Membership:  The group will be established without a joining fee however members will be legally contracted for a period of 1, 2 or 5 years to contribute a nominated monthly fee.  This fee will become the basic income of the group, and monies generated will be spent in the purchase and development of the community living project.  Membership numbers will be allocated based on length of time as a continual member.  Each year membership numbers will be re-allocated based on who is still a member, shuffling down if members give up their memberships.  There will be no shares, and members will need to continue their payments or risk loosing their membership.  This plan allows for reward for loyal active members and ensures that those that are not loyal do not retain positions of privilege.

Once the accommodation block is built, membership will include a small hotel style room allocated to that member.   Members will be able to rent out their suite should they not need use of it themselves, this could subsidise their monthly payment.  Provision may be made fore some cases of financial hardship, however applications for such will need to be in writing with substantial evidence, backed by previously good payment history.

Members are encouraged to think of membership as a life goal, not just as a hobby.  The idea here is to develop a community of people willing to live together and contribute to a better living arrangement.  One goal is to have space for all members to live within about 3 years.

All benefits of membership will be allocated based on Membership number.

Board:  A Board will be created and will consist of member numbers 1 through to 7 or their appointed representatives.  The board will only have the power to manage memberships and assign appointed positions/jobs.  The board will need to approve new memberships complete with an interviewing process to establish whether the potential new member is of a similar mind to the rest of the membership.  The board will also have the ability to vote out any members that it deems to be detrimental to the community, terminating their contract.

The board will assign jobs/positions to individuals, preferably members.  These will include a complete job description of what is expected.  In most cases these positions will be paid part time positions based on a fixed number of hours or paid per specific task.  The first of these will be a Managing Director responsible for the day to day running of the entire community.  It will be this persons job to ensure that the plan outlined here gets turned into reality.  They will be responsible for setting up the rest of the positions and ensuring that the allocated tasks are being completed.  It is not the boards job to tell the MD how to do theirs, only to appoint or remove them

Finance:  The initial primary goal of the group will be to establish a sustainable income stream that will support the purchase of the property and the day to day expenses involved in running that property including machinery and accommodation expenses.  This will be mainly achieved through the monthly membership payments, however will also be supplemented via site hires and other community based business ventures.  The monthly membership at this current time is $300/Month for 1 year, $260/Month for 2 years and $200/month for 5 years and the group is looking to find at least 10 members, though 15-20 is the ultimate goal.

Once an income is established a business plan will be written which will take into account the income streams and a mortgage will be sought that include the costs involved in building a community living arrangement and farm machinery needed to maintain the property.

Accommodation Block:  The community living arrangement will be designed to accommodate the number of members at the time plus 20% for future expansion.  It will be Hotel type accommodation with each member being allocated their own small suite.  The accommodation building will also have a community kitchen and laundry facility.  The building will be designed to be modern with a medieval look to it.  Possibly rendered with exposed wood beam facades to look almost Tudor.  Plans are for it to have an internal courtyard with rooms all facing each other.  The location for it will be close to road access.  This will also form the main entrance to the property, providing a stepping stone from the almost medieval to the period perfect.

Members will have the ability to allocate their suite as hotel accommodation for hire to the general public or to live in them themselves.  This will be managed by an appointed on site manager and monies raised minus a booking/management fee will be returned to the member.

The accommodation block with be build within 2 years of the purchase of the property by an appointed developer/builder.  No aspect of the construction will be left for members to and it be be finished to the point of liveability.  Members will be able to use their rooms as they see fit without board interference.

After the Block:  The accommodation block will be the first step to becoming a fully sustainable medieval community.  The future of the property after the construction of the accommodation will be to consider the construction of a demonstration medieval village.  Plans will open to all members and this will start the phase of medieval sustainable living.  The preferred plan at the moment is to make a demonstration village close to the accommodation block and then consider small out laying medieval farms further back.  There is also the possibility of hiding a number of manor houses that may not be entirely period in the hard to get to places.  This will provide a reason for the general public to want to come and stay as well as give the group the ability to turn the demonstration village into another income stream.

The Guild Hall:  What is currently the guild hall will be finished and turned into a tavern.  The up-stairs will be left open to accommodate tables and chairs and a bar will be built downstairs.  This will form the start of the demonstration village and a gathering point for meetings and celebrations.  It will also provide a great hub for Medieval events, providing shelter for feasts and classes.  A toilet block will be constructed near the Tavern a separate kitchen will follow as the budget allows.

A Community Garden/Farm:  Establishment of a community farm will take place even before the construction of the Accommodation block.  This the produce of which will be distributed amongst those members who contribute to it’s maintenance.  Any excess will be offered to other members who have not contributed.

Summary:  This is hopefully a plan that with sufficient support by a small number of dedicated people will ensure the success of Crossroads in the future.  It will be set-up as a company, with an accountant and run with the interest of the membership in mind.  The reason for choosing an ongoing membership as opposed to a share based system is to ensure that there is an income that can then reward the membership that are loyal.  I acknowledge that there are things that need to be worked out fully and discussed with potential serious participants, this is only an outline at the moment, a direction to start moving that may lead to Crossroads continuing to be used for Medieval Sustainable living.

If you are interested in discussing this plan further, then please contact me.

The link: http://vonmeer.deviantart.com/art/Medieval-Market-Stall-155518797

Shows an awesome looking period example complete with counter.  I have been contemplating my options and I shall be looking at making all of the pieces come apart so that it packs reasonably flat.

Plans are afoot!

I thought that I would share my own thoughts on these issues, and my own reasoning behind those thoughts.  The SCA is very much an organisation for everyone, however like everything in today’s world it takes money to be able to make things happen.  Event Stewards are or should be well aware of this as the first thing that should be planned in any event is the budget.  The budget allows the Steward to work out what the cost of the event is and allows them to plan by shuffling around the expenses of various parts and is a vital tool in Event preparation that should be worked out prior to contacting the group officials and “putting in a bid”.  Personally I believe that not only should the Senechal and/or Baron and Baroness look over the budget prior to approving the event, I believe that it should be one of the main things that govern whether an event is approved or not.

Why do I believe Events should be used as fund-raising engines for SCA Groups?  Because events provide enough entertainment, food and activities that they easily allow for prices to include a profit margin whilst still providing a value for money afternoon and evening of pleasure.  Whilst it is possible to make a budget feast still make a profit and still provide that value for money (and there are some people who can do this well.), it’s a lot easier to make a reasonable or even expensive feast make a profit and still seem value for money.  This is due I believe to the reduction of stress involved in making the budget work by not having to locate the cheapest possible supplies as well as the ability to allow budgets for all aspects of the event instead of trying to maximise the feast budget.

As for the argument that Events then become too expensive for some people to attend and we should be trying to get more people to attend by making the events as cheaper.  I do not believe this works, as the cheaper we make events there will always be someone who cannot afford to come.  This just gives a false impression of the actual costs involved in running the event and provides a basis for SCA events to be cheap and not make any money.

An event has everything that that people are willing to pay money for and should be used as a major part of raising money for the other aspects of the SCA that can’t such as Hall hire for weekly gatherings.  That said, I am also not against having a other means of raising money for Hall hire, such as Patronage.  All I am suggesting is that Events are the premium part of being in the SCA and there is no reason why we cannot be accounting for a $5  – $10 profit per person and raising $200 – $600 each event to be used for the benefit of Politarchopolis.

Whilst I have only ever run one feast myself, I have volunteered at many and find the most rewarding volunteering experiences have been when I have been given one specific task, and have had a detailed explaination of what is expected.  This could be as simple as “I want you to peel and chop those potato’s into 2cm cubed sized chunks and put them into this saucepan”, or as complex as “I want you to organise the entertainment for the feast, you need to be aware that there will be 1 court at around 7pm, and I’ll need an outline plan of what you have come up with 4 weeks prior to the event along with status updates every week after that.  You have a budget of $100 for expences, please don’t exceed that.”.  However if the request is say as simple as “I want you to organise the entertainment for the feast, the feast is on such and such a date” then that task becomes so much harder.  You have no defined limits, and no real idea of what’s expected.  To top that off, the Steward could contact you at any point and demand an update, expecting you to have some stuff done where you are still sitting and trying to flesh out the basic plan.  This just creates stresses that don’t need to be there if the person in charge is doing their job correctly. 

Another type of request is the purely open “Can you help with this feast I’m organising”, which comes with no details and is really just a general request to be there and help.  Personally I try and avoid these requests, as most of the time the steward has organised a load of people to “help” but hasn’t actually organised what they will be doing, or has organised a few people and then organised them helpers although those people are not great at delegation themselves.  This tends to lead to helpers either being bored cause there is no-one telling them what they should be doing, or the tasks that people are good at and that they are interested in are wasted.  Most people will take instruction quite well if it’s delivered in a polite nice way which does not infere dominace, it’s always worth remembering that these people don’t actually HAVE to be there to help you and they are really doing you a favour.  I’m personally not someone who has much patience for unorganisation, I would much rather be off doing one of the many half finished projects I have laying around than volunteering to help and then just being left to my own devices with a rather open “Please help with sorting through all this crap”.

Communication is the key to good delegation, knowing what is important information to feed up and down the chain of command.  If the chain is working correctly, the person above you needs only know that things are progressing as you have outlined and not the details of how you are achieving that, and the people below you need to know exactly what they are doing, which means knowing how skilled they are so that you aren’t trying to tell them how to do every little step, but just what you are expecting the result to be.  Trust those below you to ask if they need to know how to do something specific.  There is no point in getting upset with volunteers if what they are doing isn’t turning out exactly as you wanted it especially if you didn’t outline what the results should be from the start, a volunteer can easily just not help which would leave you responsible for an even bigger task.

When asking for volunteers for a project I find it’s best to divide the project up into various segments and then pick people you believe will be good at delegation and ask them if they are willing to take on this task for you.  Once you have your ‘generals’, you can start work on general numbers as well as encouraging your generals to look for people they trust to volunteer as well.  Friends tend to group together, and asking a member of a household to volunteer to run a major part of an event can frequently get other members of that household helping them.  If you spread your connections amoungst several households all of a sudden you have people volunteering who would have never volunteered if you were asking them yourself.  Some people are leaders and some people like to be led, the best way to make a project work is to let leaders be leaders and followers be followers.  The great thing with most SCA events is that there is usually a chain of command, a Steward who is ultimately responsible and if that steward is left to the organisation of their generals, then the event will most likely work wonderfully.  As the top of the chain, your job is just to communicate to your generals and help them work out issues, shuffle resources and ensure that they are on track.  If you start doing their job for them then you are effectively showuing them that you don’t trust them and I wouldn’t be surprized if they just leave you to doing all of their job.  That works the same in any step of a voluntary position, if you start doing a job that you have delegated to someone else then you are basically just asking them to leave.

None of this is of course new information or revolutionary in any way.  It is infact how Governments, Armies and Companies have been doing things for centuries.  One thing worth noting with the above organisations is that most of those in the line of command have chosen to be there and most likely like the particular task they are doing.  The key to successful volunteering is to make it enjoyable to those who are doing it, this means breaking things down into small tasks that can be accomplished without much stress usually by people who want to do that particular task for fun.  There are groups and Households throughout Lochac who are fully aware of these ideas and principles, they demonstrate them very well with the things they accomplish.   These groups and the individuals within them understand the concepts discussed here and use them to better Lochac and their own groups.  In some small way this post is a thank-you to those groups for helping to make Lochac what it is today.  Hopefully this has helped in some way, and if you have anything to add please feel free to leave a comment at: http://syridian.id.au/archives/1006

“Right Click” and “Save As” the following links.

http://syridian.id.au/freezer/Politarchopolis_Shield.svg
http://syridian.id.au/freezer/Politarchopolis_Device.svg
http://syridian.id.au/freezer/Politarchopolis_Filled_Griffin.svg

Enjoy using them.

Direct link to Lochac.net

It worked out great, and I look forward to making more.

This is not a formal proposal for anything but an open discussion, and I believe those who know me well enough, know that I am always promoting discussion of any kind. So this is just really sticking it out there to see what bounces.

So, the idea? What, (apart from current society law) would restrict a couple from appointing a Champion to fight Crown on their behalf? Realistically at the moment it is not possible, but would it be worth concidering a proposal to make this change? After all, to take on this monumental task this Champion would need to have total faith in the couple, believing that the couple are worth fighting for, and believing that they are worth putting their own reputation on the line for. The Crown would still need to accept this Champion as well as the Couple they fight for as a valid entry into The Crown Tourney, as I believe currently takes place.

If you really think about this, there are already so many checks in place to ensure that The Crown are capable of completeing their reign that I can see nothing but benefits for this suggestion. Was this not a valid period practice? Would this also not be quite honourable and chivalrous, as I believe it would be on the fighters honour as well as those they stand for to forfill the honour of the fighter?

Personally looking at the laws, though very breifly, I believe this would be a very simple change that would not only allow for a much more exciting Crown Tourney, as well as opening up the potential for some amasing new Crown couples who were previously denied entry simply due to lack of fighting ability (Can you imagine Rowan as Queen? I can, as this would make that possible).

Anyway.. As previously stated, this is really just putting forth an idea… I believe it’s a good one, I believe there is more potential good in it than the potential harm it could do. However I am also aware that 40 odd years of tradition is one hell of a big boulder moving downhill hill at incredible pace. Luckily for us, the right brains on side, some thought, and with some of the right type of muscle it is possible to divert that big a boulder.

I’m not trying to change the way it’s currently done, I just believe that this could be a better way.

{Google Wave removed}

However this frustration is with the whole concept of Mailing-Lists used for Discussion of particular topics, so to relieve myself I have unsubscribed from every mailing list that I don’t need to be on. No more Shambles, no more lists that generate branching discussions on the same topic that just go on and on. Maybe that will also mean Less SCA involvement, but lets face it… I have been loosing interest in the SCA for a while now, maybe this is the break that I need to take.

I’ll still look after The Lochac Network forums… still keep adding to them occationall, hoping that others will join me and hoping that they start to take off.

This weeks project has been a personal token for an SCA member to give to those they favour.   It is a simple medallion with initials on one side, and a raised representation of a logo/device on the other side.

Usually my medallions are carved into one side of the mould for depth and then the other side is smoothed and has the detail carved into that.  For this particular token I wanted to attempt a fully symmetrical moulding process by carving half the depth into each side of the mould.  I did this for two reasons, firstly, the one sided method I used previously whilst it makes for a nicer edge, usually needs alot more work to clean up.  Secondly it allowed me practice in aligning the two halves of the mould, whilst the old method allowed for misalignment, it meant that the main image was not centred on the finished token, and it would look kind of wrong.

After some experimentation in attempting to get a good quality pour each time (see last post),  I managed to find the best combination of temperature and mould tapping that resulted in a great amount of detail showing.  This further experimentation also made me realise the importance of the mould tapping and the continuation of it until the entire button* has solidified.  It seems that during the freezing process pewter can sill move past other parts that have frozen solid.  I suspect this would be similar to the crystals of ice that form in water, they allow water to pass around them, but still hold their shape.

Interestingly this also brings to my attention the creation of another type of artefact on an improperly cast item.  This artefact is caused if the mould moves during this crystallising phase of the freeze, and creates a texture like the one in the picture to the left.  It is rather a fine texture, however given the choice of all three of the artefacts described here and in the last post, I would rather this one, as the detail of the casting is almost perfect.  To reduce or even eliminate this artefact I would suggest the use of either wiring the mould together tightly, or using mechanical clamps to stop the mould from moving during the tapping and pouring process.  I may even attempt to make some sort of mechanical tapping/shaking jig so as to reduce stresses on the soapstone mould as well as the chances of the mould moving.

In a happy coincidence when I was checking the email to confirm that I had gotten the commission done as requested, I noticed that I was missing a vital part of the Dragons.  So the above information about the tapping/shaking process was only discovered after the wings were added, and the entire batch recast.  I’m sure my customer will be much happier with the better detailed casts than he might have been with the previous batch, specially as his Dragons are now actually dragons and not Lizards. ;)

* The “Button” is the larger opening in the mould where you pour the molten pewter.  It usually gets cut off and recycled.

When casting there are two main problems that cause artefacts on the cast item.  The first is air pockets, and the second is pewter shrinkage due to the freezing process.  Unfortunately in period soapstone casting, the solution to one of these problems is also what causes the other, and a balancing act needs to take place to minimise both effects.

Air pockets can be caused by two reasons that I have been able to work out, though I believe the second is another issue which can be fixed separately*. The first is a lack of air escaping the mould before the molten pewter freezes, either by air flow dynamics causing restrictions in air flow out of the mould as the molten pewter enters, or the pewter freezing before it gets a chance to fill all of the detail.  This can be minimised by using a hot mould that allows the pewter to run into all detailed parts of the mould before it freezes, you may need to still play with the air flow dynamics on some moulds to ensure that the pressure of the liquid pewter entering the mould isn’t causing an air pocket in the mould to be trapped.

The secondary artefacts created when the molten pewter freezes and shrinks is a little harder to control, as the easiest way to control that is to have a cold mold and a quick pour of the molten pewter into the mould.  The cold mold freezes a skin of pewter allowing the detail to remain.  Freezing the pewter from the outside just a touch faster than it would with a hot mould this allow a harder skin to retain the detail whilst the pewter freezes and shrinks.  Another way to stop the shrinking from effecting your finished casting is to have a large enough sprue connecting the pouring button with the cast product so that there is enough room for the shrinking pewter to pull down more molten pewter from the button, however this is not always easily possible, as this sprue needs to large enough to allow the sides to freeze before the centre.

Another method of minimising the effect of shrinking on the casting is to rapidly tap the mould on a wooden surface as you are pouring the pewter.  This has the effect of increasing the pressure in the mould and effectively hammering the molten pewter into the details.  It needs to be done as you are pouring, and you need to be very careful as you don’t want to move the mould parts, or splatter molten pewter.

These details leave me with the conclusion that in order to get a perfect casting each time from a gravity fed, non-pressurised soapstone mould casting there needs to be a very delicate balance between the temperature of the soapstone mould and the temperature of the molten pewter.  If I were more serious about this process I would attempt to investigate this further with more period techniques for estimating the temperature of both mould and metal, however I believe that knowing that the balance exists and some means of minimising it’s effects are enough for me to continue.  The art of getting a perfect casting from each pour is one that whilst very rewarding, is not necessary with the ease of turning out pewter castings it is often better to do the best you can, and recast the ones that don’t work.  Of course, if it’s the techniques that are causing the artefacts in the first place, then these techniques do need to be addressed.

*The second cause is moisture in the soapstone turning into steam when contacting molten pewter.  This is easily identifiable as it looks like shiny inverted bubbles on the surface of the pewter casting.  It is also easy to avoid by pre-warming your mould before casting in an oven, however I find the easiest method is to just heat the mould over the heat source for melting your pewter, and then just keep casting in quick succession until it stops.