Belegarth

I may be wrong, but it since no one seems interested in posting anything involving Armageddon VII, it only makes it seem more apparent that no one is interested in our "national event" anymore. So my question (as stated in the subject line) What will happen to War Council? I mean, isn't Armageddon our annual, face-to-face meeting place? Or are there plans to greatly improve the internet "meetings" on the boards? Or do we plan to push to get Armageddon VII on the block so people can make plans?

I don't believe there was an actual War Council of the last 2 'geddons.

Also, I don't really know of much "Belegarth" can do to make 'Geddon happen. A realm (or 2 or 3) needs to step up, we can't force it on anyone.

we have 2 national events, armageddon, and chaos wars.

There are 2 ways to approach this.

1) Wait for 1-3 realms to step up and run it. You can then fight with this every year.
2) The BoD can organize the event and run it with volunteer labor from multiple sources.

My vote would be to have the BoD run the event. Then you know every year who will be running the event from the get go. People are much easier to get to volunteer, rather than realms.

War council will always be done online at this point, since that is the only true way to be all inclusive.

Cedric is right to a degree. We have 2 national events in theory. However, only one event actually contributes to the BMCS treasury which is why ARM is so important to do in some capacity. Without ARM we will have to resort to another form of fund raising. If someone has any ideas about how to do that in such a way that you will get participation from all the realms, I am more than willing to listen.

Cedric wrote:we have 2 national events, armageddon, and chaos wars.

True, Cedric, and I wasn't trying to imply Armageddon was the only one. It's just that (as far as I knew) Armageddon was where WC was held.
Believe me, Angmarth, I know from experience how difficult it is to get people to volunteer their time. We could go round and round about this, but the discussion of how to get people to volunteer seems to have been discussed to death in earlier threads. Everyone has some good ideas, but in the end, if no one is willing to step up then all the advice in the world is moot.
I suppose as long as all realms are represented on the WC boards then it should be a reasonable substitute.

"reasonable substitute" is what WC at an event should be... boards should be the primary place. If this organization is making changes that effect the whole organization, then all that have speaking/voting rights within the organization should have the ability to do so, not just those that happen to make it to whatever event that year.

Simple example: WA/OR/ID/UT/CA should not make decisions for OH/MA/DC etc etc at ChaoMagedNarok without their input.

-bort

I like this idea of our BoD running armageddon, but is that something that we can just drop on their lap?

I had a discussion about a large number of individuals volunteering to run the event vs a couple of groups, and what it came down to in my opinion is that groups already work well together and individuals might not.

I've heard talk about setting up a list of volunteer work (Feast leader, feast helper x 5, volunteering for blocks of heralding, volunteer for security one night with so many people per night) and letting people sign up for very specific things, but that's hard to plan by the time we book the park. I don't know if I'm going to 'Geddon yet, so I can't volunteer for anything yet, which I think is the case for most people...

does any of this make sense?

Joyous is making alot of head way in the planning of geddon. He and i have been in contact several times about this event. i will call him and see what is the latest from the front.

in the end he and i will probibly step up and run it again.

War Council should be held at events for the purposes of emergencies and event planning only. National War Council with the intent to produce changes in policy, rule sets, or voting rights should be an online only affair, which was the intention of the original Online War Council By-laws. Having WC online is the only fair means to allow for representation of realms across the country.

Point well taken, Xooyan. I recall that the original intent for WC (back in the day before the split) was "supposed" to be to decide who would run the next national event. It would probably be a good thing to return it to something close to its original purpose. I think what's happening is, most people are finally beginning to see how much work actually goes into running an event; even a small one. It's too bad we can't get volunteers from all attending realms since it is a 'national' event and everyone should help it run. <shrug>
However, my question has been answered. I'm glad to know that things will carry on in cyberspace, offering a place for everyone to be involved in the voting process.

so is arm happening and when and where.

Elwrath wrote:so is arm happening and when and where.

As of right now, no. No one has volunteered to run it.

If Bo and Joyous want to run it, I think that's awesome. I would also propose that maybe we cut it down to a 5 day event, and start on Wednesday instead of Monday. I'm sorry, but it just seems that Monday and Tuesday are kinda slack days.

so news from the front.
Location is at forest glen at the moment. May change based on availibility, but for now lets go with it.

i went to wolf pack to fight and make some armor for some newbs. I talked with joyous about arm for about a half hour or so.

1. it will be a thursday fri sat event. sin night will be on thursday night
2. it will be in mid july. Dispite what everybody complains about, it was hotter at octfest then at geddon this year.
3. Joyous and I will be running the administrative end of the event. There are still things like security and troll and heralding to take care of.

Things that need volunteers for,

1. troll, we need a sign up sheet for troll at geddon. 4 hour shifts starting at 9 am til 10 pm. i will take care of late comers getting them codes and such. this always ends up with people getting burned out just sitting around, so lets set 2 people at all times. Please sign up as a pair so i don't have to listen to I don't like so and so so i want to switch.
2. heralding- this could be done on a day by day basis. or we could do a sheet again. hellhammer has talked about helping out so this would be an area that they can be of great assistance. ( at least 6 per day so breaks can be had)
3. security- i will be making rounds every day and night as last year, so it should be fine, but i was always able to have a few escorts around when i did it.( 4 or 5 per night)
4. feasts, i believe i will be doing chicken pesto again for friday feast, saturday feast is for joyous to determine. ( figure 5 people for mine and 8 for joyous)
5. weapons check- is never a problem, we have squires and lots of qualified people, but it never hurts to have more.
6. sin night, i need a master sinner. Last year katina had lots of help and did an amazing job. so lets try to get someone to do as good of a job as she did last year.

That should cover everything i need from others. i will have my truck to do all the running around, last year i put 2 tanks of gas in it just to get stuff to and from the event.

Lastly the feild, do we want the castle and city fields set up? Last year this was the bulk of the work. If we don't to the castle we cout do more with a hay bale field. I am up for either.

this sounds awesome...if dates happen and everything is sound ill be there and probably with some more from out west. Also ill help herald for sure.

chaos wars is tentativley scheduled for the end of july. I think 21-27th of july is what I heard, scine I am not running CW this year.

"6. sin night, i need a master sinner. Last year katina had lots of help and did an amazing job. so lets try to get someone to do as good of a job as she did last year. "

What is Sin Night? and what dose a Sin master do? I am pretty good at sinnin'

Do we really want 2 large scale events to be within 2 weeks of one another and compete for attendance???

no we don't, but with july 4th and Rag in the same area there is a limited amout of time to hold events.

While there is some cross over, CW and ARM do not compete with each other directly. I would guess there are at most 30 people who might attend both. While the situation may not be ideal this year, I think that Bo & Joyous are going to do a fantastic job with what is available.

I think that it sounds great, given the short amount of time with booking and preparation. Great job, people

Thanks for stepping up when no else could.. I mean no offense or disrespect for those busting their * to put Arm together but I would love to see the East/Middle America crowd to use their resources to make it out to support the awesome event that is Chaos Wars.. Maybe we could discuss this for next year and it's just a thought.

I agree that more people should make an effort to make the trip West to Chaos Wars.

Octoberfest's attendance proves that it should be the main Eastern Belegarth event of the year.

BTW: Summer War 2008: July 31st- August 3rd... this is also going to be cutting close

im planning on attending both arm and choas. I hope that more people will come out to choas (which grows and is a greater event each year) but i don't want to see arm disappear and i'm really glad you guys are putting it together...the closer to the beginning of july the better, but hey thanks for just making it happen at all.

If Octoberfest "replaced" 'Geddon, then where would Belegarth get any money? 'Geddon has to exist for the organization to survive. Unless Numinor wants to start handing profits to Bel....

What was Arm's attendance last year ?

250 people signed in at troll. this was before the end of the event but it was about 11: am on saturday, so not too many were coming after that.

Lord Onyx wrote:Thanks for stepping up when no else could.. I mean no offense or disrespect for those busting their * to put Arm together but I would love to see the East/Middle America crowd to use their resources to make it out to support the awesome event that is Chaos Wars.. Maybe we could discuss this for next year and it's just a thought.

I think many western folks have asked to discuss Arm dates and info, especially with regards to Chaos planning, for the last two years in a row if not more. It's been made clear multiple times that western attendance of Arm and non-interference with western event planning is not a priority for those East of the Mississippi. It seems more important for IL events to be scheduled around Dagorhir events (which should never be a factor in Belegarth event planning) than to be scheduled around the events of fellow Belegrim.

At times like this, when I see two midwest events (Arm and Summer Wars) being planned within a month of each other and surrounding the dates of Chaos Wars, I wonder what the point of our little organization is if not mutual support and organization. Is this really supportive? Sure, some of you will say "But no one here goes to Chaos Wars" and other of you will say "We haven't seen much Western attendance for the last few years so why plan for them." Maybe one of these days you'll recognize that it's this exact mentality that prevents increased attendance from members in different geographical locations. If we don't plan for EACH OTHER, this will never change.

Angmarth wrote:While there is some cross over, CW and ARM do not compete with each other directly. I would guess there are at most 30 people who might attend both. While the situation may not be ideal this year, I think that Bo & Joyous are going to do a fantastic job with what is available.

With all due respect, 30 people is more than 10% of the attendance of both events, which is a significant amount. Also, though I applaud the efforts of those willing to put the work in, the situation has been less than ideal for more than just the last year. I would say it's been less than ideal for at least 3 years. However, I'm sure that we'll fail to have this discussion again this year and likely continue to repeat the scenario for years to come. After all, we've shown no signs of broaching it in any realistic fashion thus far.

I'm concerned about how we could actually make both dates work for everyone.

Do you have any suggestions Xooyan?

Assuming the following:

1) We ignore when Ragnarok and other events are scheduled.
2) We need at least 1 month between ARM and CW.
3) Both ARM and CW are during the summer.

If we put ARM in June and CW in August (as it has been in the past I believe) that would solve the problem. I'm assuming that we will just ignore any other events scheduled during that time. Perhaps we could get Belegarth groups to simply not schedule anything during June or August, in order to reserve those months for CW and ARM. Thoughts?

Does the profits from Chaos Wars get contributed to "belegarth inc" in anyway?

As far as I know, 'Geddon is the only means of income for our originsation. And while we do miss out on western or eastern events that are planned near eachother, I don't think 'Geddon loses nearly as much money as it does getting planned near Rag. I'm just trying to look at it from an economic standpoint.

There will be eastern and western event comflicts. I understand the idea that 'Geddon and Chaos should conflict as little as possible, but the east has all kinda of events the jockey for calender space. But every group sees running it's own event as "the next level" and their are only so many weekends a year. As long as every group TRIES to run an event, there will be overlap.

I split this topic because we were having a good discussion that should be held in the general war council forum. Please continue talking about the national event recognition there.

http://belegarth.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=25218
Here's a link to that discussion.

I understand the distress for this issue. Everyyear we do the same run around and it seems that no one will ever be totally happy. I ask this question, is there a plan that all 3 events( rag, arm and chaos) Can be without conflict. Chaos is in early august, if it was moved to late august that would help the problem. if arm was moved to late june then rag gets scheduled over it, or within a week of it.

sure i would love to say that rag doesn't matter, but if you had an event near by that was twice the size of chaos, you would think twie about schuduling near it as it would hurt your attendence. Many many fighters here go to both events. Why should i cast them aside in preference for western support, not that the west is less important. What I am saying it is an either/or situation, it stinks cause i want to have awesome events with hundreds of people every where.


this year is on us already, lets talk about next year.
When do you want chaos next year?
i would like to have arm the weekend after fuly 4th this would be the 8th through the 12. is this a problem?

Chaos dates are decided at every chaos during a chaos issues WC (something that should be done for arm).

Moving Chaos to later in august conflicts with school, something that people can't get out of. It was moved earlier this year to get away from school and because Arm didn't have dates yet. In reality Chaos is a more established event than Arm is with equal or better attendance and asking it to move for arm is unjustified.

If arm stays as a weekend event we it will be in less competition with rag because everyone knows we throw one hell of a weekend event.

If we cannot get each of the three events evenly spaced out, then why not let rag and chaos overlap (since there is some distance between them anyway), and let arm be on its own? That way there is no conflict between the Belegarth events, and there is also no conflict between rag and arm, which are closer together.

In reality Chaos is a more established event than Arm is with equal or better attendance and asking it to move for arm is unjustified.

If arm had been randomly placed atop chaos, and then chaos was forced out of the way, then yes, that would be unjustified. As it is, everyone should seek a better solution for everyone. With that in mind, it's pretty irrelevant which event was around first, or has larger attendance. If the sport as a whole can benefit from either event being moved, that event should be moved.

Let's try and keep this from turning into an east v west battle. We're all on the same team here, eh? (I can't say I'm biased... I've never gone to any of these three events).

The problem with trying not to turn it into an east vs. west battle is that the western groups are not accommodating another organizations event with the movement of theirs and arm was moved for that purpose. expecting Chaos to move is a bad way to go. It make people from the west feel like the east cares more about the members of Dag than it cares about them. That is not a good thought to foster because it leads to resentment, and that is the last thing we need between the east and west. Also Chaos is set up to try to work with a quarterly system that most colleges are on in the west.

inall fairness,*edit* armegeddon *dates were moved cause the event was failing.
secondly i was not expecting chaos to move its dates at all. I was asking if that was possible. and for school purposes it was nto, i understand that.

what about this idea?
this year we will have a comment card to fill out at troll. this will decide the dates for arm. let the people that go to the event decide what dates are the best.