Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 16:50:54 EDT
From: cent@tower.lcs.mit.edu (Pandora Berman)
Message-Id: <9307072050.AA01491@tower.lcs.mit.edu>
To: carolingia@bloom-beacon.mit.edu
Subject: pennsic camping -- group size

From what I hear, Fast Eddie, this year's Pennsic land magnate, did not
include the information concerning group sizes in his mailing to encampment
coordinators.  Nor has he published it in Pikestaff, nor is it mentioned in
the Pre-Pennsic booklet, which this year is an issue of the Pale.

As it happens, -last- year's initial mailing to encampment organizers (last
year Johan ran a land allotment process involving several mail exchanges
before Pennsic) also did not include this information, nor did the
Pre-Pennsic booklet, nor did any of the late spring or summer Pikestaves.
But if you dig back to the March 1992 Pikestaff, you will find a notice
from Herr Johan, mentioning that it is a repeat of the announcement printed
in the -January- Pikestaff of that year, which lists the sizes:

		Small means 30 or fewer people
		Medium means more than 30 but fewer than 91
		Large means more than 90 but fewer than 151
		Groups larger than 150 people were not allowed

Since Viscount Edward Zifran has announced that he's reusing the block map
from last year, it may well be reasonable to assume that he's using the
same group sizes as well.

Speaking of which: someone asked me at Council this week what the
right-hand column on the back of the block map means.  That is a residue of
Joahn's land allotment scheme last year.  He decided that some blocks were
of such regular and uneventful territory that they could probably be split
into encampments without people having to be on site to see where the
uncamp-able spots were -- for instance, much of the Great Serengeti fell
into this category.  So when encampment coordinators had been assigned to
their blocks, those whose blocks fell into this category were also informed
that if all the coordinators for that block agreed, they could conduct what
Johan referred to as a block party by mail.  That is, the encampment
coordinators for that block were permitted to arrange how to split the
block among their groups, in advance, by mail, phone, or other means
convenient to them; they were required to provide Johan with a map showing
their arrangement a couple of weeks before the Land Rush date.  For those
blocks where the coordinators tried but couldn't reach an agreement, or
where some coordinators were unwilling to try this process, or where the
territory was just too various for this to work well, Johan required that
all the coordinators for the block be at the Land Rush to view the block
and split it up.  The incentive for pre-planning the split was that not all
the encampment coordinators for the block had to attend the Land Rush;
instead, merely two Block reps could be there to rope off the block into
encampments.
    As might be obvious from this explanation, that right-hand column
indicates blocks that definitely or possibly could be split by Mail, and
those that had to be split On Site.

Eowyn