Thoughts on History

I have a house filled with newsletters, scrolls, letters, files, originals and copies of various SCA art projects, tickets to feasts (originals and copies), site tokens...
I have made good progress on a project to list my awards and show the scrolls and medallions or other symbols, and that's indexed here: SandraDodd.com/duckford/awards  That's mostly personal history, but sometimes other people are involved are included.  This lists the other recipients of the Cordon Royal of Artan VI:  SandraDodd.com/duckford/award/cordon

Paper is not the way of the world anymore. And although webpages can be seen by more people, they can be lost. I have lost computer files, online writings, and still I have paper. (Less than before, though; I have begun to throw some things away, finally.)

Duke Finnvarr's 50th Anniversary project

The Society will be fifty years old in 2016. Duke Finnvarr has been asked to do a history. He wants to write about changes and perceptions, and asked me to help. There is a facebook page set up now called 50-Yr SCA Thoughts. I'm adding questions gradually, and hoping to keep it all upbeat and joyful. Eventually he or I might ask the less happy questions, but first there will be fodder for thought and for composition. In side conversations about it, I wrote some of my recent activity. I'm just going to pull a part of an e-mail, for my own memories later:

[Finnvarr wrote:]-=-I call the shadow SCA all those people – hey, you're one of them – who once belonged to the SCA and no longer do-=- [I responded:]

It's interesting.

And in my current role as an anchoress (which I used to describe staying home but still being alive—still available for consultations), I've thought about it quite a bit.

I feel like a supply officer, back at the base, not going out into the field, not even going out on practice maneuvers. I still make a few costumes, mend them. Wash them. :-) I'll make another pair of wool trousers for Gunwaldt with wool I bought in Scotland last summer at a charity shop in a town that used to be full of wool mills.

Yesterday I was helping Holly find things to wear for Outlandish. She hasn't been to an event in six or seven years, but helped with some art for a tent and decided she wanted to go and will camp with her dad. She mentioned maybe learning a song to sing, but didn't ask again, but if she does, I'll have ideas for her and could make her a CD, or find something for her to download. Because I know what she's heard passively when she was younger, I could probably find something she already knows the tune to for sure.

I still cook for events sometimes. Not for a feast, but for a camp, from home, and pack it up and send it.

Did I tell you I'm doing a philosophy breakfast for the guardsmen and ladies in waiting here?

But my membership is lapsed and I would have no interest in going to an event.

I think every person who has quit has a bitter story of "the last straw," and it might not be good to stir it up.