Belegarth

September first, labor day, Streator is having it's annual Labor Day parade. To try and promote our realm and Belegarth, Knightfall would like to be in this parade. However, few of our members seem to be willing and even less have their own garb. Advice? Formation Ideas? Marching Ideas? Right now anything would be appreciated. Thanks in advance,

When we did the fourth of July parade in Elgin, I believe we had about 15-17 people. We had several people walking along the curbs on either side of the street passing out fliers while a couple of people carried the banner at the front of the group. The remainder of the people were in the middle of the street and constantly rotated out at sparring in pairs. As soon as one pair was done, then the next pair moved up. The fighting wasn't necessarily about being technical but more about making it visually interesting to the crowd. We screamed a bit, whumped the shields with our swords, and did a few flashy things like the occasional spin or shield kick to catch peoples' eyes. You want to convey to people that Belegarth is an unchoreographed full-contact game/sport without having someone actually describe what's happening.

We didn't quite get it down but fighting to any three hits and then rotating out should work fairly well. The trick is that you have to keep moving forward while sparring so that you don't get too far away from the group in front of you. If the gap gets too big, then you end up having to play a game of catch-up. If people get tired, have them rotate out with the people carrying the banner or passing out fliers. I believe that the route was maybe 1-1 1/2 miles but interspersing all-out sparring with almost constant movement left me pretty pooped. It was definitely a solid workout.

Make sure you bring water and/or Gatorade along especially if it's hot that day.

Hope this helps.

P.S. Could someone from Dunharrow comment on how successful the parade was for recruiting?

Check this out, it is a scenario battle called Parade battle Convenient, no?

http://www.geddon.org/index.php/Parade

Thanks for the help, a trip to good will is now in order. Most of our members don't have garb. I think I need to start enforcing that somehow. I heard a "no garb, no light hit or garb" calls. sounds like it could make a few people get into some garb. Thanks for the help again. Could someone post a like of the 4th of July parade Dunharrow was in? I need some Ideas for formations.

Kyrian really has it down, that's exactly what we did. It's not a "formation." I don't even know what you mean by that, a formation would mean people in a static location, IE: no fighting. That's bad.

The parade has been a HUGE success. Let me tell you, we've had zero recruitment (maybe a fighter or 2) for 3 years. Our practices went from about 20 to about 4. Since the parade we've had more people come out than I can count, probably about 40, to try it at least once. We have a group of about 10 make it to every other practice or so, and about 3 or 4 die hards, of which I expect 2 will become long term fighters.

For those that don't know, for a recruitment drive, that's an amazing success.

We used my flier for our flier (which can be found in this forum) and surprisingly the email address has been dead. I received 1 E-mail from a 12 year old kid.

But yah, pass out fliers, get in garb, fight. Try to have people come from Wolfpack or up near us, and try to have out more than just white nerdy teenagers (no offense, I don't really know the demographics of your realm) the more variety of fighters you have, the better the chance that someone will go "Hey, I look like that guy, maybe I COULD do this." My one regret with the parade was that we didn't have very many young fighters. All but about 2 fighters in our realm is older than 21 and then we have guys like Tibby Bo and Kyrian who are pushing ancient.

all good ideas . i am up for "parade" formation also .

i am in this group and we have been having growing pains as it is . keep posting if any one has more ideas. it would be awesome if any one from wolf pack or another realm could come .

we need to meet at the illinois train depot in streator at 9:30 am on sept 1st labor day . the parade starts at 11:00 am . it is not a long route . thus is a pretty small small town . we could use some help from ppl in garb . if there are any realms who can assist - we need you for this one .you would give us a terrific boost .

thurat is right many of us do not have garb yet . we have many newbies and are growing now .
we are an hour out of bloomington -normal . 20 minutes out of ottawa almost two hours from elgin. an hour from rockford. having fighters show up from other realms would be a real treat for the crowd and highly inspirational for our many newbs.we so need you !

so if you are not busy on labor day in the morning please come in garb . if you can come 2 days early -
SATURDAY 8-30
we have a very large cruise night with 600 plus cars with a band at the eagles club saturday night after the cruise night is done .

Sunday
a car show during the day
we have belegarth practices at Marilla park at 3:30 - come and join in the destruction and mayhem and adventure .
Monday
the parade is sept 1st AM. it will be a fun weekend from sat night to monday day .
if any belegarth ppl come in for this please let thurat or me know .
we will give you a warm welcome .

I absolutely agree. It would be greatly appreciated if anyone could help us out here. I don't know what kind of compensation we could afford, but I'm sure there's someway we could make something work out. If you can help, my e-mail is

dark_raider22@yahoo.com

my cell phone(text only): 1-815-579-0613
I have unlimited texting

Again, I deeply thank anyone who is willing or able to help, and to everyone that has submitted information so far.

Big Jimmy wrote:... and Kyrian who are pushing ancient.

Yah. But trying to keep up with all you youngins keeps me young in spirit even if my body disagrees with me...

Mama Knightfall and Thurat, getting people into garb can be a real challenge but it's an importatnt part of Belegarth. To me, garb is the "uniform" of Belegarth, albeit one that can be customized to your heart's content. It's one of the things that really makes us stand out from "people beating each other with padded sticks". To continue with the sports analogy, what happens if a person on a sports team doesn't show up in uniform? Usually, they're not allowed to play or end up getting singled out with some sort of "creative" punishment...As far as encouraging people to wear garb, one option I've heard of is to limit the person to a certain weapon style such as single blue sword or dagger.

One thing that was done in Wolfpack to encourage garb is to schedule garbing days, typically on Saturdays. We would get a bunch of people to bring over their sewing machines to one place, take people shopping for fabric, and provide them with inspiration/guidance in how to turn their garb ideas into reality. The key here is not to have the garbers do all the work for people but to show people how to make garb. Basic garb really is not that complicated or difficult to put together. It can be as simple as a pair of earth-colored sweats (about $8.00 at Walmart the last time I checked), a basic T-tunic which, at its simplest, is four total stitches, and a rope belt.

it is not looking good for the parade . i found help with the marching end of it but the help was dismissed by thurat . there was no practice and it is not probably going to come off well . there is not a lot i can do alone without cooperation . every idea i came up with is falling by the way side due to lack of support .

bump

(Deleted)

the parade was not forced as much as the leadership was not willing to do what it took to be ready for this event . the sole leader agreed to go ahead with this parade then decided that it wasn't meant to be .
nothing was forced .just a lack of commitment more than anything else
it is true that this is basically a good time group who is not too serious about growth or recruitment .

The leadership qualities of your leader is probably a discussion best made in private.

maybe so in view of some of the outside world sector.
that is how things go on unchanged , by ignoring it , burying it or submerging it because it is not a pleasant topic .

lol, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying it's a private matter, and not something to spill all over the Belegarth boards. We don't want to hear about your realms drama.

Really. You guys have to understand that this isn't your realm's board, your state's board or even your region's board.

This is the board for the entirety of Belegarth. There's no reason to publicly air any dirty laundry. All realms have it from time to time, and it's not something for public forums, especially one such as this.

If you guys want a private realm forum, send me a PM and I'll get you one set up.

the parade is over and our belegarth group did not enter , so this is a moot point now . i hear you though and feel that this will take time to heal .there is little else that can be done right now in any case.