Capt. Sterling

Happy Birthday Darlin! Sorry I am a day late....

I can concur with parts of this. It certainly would be a plus to make it more of a media event, but I wonder how well it would go over if we took control over who could be nominated. From the sound of it a lot of crew members were excited to be able to participate by nominating their captains. I wonder how they would feel if we turned it around and said no we'll be doing that from now on?

Yeah, pyrate hunter hanged as a pyrate...what is wrong with this picture??

and thank ye for yer contribution

Great addition Red Jessi! I shall put you down under Fabric Skills

Please add Island Cutter, Blackheart and a Feisty Redhead,Edward O'Keeffe and Lily Alexander and Double Dutch himself X, to the Archangel crewe...thank ye.

Will do Hurricane and thank ye.

Hmmmmm.....now there's a thought

Hurricane do you wish me to list Jill Red Handed with the games demo? or do you need to confirm that with her first?

Thank God!

From an organizing side of things...no thank God. From the missing friends and family side... no unfortunately not

Thank ye Hawkyns.

Right then that silk pillow is looking better and better...

ROTDLMAO!!!!!!

Thank you Mission.

I have seen over on the Piratesmagazine boards the new option for holding the contest every two years?

I was hoping more for the offer of a silk pillow....

Soft grass my arse...that only helps when yer on yer feet all day...try sitting on a hard wooden bench for hours signing pardons, trust me, yer feet feel fine....

Works for me... when you need a break we can possibly arrange for someone to cover your area or be free to stow your gear in my tent for safe keeping.

bump

Oh I see a money making opportunity .... snigger

Agreed. After all in most cases we are there for the sake of the spectators. For those of us that like to teach our history, our goal should be to make as many of our guests go home with something new that they have learned from us. For those of us that live the life style as best we can our goal should be to give those spectators a moment, some how, of feeling that they have witnessed a glimpse of the past. Even those of us that just enjoy posing with families for photos, that should end up being something special not only for us but for them taking the snap shot. In many cases just our interacting with each other should provide a special moment not only for us but for our guests. Otherwise, perhaps, we should be sticking solely to immersion type events. I, personally, wholeheartedly enjoy immersion events but I also like interacting with the public and many events want just that... and sometimes all it takes to make a child's day is stopping and giving them a coin or putting your hat on their head during a photo opportunity. How many of us, have done something that has turned a spectator into a new member of our hobby? How many of us have thrilled some little kid so much so that they have gone home and cracked open a book about our history? Unfortunately we will never know, but in many cases our passion is to accomplish just this thing. It really shouldn't matter in the long run where we do what we do, each time we set foot in our arena we should be willing to prove our worth to those that are coming to see us and to them that are trusting us to provide our services for them. Granted we are well known to ourselves but not every event host knows every one in our community so we will always have to prove our worth. As event hosts change, we will have to prove our worth over and over again. It just comes with the territory.

Well, it's good news that we may be able to earn our way back to beach camping. Although I don't recall anyone telling us we were supposed to get demonstrations, skits and scenarios up and running to make a point to the fort personnel last year. (Not saying it didn't occur, I just don't recall it.) Of course, last year seemed a little disorganized compared to the previous years to me. I figured this had to do with Harry not being around to handle some of the logistics. Change is always a challenge for a big event like this. I did notice as I have been updating the look and feel of the PiP Surgeon's Journals that there were fewer activities in 2009 than in 2008. 2008 had all sorts of interesting things like Dutch explaining navigation, the silly olympics thing, sword fight training and the conquistadors taking Spike. Part of the problem with presenting at PiP from my perspective is that I spent $100 to ship my surgeon's stuff down there in 2008, but wound up only doing two presentations with it. Michael brought it down last year and I never even got most of it out of his van. From that and my 2007 experience (one presentation to one guy), the Key West audience has been light compared to other events. Most of the folks who do wander up to peek at the stuff in KW don't seem quite as patient with the explanations as folks at other events where I've presented. Plus there's nothing quite so boring as standing by your stuff for hours when there's not much traffic to make the time pass faster. If I wanted to be chained to a position, I'd become a vendor and at least have the opportunity to get paid for being stuck in the same place. But I like the freedom of being a volunteer. Admittedly, I personally have never had the patience to stand there and do that all day at any event. It makes for a boring Surgeon's Journal - my other reason for going events. Presenting for 2 or 3 hours seems much more reasonable for a Key West pirating vacation if there's traffic enough to keep the time spent presenting moving. I will say this, though. When everyone else is involved in presenting, it helps a LOT. There's nothing like esprit de corps to make presenting more enjoyable. Having Dutch next to me at PiP '08 doing his navigation thing made standing with my gear at the ready more pleasurable. Watching M.A. d'Dogge do his weapons presentation at Put-in-Bay in June and knowing he would generously hand them off to me gave me greater incentive to hover about the medical table and try to amuse and horrify the on-going crowd. But I'm starting to ramble now. I really like PiP and I'm not trying to throw a wet blanket on stuff, but these are important issues to me when it comes to presenting. If it's nothing but tedious hot work with tepid interest, you won't find me willing to pay extra to get the gear down there nor to do it for very long if I do. Your not rambling Mission, but making very good sense. Granted we want to have fun as well but when it comes to most events, not all, we are the main attraction and need to supply some sort of educational service via demos, skits or long term scenarios in exchange for our insurance coverage, camping and any other perks that are tossed in the ring. We can call ourselves volunteers but in a way we aren't as we are actually bartering for something in exchange for what we do. In all case, I hope, we are there for the fun of the event, but many event hosts have to make money to cover the event. In many cases, not all, they earn that money back by charging spectators some sort of fee. In the long run if there is not much for the spectators and they aren't happy, they don't return, the event hosts don't make their profit and we can lose events because the places we go to can no longer support us being there. Note the words in many cases, not all... I certainly can agree that standing around doing demos, skits and scenarios all day can be hard work...personally I enjoy it and I think many others do. I certainly agree the more hands involved the lighter and more fun that goal becomes for all involved. For this year, we have been trying to schedule the living history demos and trying to find out who is willing to do what but so far, we have gotten only some response back. The more involved, the more breaks we can arrange with others taking turns covering a specific demo, skit, or scenario and freeing folks up for some personal time. The more involved the more we each learn about our time frame as well and the better to hone those activities we already provide. As the old proverb goes Iron sharpens Iron... This year we have tried, as stated, to make it known to all that Living History is required. Last year it was not mandatory but the new Park staff was out looking for it. Unfortunately we were not notified last year that that was the case. Now it is required of us and it has been brought to our attention. Last year things were very disorganized due to the new Park staff and those that held the contract not communicating with those of us involved. And that also includes the fact that the advertisement for the event never really got off the ground. That has changed. If you only wish to demonstrate the tools of the surgeon's trade for X amount of hours during the day, please feel free to contact me and I will be happy to make sure that you get a specific spot on the schedule. For other demo, for example such as weapons, there are a number of folks who can cover that so it can continue all day with folks spelling others for breaks. If we have the numbers involved we can make everyone's day lighter.