ProgressFeb07

February 2007 Progress Report

On Site: There's simply not much left to do on site.

Camping Areas: A current Map of Camping Areas are available here and further details about each campsite is available here. The latest campsite to be cleared was by the Pike and Musket Society who were on site this month.

Photos and maps - For fans of Google Earth, you will find recent maps and photos of the site in Google Earth here. Download the Jan2007.kmz file to your PC and open it in Google Earth for a virtual tour. It'll blow your mind.

Long Awaited Menu update
The menu has been finalised and is available here. There has been a lot of work involved in developing the menu and we extend our thanks to those individuals who took and interest, shared their knowledge and contributed their suggestions. Further information on the Historical and Cultural origins of each dish will be added soon.

Update on the Archery events. Hafdan is in the process of constructing folding (i.e portable, easily moved) target stands /faces. These will be available for use in the archery events from the fort wall. Targets will be from rabbit size to deer size. Hafdan will have in place the popular "Flying Pig" target from Crusades 2006.
Combat archery. Combat archery will be run in two forms.
The first will be the usual "shoot and be shot' format for those who wish to shoot at each other.
The second format will be "The Gauntlet", in which runners will attempt to dodge a hail of arrows as they attemp to stomr the fort. Danelaw will have archery combat armour available or runners to use.
We expect to have 4 sets available from Danelaw plus more from other participants. We need as many shooters as possible to join in with 30 pound bows and as many combat archery arrows as you can get your hands on.

PROGRAM - In response to the confirmation of a number of recent Actitivity Submissions by enthusiastic groups, we have now filled in the timeslots in the program and it is available here. As promised, those ativities that have not attracted any interest or support from participants have been slotted as Usupported and will soon be "cancelled due to lack of interest". If you would like to see any of the cancelled activities go ahead, please put your hand up to run them. We will then slot them in somewhere.

Bellydancing - Bellydancing workshops will be held on Saturday and Sunday morning by Desert Flame.

Guests with Special needs. (the old "eyeglasses, Ventolin and insulin" debate) We won't be drawn into dialogue on this issue. There is no-body attending the event with the foolishness to discriminate against, nor deny access to the event for people with special needs. Most groups in the movement are sensitive to the additonal support that people with special needs require to share in the experience of what we do. The strive for Authenticity should not support exclusionism. Period. So we ask anyone attending with special needs to please inform the registration desk of any equipment, or accoutrements thay you may be dependant on. This includes wheelchairs, braces, crutches, eyewear (other than ordinary spectacles) that might otherwise draw criticism from other guests from an Authenticity perspective. We will provide you with a marker (piece of wool/ribbon) to identify that your accoutrement has been declared for a special need.

Payment and Cancellation deadlines - The window for cancelling tickets and asking for refunds is well and truly over (see here).
We have now hired infrastructure based on the numbers registered and will not be issuing refunds from here on in.
If you can't attend you're welcome to on-sell your ticket to others. Just let us know who has bought your ticket from you.
Any person who is still behind in their balance payments, your overdue ticket balance is now at the next higher ticket rate ($50 more).
Those who are affected have been notified by e-mail.
Those who don't address this by 17 March 2007, we will assume that you have forefeited your ticket and will not be attending the event, and resources will not be committed for your attendance.
If you have an outstanding/overdue payment, please communicate with us ASAP. We will not be negotiating late payments and non-payments at the gate.

Offline and lockdown - The next and final update will be coming out on 17 March 2007. After that day we will be offline and in lockdown mode to prepare for Con. We will not be answering phones or e-mails after this date, so be sure to ask all of your outstanding questions before then. Otherwise you will have to ask them at the event. Until then we are still pleased to answer questions and discuss any and all issues.

Registration database Report - Some Hard Numbers: In accordance with our commitment to only offer honest hard numbers and not HYPE, we are pleased to present a Summary Report from the Registration Database as at 13 Feb 07.