Northkeep wInterKingdom 2023

Megan Flower del Wal

Wow, what a whirlwind day! My brain is finally settled enough to write up my thoughts.

I want to start by thanking my co-steward Mistress Adalia. The event would not have happened without her. She talked me through all the plans, reminded me of things I lost track of, kept me from freaking out and kept everything running.

Huge Thank Yous go out to-

Sir Geoffrey- he insured no items of Gross were encountered. Additionally, he made sure the coffee maker contained its magical elixir all day.

Mistress Jutte- who took care of ALL things gate related, keeping track and adjusting with the changing game plans as the event grew.

Baroness Kelandra Carmichael- Whose cooking is always exquisite. I knew that with her running our feast memories would be stirred and joy shared.

Master Beorhtlic- Who kept the Hall glorious as it shifted from Social Area to Feast to Court.

Centurion Charles the Grey of Mooneschadowe and Honorable Lady Iziaslava Veronikeia Myshkovicha- for working with us to integrate Sable Solider and ensuring much BLAM was available to be enjoyed.

Thanks also go to-

Kiah- for running a Tasty Bake sale of munching and crunchings to feed us treats throughout the morning and raise money to offset the cost of the event

Honorable Lady Meesh- (because helium hand is a thing) also for organizing a huge silent auction, which raised a staggering sum to assist the Barony

The Nightshade Kitchen- for the warm filling meal at Tavern’s lunch that insured strength of mind and body to jump into the second half of our day

Our wonderful hospitalers- Racquel and Milokhna d'Riga - who welcomed the swarm of newcomers with smiles, loaner gear and help.

Thank you to our Seneschal, Baron and Baroness for giving me the opportunity to refresh and update my skills as an autocrat.

As a final Thank you to all the people who taught and helped in these many areas to make my dream of a Library Event a Reality.

Megan Flower del Wall

Muirenn Nia Ingen Nathi

Hi Y’all! What a great event this weekend! Thank you to ALL of the autocrats for each respective part... y’all did awesome!

MOC class track had 4 class tracks, including Paper-making & Japanese book binding - taught by myself and Calligraphy & Illumination, taught by HL Liadan of Patrin-Or.

We had a total of 18 kids (1/3rd of which were visiting from Bonwicke!) & 3 Teens who attended them. For a total of 21!

To my my Lead teacher & fellow MOC HL Liadan, our assistants, Ldy Sainte du Bois, & Ldy Hrafna Sjona of Bonwicke. Y’all - I couldn’t have done it without you. YOU make these classes possible! THANK YOU!

And lastly, some word fame for our busy little Bees-

Brook of Krakens Nest & Lilly of Krakens Nest, who both helped pull wagons loaded with my MOC stuff, and then helped carry a (card size) table when Liadan arrived. They also helped drag chairs into class rooms & helped count to ensure enough chairs were at each table. Later they helped mash the paper pulp & fill the dip trays for the paper making! They also assisted in cleaning betwwen classes & setting up the first 2 classes.

Then there was Aiden (I believe of NK), Matilda, Angelica, & Brayden (all 3 of Bonwicke) who all took time to help me clean between classes & were all constantly asking what else they could help with.

And lastly, Miranda ni Ian, who helped with cleaning up between classes, putting out materials for classes, and later, along with Brayden of Bonwicke, I saw them both serving drinks for feasts.

Let their actions speak for themselves. They are our Future! They are our “why” we do this.

My thanks to them all, and for the opportunity to do this!

Iziaslava Veronikeia Myshkovicha

Man I don't even know where to start with Winterkingdom- A Visit to the Library, hosting Sable Soldier /slash/ Ansteorra Sable Soldier.

Many of you know that I was one of the autocrats for Sable Soldier, my co-autocrat Charles Snyder , while he thinks he didn't do anything, was a legit lifesaver. We had some ... Snafus that would have probably made me explode but he handled them with grace and wisdom. He was a pillar of calm throughout the event, helping reassure me that nothing was actually on fire. I literally couldn't have done this without him. Now, since that was probably more compliments than he's comfortable with, he's also a butthead.

Since autocratting wasn't enough responsibility, I decided that I should also coordinate a silent auction. Some back story - Their Excellencies Northkeep were gracious enough to take a big risk for the sake of maintaining the tradition of Sable Soldier and decided to make the entire event free/by donation! I wanted to make sure they knew how appreciative we were and to help soften the blow, if there was any, of not charging a site fee. The obvious solution was to do something I've never done and run a silent auction because I didn't have enough to do lol .

I can't begin to thank everyone that volunteered for shifts between and during classes so that I could tend to the other side of the event. I do want to extend a special thanks to Duchess Vanessa for essentially being my right hand for the auction. She brought table cloths (I only had sheets lol), she volunteered for literally every shift that wasn't covered, she helped arrange the tables so that everything was attractively displayed, she gave me SO much advice and helped me remember things when my brain was boiling over. The auction wouldn't have been so successful without her. Speaking of a successful auction, I need to thank all of the amazing people that donated. We had nearly 40 items, some of them were actually sets or multiple items, up for bid. I was so worried there wouldn't be much since I didn't have much time to organize but people just kept showing up yesterday morning! It was overwhelming in the best way! I'm not sure if I'm supposed to talk about the actual numbers, but I had to count the money and PayPal payments 3 times to believe how much we made. It was an outstanding success and I thank everyone involved so much!

At Sable Soldier we had an amazing turnout! We had many people travel a ways to take part in the training. It was so wonderful to see everyone working together and learning. To all of our teachers, and anyone who assisted, you're extremely appreciated! You guys did great and I heard nothing except good things about the classes!

Martel figured out that we ran... 12(?) Battle scenarios during the second half of the day, which is way more than we expected but Their Majesties Couldn't get enough blood so we fought on! I even managed to take part in a couple of the battles! After I got some fighting in, I had the opportunity to watch some battles from the top of the bleachers and tbh that's the way to watch fighting! I would like to propose that we build bleachers at Gulf Wars lol

I didn't take part in feast, but I was able to hang out (counting money too many times lol)while it was going and it sure smelled good! I was also honored with the hero's portion for "doing all the things" lol thank you for that honor Veronica!

Court was awesome, even if I was struck mute by stage fright when it came to talking about Sable Soldier (another big thanks for Charles picking me up on that!) I got to learn about awards, and see some very well deserved awards be given to some very awesome people!

All in all this was a fantastic event and I'm so thankful I was able to be a part of it.

Kelandra Carmichael

I want to thank Ian Dun Gillan and Therese Maria Giovanni for all of their help yesterday and for all the days and hours they helped prep for the feast at Winterkingdom- A Visit to the Library, hosting Sable Soldier.

It has been a very long time since I have prepared a feast of this magnitude and with such personal emotional connection.

My return to the kitchen was sparked by a post from Yzabeau Brossier this past fall when she put out a call for people lead Northkeep’s winter event.

Her post happened right after our group lost HE Elisabeth Christianne de Calais. I thought all the ladies (HE Ana Maria de Mercedes de Cerdanya, HE Dunstana Talana the Violet, and HE Keigan of Ravensfaire) that our group has lost in the past several years and thought about doing by a tribute feast in honor of them. I came up with a menu, and submitted my bid.

I didn’t want to make any big announcement about the courses and their inspiration before the feast because Feast should be a time of joy and revelry; I didn’t want to mar that atmosphere.

1st course
Digby’s Savory Cheese for Elizabeth
Pickled Vegetables for Mercedes
2nd course (while Keigan didn’t like rabbit she always taught me to have a vegetarian option—)
Rabbit stew with a vegetarian option
Salad with apple dressing
3rd course
Roasted boar for Talana
Sautéed Mushrooms & onions for Keigan
4th course
Almond cakes see below
Short bread cookies for Mercedes
Various jams for Elizabeth
Quince jam specifically for Talana
(My biggest inspiration for cooking was my mom. When I put in my bid, I added the almond cakes because I have made them many times for feast. My mom made this recipe all of my life and it was one of the recipes that I made sure to add to my recipe box when I first got married. This last October my mom ended up in the hospital and the doctors informed her that she has cancer that had metastasized into several area of her body. She passed less than a month after learning of her diagnoses. This feast also honors her; she never really understood what the SCA was and what all we did. She just knew we had fun.)

Thank you to HE Beorhlic Folcwineson for being willing and able to manage Hall Steward when asked, the folks that stopped by through the day to help in the kitchen, Caterina Cavalieri, Megan Flower del Wal, the young lady who served as head server (I can’t spell her name to try to tag her), my friend Rachel who helped remind me of several last minute serving details, the other servers whose names escape my exhausted brain. (I’ll edit as I remember or get reminded.) Also thanks to Adalia VonderBerg and Geoffrey de Gournay for their help printing feast tokens, lending me roasters, and helping pack out the kitchen stuff late Saturday… we were all so tired…

Thanks to Kiah of Northkeep and Zubeydah for lending baking pans so I could make the cakes before feast. Thank you to their Excellencies Perrin de Beaujeu and Jehanne de Montauban and Northkeep’s seneschal for allowing me the opportunity to honor these individuals.