Happy August, Altavia!
His Excellency and I hope that you and yours are doing well and are continuing to navigate this new world successfully. Here are the latest updates on what is going on in SCA, Caid and Altavia.
State of the SCA
As you may have read in the Board of Directors’ (BoD) statement on August 8, the SCA is facing some financial challenges relating to COVID-19. While we may not have expenses relating to events and insurance for those events for a while, the Society still has annual operating expenses, which are usually covered by membership fees and non-member surcharges (NMS). With membership inevitably dropping and no NMS fees coming in, this is leaving a bit of a shortfall. Fortunately, there are many ways we can help cover this, including:
- Renew or extend your membership – https://members.sca.org/apps/#SignIn
- Donate a membership to someone else – https://www.sca.org/news/gifting-an-sca-membership/
- Donate directly to the SCA – https://www.sca.org/donate-to-the-sca/
If you have other ideas for fundraising (at the baronial, kingdom, or Society-level), please bring them up here at Council or feel free to contact His Excellency or me in private. We would both like to thank all those that reached out to us with ideas and requests to help. The generosity of Altavia and Altavians never ceases to make us proud!
State of Caid
Another recent piece of news that has come down from the BoD is the suspension of all in-person SCA events in North America until January 13, 2021. His Majesty also confirmed this information in the latest and last (more on that in a moment) Royal Thursday last week. While of course this is not a happy thing to hear, it is the best and wisest decision at this point in time. We have also learned today that our neighbors in Atenveldt have made the difficult decision to postpone Estrella War 2021 to November of next year.
Caid will still maintain a schedule of online events until we are able to safely meet again. Going forward Caid will hold an online court once every other month with the next one scheduled for Saturday, August 29. “Live from Caid!” will continue to run every Monday evening, ably helmed by Altavia’s very own Master Laertes. Any information that needs to be passed along from the Crown outside of online court will be communicated through “Live from Caid!” as well as on the Kingdom of Caid FB group. Finally, right as of now, the next Coronation will happen as soon as we are able to meet in person, keep your eyes on all of Caid’s digital channels for information as it becomes available.
Baronies are still able and encouraged to hold online events and later tonight we’ll talk about what we might want to do for Agincourt as well as Yule.
State of Altavia
We hope that you have all been enjoying our weekly Zoom gatherings! We know it’s not an actual replacement for hitting our friends with sticks, but I know I am really enjoying getting to know current and former Altavians as well as old and new friends from throughout Caid and the Knowne World better! If you have any ideas for changing up our Monday nights (themes, contests, artisan showcases, or anything else), please let us know. OR if you have ideas for other online fun we can have outside of Monday nights (baronial gift exchanges, largess-ins, what-have-you), please speak up or at least let His Excellency and me know so we can help make your ideas into reality. Being isolated from all of you really, really sucks but we do have the opportunity to expand the Dreams in new ways we never considered before.
As always, please reach out to us and your fellow Altavians if you need a hand or need cheering up. Niko is ever ready with a bad dad joke or inspiring meme and you know you can count on me for a tune or two or a brain-storming partner. We love you, we miss you, and, to quote some notable fictional Angels, please remember to “Be Excellent to Each Other!”
Yours in Service to the Dream,
Baron Nikolaos Phaistos
Baroness Briana MacCabe
