It's my idea so I'll start!
I'm based in Hampshire on the southcoast of Britian
I live in a small town called Ringwood between Southampton and Bournemouth!

Lets Here the rest of you now!

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For God, King and Lancaster

I'm Anne-Marie Rousseau
I live in Ballard, the Scandanavian Ghetto waterfront Neighborhood of Seattle Washington (that's up in the far upper left corner of the US, about two hours south of Canada for you non-US folks ). I'm the wrangler for La Maisnie, a small but enthusiastic group of folks trying to recreate the household staff and servants of Antoine le grand Batard de Bourgogne

I live in Eastleigh in Hampshire, England

We are a Continental company who mustered for the battle of Leige. Charles liked us so much we were given a cushy billet, but now he's sent us to England to help fight his brother-in-law's war. We're some of those Yorkist you have trouble consuming...

Though I have noticed that some of us Yanks (I'm a Southerner (where's the accent?) so this term does not apply to me ) tend to use the British spellings.

I'm a Scadian, though I'm currently begining the process of building my own LH company and kit circa. 1470's More likely Burgundian than not.

LOCAL BOY!!!!

I'm in Ringwood!

I can Almost Spit on you from here!

What period do you "Do"

Lets meet up for a Beer at some point soon!

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For God, King and Lancaster

The Red Company doesn't believe that an educational group has to work for free, and will happily work for money, since we like toys and none of us have a rich uncle.

We are currently happily anticipating collecting 50% of the cost of our long-anticipated cannon for participating at the Age of Chivalry Ren Faire in Las Vegas.

We are also INCREDIBLY jealous that you have that many people!!! *sigh*

The rest of the kit is ready. Hopefully, I will be able to join Geoffrey at the horse park and try my hand at STEEL!, GOOD OLD STEEL! (sorry, CaliburnusUK)

Robert Coleman, Jr.

I have made some re-organizational suggestions to Jenn, and it seems that she will be moving things around a bit this weekend.

If all goes well, there should be a new forum available on Monday or thereabouts:

NEW: Reinventing the Medieval-A place to discuss modern interpretations of the medieval- period movies, jousting shows, examine how we approach reenactment as modern people, discuss the running of groups, compare groups, etc.

I'll look forward to picking your brain about it in the new forum next week!

Steel is the only way to fight........

Have several books on the subject as well as grant books and fundraising.

FYI, taking money really isn't an issue if your group is small and you do things just for the sake of doing them. After subsidizing the Red Co. and it's attending mountains of kit to the tume of countless thousands of dollars, Jeff and I decided that we couldn't afford it. When we found out that the local SCA was being paid real money to give demos, we decided to cash in. Shoot- we give a kick-butt demo and actually know what we're talking about. It costs money to feed the horse, it costs money to trailer her around to demos, printing costs money, new tents cost money, samples given out at demos cost money, so we started making ourselves available for demos at a price. The schools are thrilled to have us, but as it stands the income gets added onto Jeff and my income, and WE have to pay taxes on it. Once again, it's costing us money to do this. When it was a couple hundred dollars a year it was no big deal, but now we're talking thousands, and I don't want to be liable for the taxes.

La Belle Companie set themselves up as a non-profit several years ago and it works for them. It is a common misunderstanding that a non-profit cannot charge money for demos- that's not right. What is right is that the organization does not exist/operate solely to make a profit. If what money comes in goes into maintaining the company's viability (what I'm talking about), there's no foul. If you wind up with gajillions of $$$$ in the bank at the end of the year you'll have to explain it, but that's not what any of us are after. We only want our groups to be self-supporting. It would also help our people if what they invest in gear to participate (clothing, tents, etc) was a tax write off, instead of taxable.

Non-profits were established to serve groups like ours, I don't feel that I'm doing anything underhanded or "dirty" by wanting to file as non-profit and taking the tax exemption.

You're talking to the woman who owns 2 houses and therefore pays school taxes twice-- and we don't have any kids. I want the system to work FOR me for once!!!

But I digress...... we can talk about this on the new forum next week-- along with DOCUMENTATION!!

Gwen

Bob and I would like the system to work for us as well as we have found out that horses cost money to keep, to train, and travel, though we haven't crossed the traveling bridge yet. Websites cost money. Something else I would like to take off my personal expense account and place under the auspices of a NPO.

Bob and I don't have kids either, yet we still pay for public schools. I wish we could claim our horses and cats as dependents, since they are and certainly eat like it!!!

We also found out the the local SCA gets paid to do demos. Made my hair stand on end.

For now we shall keep the NPO and stuff with another forum, but I think we are mussing up Caliburnus' "where y'all from" thread.

We're developing a early medieval group, maybe celebrating Leif Erikson Day in October.

And yes, Ramona is beautiful. I have some confederates down there.

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"Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph."

Sure is, and we're fighting to keep it out of the hands of bloody greedy developers who want to turn the place into a gigantic paved parking lot.

I have some confederates down there.

Anybody we know?

Small world, ain't it?