Date: Mon, 10 Jan 94 12:22:12 EST
From: kathy@xn.ll.mit.edu
Message-Id: <9401101722.AA25665@lugh.mi.ll.mit.edu>
To: carolingia@bloom-beacon.mit.edu, north@bransle.ucs.mun.ca
Subject: Birka news and clarifications


First, the good news.  We are definitely going to have venison for Birka.
We found a commercial supplier who carries it.  It's not cheap, but the 
head chef managed to stretch her budget to cover it.  It will be the last
dish brought out, so save some room.  Portions on the venson will be small
however, due to the cost.

If anyone wants the name and phone # of the supplier, I will be glad to 
get it for you.  They are a wholesale distributor, and require that you 
entire meat order be 100 lbs. or more, which probably makes them impractical
for small events.  Interestingly enough, the venison is imported from New
Zealand, because that allows them to bypass all the regulations here forbidding
the sale of venison.  Apparently even if you go out and shoot a deer 
legally, you can't legally sell the meat.  You can only give it away.

We got a couple of somewhat disturbing phone calls this weekend from 
people who had gotten the idea that they might not be able to come if they
didn't have one of the new blue cards, or that they might not be able to 
bring non-member guests.  If you hear this from anyone, please straighten 
them out.  First, you most certainly do not have to be a member to attend
the event. 

Second, you do *not* have to sign the *new* membership waiver to 
attend the event.  The text of the new waiver is clearly appropriate only
to actually becoming a member.  Since neither the Board nor the Kingdom 
Seneschal have published a new text for the site waiver, we will be using
the old one if you don't have a membership card.  If you have a membership
card of any sort, you won't  need to sign a waiver at all.  

The Master of Lists will be checking memberships as well as authorizations
for fighters, so be sure you have your paperwork with you if you want to 
fight.  He will accept a photo-copy of your signed new waiver/membership 
application if you haven't gotten your blue card yet.  Just be sure you 
bring an extra copy that he can keep.  

There are still on-board reservations left, and unless we get a sudden 
flood, there will probably be a few on sale at the site.  The head chef
is cooking for 300 on the assumption that the feast will be at least 
mostly full.  If you want to send in reservations, you can probably still
get them in in time if you get them in the mail by tomorrow.  After that
it's iffy.  If you want to try sending them after that, I'd suggest 
enclosing a SASE so we can send you back the uncashed check if it ends
up arriving after the event.  

His Royal Majesty wants to fight, so court will not be starting until
approximately 5:00.  There are 24 items of business planned for court
at the moment, plus probably some that got postponed because the people
involved didn't make it to 12th night, so we're not planning dinner till
7:00.  On the plus side, since court isn't in the same space as dinner,
we will be able to go directly from court to seating people for dinner, 
without needing to spend time on reshuffling the hall.

There will be even more merchants than last year, so bring your money.
If you're a merchant and you haven't reserved space already, I'm afraid
you're out of luck.  The space for merchants is already bulging at the 
seams.  

If anyone has other questions about Birka, drop me a note and I'll try
to answer them, or pass them along to the autocrat (who is my room-mate).

						A'isha


A'isha bint Jamil, Chronicler, Barony of Stonemarche, in the Kingdom of the East
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kathryn L. Smith	    System Administrator 		[The text above is
MIT Lincoln Laboratories    617-981-2060			my personal opinion,
Lexington, MA		    INTERNET: KSMITH@LL.MIT.EDU        not MIT/LL policy]