AGM meeting minutes 2024

/

Thanks to Jed Cawthorn for these notes.

Video Recording can be found here - Part 1

Part 2

Manuscript review: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55006072j/f9.item.zoom

Review of 2023

  • Nightly Vigil - 

  • Spring Deed

  • Deed of Alms - combined with Red Knight due to weather 

  • Blanket Coat Project - 21 coats, 18 pairs of mittens - $1000 approx raised


Greece - Giannis - Platea 2024 - Last weekend of July - a week in the battlefield ending 27th July. 4th big event, 50 people. Reenactment not a thing in Greece, hence the north americans helping the Greeks to plan and execute on the event. 


Italy - Alessio - Did a Knighting ceremony in Verona, a lower key event, but a more ancient church. Tournament of the White Swan at the end of April - new style 90 seconds with Spear and 90 seconds with Sword. Next event in 2 years?


March - 60 v 60 battle reenactment. 



Group structure and rules:

  • Financials - good fund raising, 

    • $1300 vigil

    • $2000 Deed of Alms

    • $1000 in the company account

    • Some of the money went directly to some Afgan refugees stuck in a camp in Pakistan

  • House keeping - Ontario Not-for-profit rules - Officers need to be reelected every 4 years - officers re-elected in the meeting and Chris Kerr added to the board.


  • Annual dues - $25 - last year bundled with Red Knight, but this year will be separate.


  • Email list - to be kept short but to include to members of each major geographic sub-group to ensure dates and other info go out. 


  • Infrastructure Project - To build some infrastructure at Scott’s Farm near Peterborough:

    • Looking at using an old pasture field for a permanent site - it has springs / running water - Scott will put in a trail / road 

    • Put in a “bath house” with showers / toilets

    • Bunk houses!

    • Fund raising

    • More events per year, faster ROI and quicker to get done.


2024 Program


  • Vigil - Lent is early this year, so its Thursday 28th March overnight 


  • Amici Armis event - Phillipe Charlebois provided info on the Sherbrooke HEMA workshop event - 41 people registered, 14 instructors.


  • Spring Deed May 24 to 26th - as per other years, archery focused due to the venue, not super structured, 


  • Deed of Alms 30th June - Bickford Park (?), Toronto - where Ito and co do their sparing sundays,


  • Green Knight - Fri, Aug 23, 202412:30 PM  Mon, Aug 26, 20241:30 PM - 4 day weekend

New event. None-combat oriented, no armoured fighting and no harness. On Christian’s land in the Adirondacks. Will be a little LARP-ish, people will be put into teams, hoping for 30 people or more. Will have orienteering, tracking and archery, fire starting class. Mini-treck. 


  • Trek 7th to 15th Sept - Christian provides details of this years plan for trek north of Algonquin (Tomogamee?) - 7th to 11th is the “easy part” 


  • Deed of the Red Knight - Thu, Oct 17, 20242:00 PM  Mon, Oct 21, 20241:00 PM

Longer Thursday to Monday - actually programming on the Sunday. Also if you want to arrive early or stay late, just inform Scott!

  • Fund raising ? Its about the same time as Craig starts for Blanket Coasts, so tie the two things together. 


Questions:

  • Chris and Sean to be archery officers - to improve safety and get more activities

  • Scott - making armour again - working on 8 Churburg 13 style harness! 

  • Becca - making pottery - Facebook Messenger for comms

Annual General meeting minutes. 2022

/

Hoplologia AGM 2022 – 20 March 2022


MS reading – Liege Tacuinum


Retrospective of last two years

Covid challenges

2021 better than 2020

Trek – tricky because we can’t cross border, Algonquin has stricter rules

Try Crown land and indigenous owned parks? Steve Sandford can help

ZEC land in Quebec?

Red Knight

Went well

November Trek

Very snowy and cold

Craig’s blanket coat project

Making coats for street-involved and unhoused people

Simple pattern, easy to make

Can be made from blankets or other heavy fabrics

Volunteers and donated fabric

18 coats

Circa $1500 raised

“living chivalry!” (Greg Mele)

Similar projects encouraged! We will support you!

Thanks to everyone who helped and donated!

Pattern sent to Midlands Library which is interested in doing it as an ongoing project for a local sewing group


Future

Ranger Moot – May Day weekend “Deed of the May Queen” April 29-May 1

Friday noon to Sunday

At an archery “golf course” sort of place

Winter is over! Let’s celebrate!

May Queen is chosen, contests to win their favour

Archery events, including obstacle course

Deed of arms?

Bonfire/Tavern

Wicker man burning

Kawartha Archery Centre – 1 hr from Toronto

Will need lots of volunteers


Deed of Alms – July 2?

In-person outdoors

Fundraising for community social services hub

Banquet is a maybe?

Armoured and unarmoured

Come and hang out and squire!


Plataea – Summer 2022

Sponsoring 2501st anniversary of Plataea with Greek Government

Website to come soon – Plataea2022.com

Educational resources for 480 BC – re-enactors, academics, makers

On the original battlefield

Immersive

Recreating the movements of the units


WMAW – September 15-18

Western Martial Arts Workshops

Not the largest but the coolest!

Includes all European and adjacent styles including African and (this year!) Georgian

Registration opens next week

Early and hard drop-by date

No massed combat this year – saving for off-year event in 2023


Trek – August 21-28

Trying to reserve spots in Algonquin at Magnetawan


Red Knight – October 13-17 (move earlier?)

Peterborough site again

Encampment

Archery, armoured deed, group scenarios

Market

Music – Bernard’s songbook on website

Other ideas? May not be slotted in this year, but can be worked into future years


Verona – October 21-22

Event in town square in Verona

Fighting in armour

Archery

Food!

Communications

Increasingly difficult – not everyone is on Facebook

Add a Discord channel?

Google Groups?

Can’t have too many systems used – needs to be efficient

Please use the website!

Creating a Discord - redundancy


Recruiting

We have a bunch of new people!

Kitting people out is a challenge

Aurora’s Patreon of sewing/making medieval clothes – video library

Payment plan – monthly installments for kit

To be bought back if leaving hobby or moving up kit-wise

People’s own loaner kit

Cooking skills, campfire skills – special event

Coming off COVID there are a lot of people looking for something to do

Ask your friends if they’re interested

YouTube videos?


Useful Books

We represent a medieval mercenary company – multicultural, multilingual organization, vaguely democratic

Kenneth Fowler – “Medieval Mercenaries”

William Caferro – “John Hawkwood”


In-Person AGM 2023

Do we like that idea? With a symposium

Or keep it on Zoom?


WMAW North 2023

Needs a site

Early summer, we hope


Red Knight Elsewhere?

Do you want to try it in another location?

Peterborough more convenient for Chicago folks


Open

Camino in Spain – Spring (hopefully May?)

Dates TBD – dependent on WMAW North dates

Kit list?

Monthly or bi-monthly meeting to chat?

Move to Discord, off Zoom

Have a little presentation each time

Hoplologia Journal: "Reconstructing the Greek chiton", by Giannis Kadoglou

/

Our first article is published!

“Reconstructing the Greek chiton” (Click the link to go to the article.)

Giannis Kadoglou describes the construction and reconstruction of the ancient Greek chiton, with illustrations.

A few additional images illustrating the descriptions in the article are attached here.

February Meeting, 2019

/

This year we met in Dearborn, Michigan, for our annual general meeting.

We were graciously hosted by David and Melissa Ferrell, who found an excellent venue and generously opened their home to us.

We had many excellent seminars, and look forward to using the venue again in 3 years, after Toronto and Ottawa host again. In future, meetings will take place in March rather than February.

To begin the meeting we had a discussion led by Christian Cameron on building an impression works and our approach to reenacting the period.

Then the general meeting began.

We discussed the events of last year, which included,

The Spring vigil

The June deed

Walking the Camino in Spain

The Tourneo del Signo Bianco.

Deed of alms and the Maskerade.

Trek

Bolognese ( off year WMAW)

Deed of the Red Knight

A few of these events included fundraising for various charitable organizations.

The guild of St Michael, which is a subset of Hoplologia, is dedicated to hosting more fund raisers in the coming years. We encourage members in other provinces and states to organize their own fundraisers if they feel so inclined.

Financial matters and Bursary program.

We know it can be hard to afford to purchase large equipment for mess groups including kettles and tents. we encourage people to raise money by hosting events and factoring in a 20 percent profit in order to help support large equipment purchases.

We understand, however that not all groups can host events, and in order to help them, we intend to offer a bursary program, starting this year. It will be awarded on a first come first serve basis, and the application will be available here. The amount available will depend in the solvency of the Compagnia but we hope to be able to award $500 a year in total.

Journal

Elisabeth Beattie is beginning a Hoplologia journal, in which people can publish their research and discoveries related to reenacting and martial arts of any historical period. You can read more about that here.

Orginizational logistics.

As of 2019, Aurora Simmons is acclaimed Captain.

3 new Directors were elected:

Elisabeth Beattie

Christian Cameron

Keight Maclean.

Future events

2019 event schedule is available on our Compagnia Facebook page.

Fil Walker sent a proposal for a formal historically based archery tournament event.

This idea was met with general acclaim and will hopefully take place in 2020

Matt Lanteigne sent a proposal to attend Pennsic war in 2020.

There are still many logistics to be worked out in order to make this possible so it will continue to be discussed.

Lances, and activities at events

We had some confusion at Red knight in 2018 as to how Lances should work.

We would like to move to a system wherein everyone, including non-combatants are part of a semi-permanent lance. For the future, in order to receive “ pay” people will need to be in a lance before the pay parade. They will be paid according to their role in their lance. Participants will only be paid for Red Knight, in order to streamline the process.

More information on this will be offered before Red knight 2019.

We know that sometimes combat exercises can be dull for those who don’t wish to participate.

We encourage non-fighters to get creative with planning historical activities that they may wish to do while combat activities are taking place.

If you have an idea for an activity you’d like to organize at an event, please let the person in charge of the event know before hand and they will try to integrate it into the schedule.

Future business

Our Chicago members have found a promising site at which to host events in the future.

Tasha Mele also proposed that a formal medieval dinner, hosted in an indoor site and with a modern kitchen, could be a good event for the future.