Well, as I mentioned last week this has been a busy week of rising about 4 hours earlier than usual - and I don’t fall asleep earlier as a result - sometimes even later, so I am down around the equivalent of 2 nights worth of sleep.
The biggest chunk of this is a reenactment last weekend. For those of you who might not know what this is, my husband has always been interested in the American Revolution and I have always been interested in British history. In reenacting portrays a person (either real or imagined) from a different time period and/or place. In our case we reenact in the general American Revolution period - the 1770s- 1780s. We portray a fictious couple in the period of the “middling sort” - meaning middle class. We are members of a local unit of same which is a civilian (not military) unit. For some time the unit members have wanted to do a specific event and our new commander managed to set it up.
Normally when we do an event it is on Saturday or Sunday for 5 to 7 hours. This event was Saturday and Sunday with setup on Friday night and we were the “lead group” for several other ones that our commander convinced to join us as they were needed for this event. - No, wait, this does involve organizing, I promise.
On a personal level, we had to plan what we would do at the event - normally he talks to people as someone who prints and sells pamphlets (soft cover books) as someone from “then” and I portray his wife and demonstrate embroidery. If an event is at our headquarters we will generally end up giving tours of the house at some point during the day. For this event which involved the British army being an occupying force, neither was appropriate so we had to figure what to do instead. He would just talk to people about “the situation”. I decided to get some actual sewing that has been sitting about done. Mending was the perfect thing for the event. I was going to work on a waistcoat (vest) that no longer fit him. I had previously split the right and left sides apart and stitched the lining and front of each half together (into 2 half vest pieces). I had planned to stitch what are basically buttonholes to the back edges where the pieces should be sewn together. I managed to put all this together. As I did so I found 2 small drawstring bags (drawstring bags in all sizes can hide just about anything modern or carry anything “period” ) so I figured I would bring them along also. In addition to this we were bringing two folding reproduction stools to sit on and plate, cup and silverware each (called a mess kit it is period looking items for when eating at an event). Rather than our 2 good sized bench boxes that we use to bring lots of stuff to and store the stuff in at events we had just the folding stools and the one drawstring bag - much planning went into what went into the bag and fitting it in. The first day was to maybe raining on and off, so I put a small plastic garbage bag inside the large drawstring bag this all went into, so the stuff in the bag would not get wet if it did rain. Our stuff we brought with us on Saturday and again on Sunday.
Setup for our unit was a bit more taxing - but it was a group effort to set up and was done late Friday afternoon. We had to setup a number of tents such as lower soldiers would have - it takes 2-3 people to set up each one. Then we put up all of our “flys”. These are large tents that are only tops - we use them to have shade. Part of all of these tents were put in “our” area and the others were put in the adjacent “British army camp” to make it look like there were more of them than there would be. Where to place each component of our area and their camp had to be carefully figured and laid out. Towards the back of the area there is a barn which we had the use of (it actually dates all the way back to the 1700s) for storage and in case of rain. It was decided that the cooking fire would be near it along with two of the small tents to hide modern things in for the cooking. One of our fellows had planned out the cooking - he was cooking for all 3 areas - ahead of time and then had to have the food cooked and ready at the times set for eating. The third area mentioned was a second camp area which was near us, but hidden by trees as it was the “colonial” men who would be fighting the “British army” during the event.
During the week before our “commander” and the restoration village we were in had planned out where the “battles” were to be and worked with heavy moving equipment in a field to have it set up as it needed to be. Our commander gets the credit for much of the organization and getting the event done. Due to the possibility of rain he also had worked with restoration to have a plan in case of same. We were to go to various restored houses in the “village” and would be doing our impressions in same - he even had figured out who would go where.
We were lucky and the weather held straight through. Somehow due to the organization which had been done everything went off on schedule - people being hassled, soldiers drilling, houses being ransacked, etc. all on schedule - with some more of same not scheduled and being done impromptu. One great idea that someone had for organization was that we wanted the public who came through to participate, but did not want to scare off anyone who did not want to. Those who wanted to participate (and most apparently did) were given big red dot stickers to wear. A great idea as even without my eyeglasses (reproduction ones of course) that I had to take off to sew, I could see the dots in the distance.
On Sunday in the morning husband was told, err, asked to give a talk on the lives of loyalists (colonists who did not want to separate from Britain and were loyal to same). He put together some thoughts on same. We have not been to that end of the restoration in some years - decades(?) so I took a walk down there ahead of time so we would know where we going. When the time came for us to meander over a bit ahead of time we were amazed that as we walked past the “tavern” in the middle of the village one of the employees walked out of same with the keys needed for the house we were going to - not sure how she knew we were the ones or how she timed it so well - that is organization. She showed let us into the house and showed us how to lock it up it when we left. Some household type items had been left inside the front door to be “confiscated” (stolen) from us for being loyalists. People showed up on time to hear husband speak on the subject. Just as he was finishing the fellows who would be bothering us showed up with guns aimed at us - lectured us and were nasty to us, confiscated the items and were gone. The public followed them off to the next fight and we locked up the building - taking time to have a nice look around at what was in it. When we walked back towards the tavern I walked in with the keys and the fellow there knew which keys I was about to hand him.
At the end of the day Sunday - exhausted but happy all took down the “camps” and packed their personal and unit stuff away. Everything had been organized well and nothing had been overlooked - what a wonderful thing and it was only the first time we organized something this big - our commander was in contact in advance with the other commanders and individuals who came.
Just when we thought there had been no problems - we could not lock the house we were in front of, had use of and had given tours of as we did not have the key. The key sits in special place in the house (good organization idea) so it does not get lost and all who work in it know where it is. For some reason someone had given the key to someone, who had given it to someone else who, apparently, had given it in at the office - and the office had closed a couple of hours before. We managed to get someone there for security from the county public safety (restoration is county owned) to come and he was going to try to find the key or contact someone who would know where it was - so we had done the responsible thing and not just gone off and left the house unlocked.
I am still tired on Wednesday night - but thanks to the organization of everyone involved it was a great event and there has already been a decision to do it again next year.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
When something big has to be organized it helps to have a group of people working on it. Planning should start enough in advance to not have to rush at the end. Different (reliable) people should be put in charge of different parts of what needs to be done (such as one person in charge of the food and cooking). The possible problems that may arise should be considered (in our case - what if it rained and we could not be outside). And then one needs to keep one’s head if something arises - such as the missing house key.
Due to how well the event was planned it not only was great fun for us, but the public liked it, the village/county was pleased enough to invite us back to do it again, and in the case of something like this - no one got hurt and nothing was damaged.
Next week is a holiday here in the U.S. which is sort of related to all this - our Independence Day which started the fighting. In case I don’t get a chance to post - although I plan to - a happy holiday to those here in the U.S.
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