of Briar Rose, and I believe Elwyn of Snow Hill was also involved with that version of the group -- those are the names that stick in my mind, mostly because they're people I came to know in person (although I didn't meet Mark until much later). I don't know to what extent the group had been an officially constituted branch -- probably not more than thinking about incipiency (or the equivalent). Then Mark (who I believe had been the seneschal-equivalent) graduated and went off to Timbuktu (literally -- some sort or research, I believe) and the remaining members who remained SCA-active simply went next door to the then-Barony of Golden Rivers. William and Jeanette were members of the personal household of the baron and baroness, so there were some close connections there.
Now, as I say, during the 76-77 school year, there wasn't and official activity in Davis ... although I did spot a couple of guys having a one-on-one fighter practice out back of one of the Tercero dorms. At the time I didn't connect it with the SCA, particularly since this was the days of really awful-looking carpet armor, and I didn't really connect what I saw with the Middle Ages at all.
But in the Fall of 1977, William and Jeanette put an ad in the student newspaper saying for people interested in ... well, however they described the group, I forget ... to meet at their house. The specifically mentioned the SCA in the text of the notice, and since I had it in my mind that that would be an interesting group to check out, I did. There was an initial informational meeting: what the group is, what it does, who's interested in more information. And then William and Jeanette hosted a Halloween party as the first "event" for the group. It was pretty low key -- since it was Halloween, everyone was in costume, but not many were in medieval costume yet. Hmm, come to think of it, that makes this the 30th anniversary of the first "event" of what turned into Windy Meads.
I remember that when I went home from that party, I lay awake until well past midnight fantasizing about all the things I was going to do in the SCA. The initial organizational meeting rousted out a pretty good crowd, including a few people with previous SCA experience who hadn't gotten active at school yet. There were some glitches in communicating about activities at first. Some people quickly got sucked into carpools to go over to Sacramento to hang out at Sunday fighter practices, but for a few months there didn't seem to be much else going on. My next event after that Halloween party was 12th night in the East Bay -- which I only went to because Elwyn was in the same linguistics class I was taking, so when she asked, "Of course you're going to 12th Night?" I said, "Uh ... yeah ... I guess so," and got connected in with a carpool via her. (Re: communications glitches. Nobody actually told me what sort of event 12th Night was, and I had a horror of being made a laughingstock by not knowing things that people expected me to know, so I made my best guess: we were all dressing up in medieval costume to see a performance of Shakespeare's play, 12th Night. It made perfect sense at the time. I figured out that I was way off about 5 minutes after arriving, and I was quickly scrambling once again to not disclose my ignorance.)
Coordination in the Davis group started getting better after that. We had a decent contingent at March Crown in Big Trees (Bort Meadows, now) and we were having A&S nights and regular meetings and somewhere in there we started a local fighter practice. In the fall of '78 we held a feast with a good attendence from Golden Rivers as well as local folk and for the first several years a Fall feast became our signature event. William was seneschal the first two years (having the most experience in the SCA) but then he graduated. Due to the nature of the rules for student organizations, we could get a number of advantages by being a student-run group (like access to holding on-campus fundraisers, the ability to apply for funding, free use of meeting facilities, etc.) and although student organizations could have members (or event attendees) who weren't students, the major officers had to be registered students of UCD, so the seneschal's office had to pass and I got it for the next year (after which I graduated and handed it on again).
Somewhere in there we had chosen and registered a name and device. I don't recall how much serious consideration was given to reviving the St. Merrick name. At the time, there had been a complete conceptual break with the incarnation as St. Merrick, and although we retained him as our unofficial patron saint (and elaborated on the legend) nobody was emotionally attached to Merrick as a branch name. That name hadn't been registered and as far as anyone knew, the name was a complete invention and wasn't documentable (even by what passed for "documentation" at that time).
At some point fairly early on, we considered the relative merits of organizing in the SCA as a college or as a non-college. My recollection is that the decision was based largely on whether we thought the group had enough momentum to carry across the ebb and flow of students or whether it was likely to do a periodic die-off and reconstitution. In the latter case, a college was the right option, but we pinned our hopes on the former case and went for becoming a riding of the Barony of Golden Rivers Or was it a canton? At any rate, when the baron and baroness retired and Golden Rivers opted to become a province, then we switched to the other label automatically, and at some point after that we decided we had enough subscribing and stable members to move up to shire status.
Certainly, by the Fall of 1979 we were a Shire -- I know this because that's when my run of The Wind's Whisper starts, and it says "shire" right there on the masthead. By the way, when I was doing my purge of old SCA newsletters, I held onto the Windy Meads ones on the theory that they may be the only copies in existence at this point. I have a full run from Fall 1979 through Summer 1981. If they might be useful to the Windy Meads archives, I'd be happy to donate them -- I just wouldn't want them to end up getting lost in someone's attic and forgotten. The basic contents are a list of officers, a calendar of events, and event reports focusing on the participation of people from Windy Meads.
On any history after '81, I'm rather fuzzy. I recall going back for a Fall banquet once or twice after graduating. The banquets had turned into potlucks at that point, alas! But the momentum remained strong for a number of years after that.
As to the man who posed for the image of St. Merrick, I know he was a friend and contemporary of Mark von dem Falconsfenn and I know that at various times I'd known his name, but I don't know whether I have it recorded anywhere. Mark would probably remember. Along with the photo and the legend, we also inherited from the College of St. Merrick a banner of a never-reigstered device consisting of a blue field and an extremely stylized bicycle rider (three circles connected by an upside-down Y) in gold. The banner got tucked in a corner and forgotten for a number of years (probably deliberately) -- I recall finding it in the bottom of a trunk when I moved into my current house in the mid '80s and at some later date I returned it to the Shire with a message to the effect of "You probably don't want this, but I don't feel like I have the right to throw it out."
Well, that's probably enough for now.
sarahbellem's journal in response to a question about the early administrative history of the (SCA) Shire of Windy Meads and figured I should put it in my own journal in case I ever want to find it again. (Some of the verbiage only makes sense as a response to an invisible question.) * * * * *
I entered UC Davis in the fall of 1976. At the time, I was aware of the SCA from a newspaper article or two (in San Diego) and although I'd never connected up with the organization, I had it in the back of my mind that it was a cool group to look into. As it happened, during the 76-77 school year, there wasn't an active SCA group in Davis. At some time in the recent past, there had been a student group that called themselves the College of St. Merrick (misc. spellings -- never registered). The group had included Mark von dem Falconsfenn (sp?), William of Briardust and his lady Jeanette of Briar Rose, and I believe Elwyn of Snow Hill was also involved with that version of the group -- those are the names that stick in my mind, mostly because they're people I came to know in person (although I didn't meet Mark until much later). I don't know to what extent the group had been an officially constituted branch -- probably not more than thinking about incipiency (or the equivalent). Then Mark (who I believe had been the seneschal-equivalent) graduated and went off to Timbuktu (literally -- some sort or research, I believe) and the remaining members who remained SCA-active simply went next door to the then-Barony of Golden Rivers. William and Jeanette were members of the personal household of the baron and baroness, so there were some close connections there.
Now, as I say, during the 76-77 school year, there wasn't and official activity in Davis ... although I did spot a couple of guys having a one-on-one fighter practice out back of one of the Tercero dorms. At the time I didn't connect it with the SCA, particularly since this was the days of really awful-looking carpet armor, and I didn't really connect what I saw with the Middle Ages at all.
But in the Fall of 1977, William and Jeanette put an ad in the student newspaper saying for people interested in ... well, however they described the group, I forget ... to meet at their house. The specifically mentioned the SCA in the text of the notice, and since I had it in my mind that that would be an interesting group to check out, I did. There was an initial informational meeting: what the group is, what it does, who's interested in more information. And then William and Jeanette hosted a Halloween party as the first "event" for the group. It was pretty low key -- since it was Halloween, everyone was in costume, but not many were in medieval costume yet. Hmm, come to think of it, that makes this the 30th anniversary of the first "event" of what turned into Windy Meads.
I remember that when I went home from that party, I lay awake until well past midnight fantasizing about all the things I was going to do in the SCA. The initial organizational meeting rousted out a pretty good crowd, including a few people with previous SCA experience who hadn't gotten active at school yet. There were some glitches in communicating about activities at first. Some people quickly got sucked into carpools to go over to Sacramento to hang out at Sunday fighter practices, but for a few months there didn't seem to be much else going on. My next event after that Halloween party was 12th night in the East Bay -- which I only went to because Elwyn was in the same linguistics class I was taking, so when she asked, "Of course you're going to 12th Night?" I said, "Uh ... yeah ... I guess so," and got connected in with a carpool via her. (Re: communications glitches. Nobody actually told me what sort of event 12th Night was, and I had a horror of being made a laughingstock by not knowing things that people expected me to know, so I made my best guess: we were all dressing up in medieval costume to see a performance of Shakespeare's play, 12th Night. It made perfect sense at the time. I figured out that I was way off about 5 minutes after arriving, and I was quickly scrambling once again to not disclose my ignorance.)
Coordination in the Davis group started getting better after that. We had a decent contingent at March Crown in Big Trees (Bort Meadows, now) and we were having A&S nights and regular meetings and somewhere in there we started a local fighter practice. In the fall of '78 we held a feast with a good attendence from Golden Rivers as well as local folk and for the first several years a Fall feast became our signature event. William was seneschal the first two years (having the most experience in the SCA) but then he graduated. Due to the nature of the rules for student organizations, we could get a number of advantages by being a student-run group (like access to holding on-campus fundraisers, the ability to apply for funding, free use of meeting facilities, etc.) and although student organizations could have members (or event attendees) who weren't students, the major officers had to be registered students of UCD, so the seneschal's office had to pass and I got it for the next year (after which I graduated and handed it on again).
Somewhere in there we had chosen and registered a name and device. I don't recall how much serious consideration was given to reviving the St. Merrick name. At the time, there had been a complete conceptual break with the incarnation as St. Merrick, and although we retained him as our unofficial patron saint (and elaborated on the legend) nobody was emotionally attached to Merrick as a branch name. That name hadn't been registered and as far as anyone knew, the name was a complete invention and wasn't documentable (even by what passed for "documentation" at that time).
At some point fairly early on, we considered the relative merits of organizing in the SCA as a college or as a non-college. My recollection is that the decision was based largely on whether we thought the group had enough momentum to carry across the ebb and flow of students or whether it was likely to do a periodic die-off and reconstitution. In the latter case, a college was the right option, but we pinned our hopes on the former case and went for becoming a riding of the Barony of Golden Rivers Or was it a canton? At any rate, when the baron and baroness retired and Golden Rivers opted to become a province, then we switched to the other label automatically, and at some point after that we decided we had enough subscribing and stable members to move up to shire status.
Certainly, by the Fall of 1979 we were a Shire -- I know this because that's when my run of The Wind's Whisper starts, and it says "shire" right there on the masthead. By the way, when I was doing my purge of old SCA newsletters, I held onto the Windy Meads ones on the theory that they may be the only copies in existence at this point. I have a full run from Fall 1979 through Summer 1981. If they might be useful to the Windy Meads archives, I'd be happy to donate them -- I just wouldn't want them to end up getting lost in someone's attic and forgotten. The basic contents are a list of officers, a calendar of events, and event reports focusing on the participation of people from Windy Meads.
On any history after '81, I'm rather fuzzy. I recall going back for a Fall banquet once or twice after graduating. The banquets had turned into potlucks at that point, alas! But the momentum remained strong for a number of years after that.
As to the man who posed for the image of St. Merrick, I know he was a friend and contemporary of Mark von dem Falconsfenn and I know that at various times I'd known his name, but I don't know whether I have it recorded anywhere. Mark would probably remember. Along with the photo and the legend, we also inherited from the College of St. Merrick a banner of a never-reigstered device consisting of a blue field and an extremely stylized bicycle rider (three circles connected by an upside-down Y) in gold. The banner got tucked in a corner and forgotten for a number of years (probably deliberately) -- I recall finding it in the bottom of a trunk when I moved into my current house in the mid '80s and at some later date I returned it to the Shire with a message to the effect of "You probably don't want this, but I don't feel like I have the right to throw it out."
Well, that's probably enough for now.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 06:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 03:14 pm (UTC)It would be cool to have a sort of alumni of Windymeads gathering. I bet there are all sorts of folks that were involved with that group whom I never connected with it.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 07:02 pm (UTC)(I still kick myself occasionally for not having discovered the SCA about 20 years earlier than I actually did. I was *in* Davis in 1977.)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 04:25 am (UTC)