Join Matt and me as we discuss the various ways in which people use justifications to incorporate elements into their impressions and whether or not they are always the best way to go about making these decisions.
Add the podcast RSS to your favorite podcast service.
Hydration is incredibly important, as the average reader may be aware. Proper hydration is a vital issue for overall health and wellness. This article is not about trying to convince you to hydrate, be it hot out or cold out, active or sedentary, you already know you should. My goal is to take all of the advice and tactics out there regarding healthy hydration habits and interpret them into medieval contexts suitable for spending a day or a weekend at an event.
Continue reading “Hydration in a Medieval Context”
Join Ari and Matt as they discuss digital group activities and how forming online living history groups differ from creating in person ones.
Continue reading “How Two Medieval Episode Nineteen”
There has been a major surge in the number of groups added to the Groups Billboard in January, I added at least half a dozen new entries. This also comes with the addition of an interactive map, pinning a location for each group so you can search the page by type of group, but you can also search the map for groups which are near to you! I have also added an events calendar page, which is a tool we can use to keep in touch with public demos, timeline events, immersion events, and other demonstrations or insular activities which we can attend with each other. Of course, this page is meant to be a receiving space for all the new events happening after we get on top of the pandemic, so it is a bit empty right now. But as events start scheduling again, it will fill up (just make sure you keep sending me those entries.)
The monthly link check is complete. One of the repairs was a typo on my part, and easily corrected. One of the dead links was for the International Reenactor’s Day Facebook page, which doesn’t seem to exist anymore. So much for that being an annual thing. Otherwise the site is in working order, everything you click should go to something as designed. No dead links!
Continue reading “January 2021 Newsletter”
Just a few days ago I published a new page: the “Medieval Reenactment and Living History Events Calendar” which, despite being both wordy and a terrible acronym (say MRaLHEC ten times fast without choking) is something the community sorely needs (even if it doesn’t realize it needs it.) The new page, shared across a few pages in Facebook, lead to some insightful conversations, one of which inspired the almost immediate update and refurbishment of the project. It became apparent a single calendar is restrictive, as there are four distinct types of events which need to be represented, and not everyone is looking for all four types. I needed to be able to accommodate both private and public events, and those which are open or closed to registrants.
These are events which are designed to be attended by the public and the presence of the reenactor is to teach and inform. They are also open to registration by outside individuals and groups. The entrance requirements, authenticity standards, conduct, and presentation style of each event may differ, but they all share these the two primary features above; they’re open to the public and you can sign up to participate. Timeline events, such as Days of Knights in Ohio or Military Through the Ages on the East Coast are prime examples of this type of event. This would also include large scale battle reenactments with strict scenarios, as they are also attended by the public whether or not the encampments of the reenactors are open to the public.
These are events which are public events, but they do not have an open registration for multiple reenactors or outside groups to come and participate. The prime example of this is when a group is scheduled to present a demo at their local ren faire. And while you may be able to, if you have a rapport with the group doing the demo, be able to participate with them there is no expectation the general reenactment community can apply to participate or register to be at the event. Including these types of events in a calendar is important to me, as it allows the community at large to see what type of activities their contemporary groups are up to and means the traveling reenactor can find, view, and meet other reenactment groups when they’re attending mutual events (and may have never known they were there if they weren’t lucky enough to stumble across the right stage at the right time.) However, there are many who may not be interested in these events, which is why it is valuable to be able to toggle this calendar off and cut down on clutter when viewing the calendar.
Private events are not open to the public, but open private events are open to other individual reenactors or living history groups. The cost of entry, time period, authenticity standards, accommodations, activities, etc. vary from group to group and event to event. A prime example of this style event is the Swordsman Guild of Kansas City’s annual Deed of Arms event.
Closed private events are internal company musters, group business meetings, and training sessions. While they may be open to outsiders in a general sense, especially when it comes to interested prospective members, they’re not designed for registration and attendance by people outside the group hosting the event. I mention these groups for the sake of completeness. They don’t have a calendar of their own.
I hope this has provided you a bit more context for how the calendar works, what it is intended to show, and the best way to use it. Want more people, especially other reenactors, to know about your event? Head over to the MRaLHEC (I’m working on it) and submit your event! If you like all these resources I am continually building and maintaining for you, consider supporting the projects and the hours of time it takes to keep it all going. And if I’m not inspired by yet another wild hare in the next few days, I’ll see you all again at the end of the month in the newsletter.
In this episode I discuss my thoughts on embracing the new and empowering the next generation.
Add the podcast RSS to your favorite podcast service.
In about a month I will be participating in the online Art of the Sword Conference which has gotten my mind swirling with thoughts about swords, where the adoration for them stems from, how they have managed to remain such a pervasive symbol in human culture and why we love them. In this video I distill my thoughts on the subject.
Continue reading “Why You Love Swords”
Join your hosts as they reprise the concept of medieval camping and explore, instead of the survival basics, some of the methods of camping in the most artistic and comfortable of ways.
Add the podcast RSS to your favorite podcast service.
Matt takes us along with him on a hike in cold weather to reflect on the conversation we had last week about tips for medieval clothing in cold weather.
Add the podcast RSS to your favorite podcast service.
Ari and Matt discuss the unique considerations when wearing medieval clothing while doing outside activities, such as hiking or camping.
You must be logged in to post a comment.