The Creative Chatelain

This section is for all our really neat ideas about how to bring our creative sides to our office work. Anything from neat organizing tips, to hand-made office regalia, and cool website stuff can be listed here. Send in your ideas by sending us an email!!!

• Hand-calligraphed and illuminated follow-up cards, even better if done by your deputy or a scribal person. Be sure they are easy to read!
• Create little pins or pendants, small pieces of jewelry, belt favors, etc..for Chatelaine favors/tokens for those newcomers who have done something nice or those established members who have done service for your office.
• Create a large round with the Chatelaine Heraldry on it for display at events or public meetings.
• Create baldrics for those who help you at events or demos, with either the heraldy for the office or a question mark, so that the public knows those people are the ones to go to with questions.
• Use your local group's email list to send monthly reminders to newcomers and established members about your office resources, meetings, policies, URL, and to welcome new members.
• Save or collect copies of the Pennsic Merchant's Guide and Program to demonstrate to Newcomers where they can get SCA gear and the scope of the SCA.

• Hospitality is not just part of our title, hospitaller. In Old French, the word "chatelaine" refers to the person, most times a woman, who controls the keys the to storeroom and is in charge of an estate's hospitality. Some Chatelaine's refer to this as the "care and feeding of Newcomers", but I feel we are also to encompass the hospitality of our local group extended toward our members and our neighboring members.
• Offer a welcome booth at events, that has some amenities for those who might have forgotten them at home, like extra toiletries, suntan lotion, bug spray, and emergency sewing kit. Perhaps event some snacks. I usually put out a few summer sausages, crackers, and spreadable cheese for anyone to snack on while they stop by the booth. My group, usually by default, makes sure there are free drinks for everyone, so I try to compliment that effort. --Fru Ellisif of Endless Hills
• Offer a tea party, luncheon, or social gathering at events for newcomers and/or out-of-town guests, preferrably early in the day, so that you could talk about what they could see that day at the event. You could also make sure everyone has what they need at that point, thereby, hopefully avoiding a run on Gold Key later in the day and perhaps at the last moment. --Fru Ellisif of Endless Hills

• Collect used, but still in good condition, camping equipment for newcomers to use and to round out your Gold Key.
• See if you can get some old sewing machines to loan out or rent out to newcomers who are interested in learning to sew. Even if you cannot collect or keep them physically, maybe there is someone in your group who has an extra sewing machine that would not mind lending out or renting out.
• When organizing your Gold Key, you can seperate things out by complete outfit and repack the outfit as one unit (tunic, pants, belt, accessories or blouse, skirt, belt, accessories). This way you have outfits buy different sizes and personas and all packed in their own bags, so they are easy to find and pull out.
• To take the above idea one step further, once you have an outfit assembled, photograph it. This way you can make a pictoral catalog a Newcomer can browse through when deciding which outfit to wear. In the caption for the picture for the outfit include the size of the outfit, and a rough idea of the time period and culture of the outfit.

• Create a packet of information for potential demo hosts. Icluded in this packet could be, an information pamphlet about your local group and the SCA, a pamphlet about how your local group ususally conducts and decides to take on demos, a list of demo programs your local group can do, copies of photos or newspaper photos from a previous demo , and copies of thank you notes from past demo hosts.
• Make sure to follow up a demo with a workshop or class geared toward the target audience of the demo. This way at the demo you can advertise for a workshop at the demo which will be interesting and geared toward the audience of the demo. For instance, at a Boy Scouts of America demo, a local chatelain can plan for a follow-up workshop about youth fighting or archery in the SCA. Or, for a demo that involves people interested in the Arts and Science, a local chatelain can arrange to have a class or workshop about a period art, like illumination, or a introduction class for the scope of Period Arts. Make sure to plan the class or workshop within a week or two of the demo, so that potential new members won't lose interest before being able to attend an SCA function.
• Save all Thank you notes from past demo hosts and newspaper photos, for references to provide to future demo hosts. If a potential demo hosts sees that organization so-and-so raved about a demo of ours, the potential demo host might be more willing and enthusiastic to work with your group.
• Take a good look at what your local members like to do, and work with them to try and create demo programs about specific subjects to future demos. This way, you can create a local brochure for potential demo hosts with the demos topics and subjects you already have worked out. It is easier to modifiy a program to suit specific needs, than to quickly have to create a whole new one! It will also make your local group appear prepared and professional to the potential demo host and help them set their expectations of the demo based on each program's description.