A Message from the Kingdom Youth Armored Combat Marshal

Greetings from the Kingdom of Northshield youth combat marshal. I am Lord Armond, for those of you that don't know me here is a little background. I have been in the SCA for over 13 years and have lived in many different kingdoms. For the last 10 years I have been living and playing in Northshield and my family and I love it. I have been a heavy fighter ever since joining and became a heavy marshal some 5 years ago. Since my kids wanted to fight just like dad, I decided to become a youth marshal for a better understanding and helping the kids enjoy fighting as much as I do. I have had some great teacher and have been involed with the youth program since the beginning. I am very excited now that we are our own kingdom and our youth fighters are off to a great start. Please remember we are still are in our infincey with room to grow, but thanks to the Middle kingdom's hard work, we are off and running. Please take the time to say hello to me when you get the chance, and feel free to ask any questions you like. With contined knowledge we will be able to fine tune our program and make it more enjoyable for everyone.

I have added this direct from the Northshield armored combat handbook this sums up our job nicly:

My friend, Viscount Myles Blackheath, had some excellent words in the Middle Kingdom Marshal's Handbook, which he said I could use.

"Marshals have a tough job. They give up their own fun time to make sure the activity runs well for others. This not only involves the usual matters of set-up, break-down, clean-up, administration, and the actual conduct of the activity itself, but the unpleasant business of safety inspections, rules enforcement, dispute arbitration, and when things go really wrong, crisis management. They do all this while juggling their responsibilities to the Event Stewards (who are the real-world legal authority), the Crown, the various layers of the Marshallate, and last but certainly not least, the participants on whose behalf they're going to all this trouble for. Sometimes their efforts are unappreciated and on mercifully rare occasions, actively resented. One of the best marshals I know signs his letters with an excerpt from a song:

"Their safety rests upon my skill
Their lives are in my hands
I take it for a sacred trust
And they rarely understand."

Fortunately the overwhelming majority of our participants have the good sense to let the marshals do their (unpaid) jobs or have the imagination to vividly see what could happen in but a heartbeat's time- if the marshals weren't there. History is full of incidents of people breaking their necks from falling off horses. Our rattan swords don't have to have an edge to deliver fatal blunt trauma. Blades break in fencing. Arrows go astray, and don't need bodkin points to kill.

I don't know if it rises to the level of a "sacred trust" but I like my friends in this little Society of ours, even the ones I haven't met yet. I like them enough to look out for them, even if they would rather I look the other way this once. I like to think that by giving up some of my time to focus on the nit-picky, the mundane, and the boring stuff of rules and regulations, I AM serving something greater. I am allowing others to strive for personal excellence, to reach for their better natures, and lose themselves in the romance of Chivalry."

Thanks for the words, Myles. Have fun, play safe.

Mistress Cassandra Antonelli, OP
Earl Marshal of Northshield
16 October, A.S. XXXVIIII
(2004)