Ahoy Oregon and Washington Wenches!

[renstyles]

Originally Posted by Ysobelle

I think what needs to happen here is for Oregon Wenches to determine if they actually have enough warm bodies to form a separate Local yet. We've been through this in PA already-- it's a bit of a slog, but it all turns out well in the end. I think you need at least fourteen Wenches, but it's been a while since last I checked. For now, it may be that you have to have one Local to cover the Pacific Northwest, but you can have several hostels to cater to local Wenches.

I think that's exactly where we are. We just don't have enough warm bodies to make Oregon its own local. I think we're barely covered with how many NW wenches we have. I would love to see some day Oregon having 14 Wenches, or how ever many are needed to make it's own local. And I can see revisiting this idea then, but right now we're just too few.

I like the idea of the few faires we have getting hostels and having a real place to meet other Wenches.

[SHpepperKat]

Originally Posted by renstyles

I think that's exactly where we are. We just don't have enough warm bodies to make Oregon its own local. I think we're barely covered with how many NW wenches we have. I would love to see some day Oregon having 14 Wenches, or how ever many are needed to make it's own local. And I can see revisiting this idea then, but right now we're just too few.

I like the idea of the few faires we have getting hostels and having a real place to meet other Wenches.

I like it too. That way we can figure out where to meet at different events.

[Lady Sarah]

Best of luck in finding a suitable place for the hostel. Just be forewarned that it might take a bit more time than you want. LOL You need to develop that 'relationship' with the shop owner and seasonal manager, and that's not always easy.

Seriously, Pepper, best of luck in finding a hostel.

[SHpepperKat]

Originally Posted by Lady Sarah

Best of luck in finding a suitable place for the hostel. Just be forewarned that it might take a bit more time than you want. LOL You need to develop that 'relationship' with the shop owner and seasonal manager, and that's not always easy.

Seriously, Pepper, best of luck in finding a hostel.

I don't expect that it will be an easy task as with the current location, everything is temporary. But we are working on it and if there's a place, we will find one. Where you have actual buildings there, we have pavilions and tents. So until the faire gets a more permenant location, we might not have a hostel. But if all else fails, there's always Ale House #1 as a great meeting place.

[RaevynCait]

Just adding my .02 regarding the hostel situation.

We Local 13 wenches have not had a true hostel at either of our major faires (Scarby & TRF) for 2 years. We make do and manage to have meet and greets.
At Scarby, where I am most active, we have an area near one of the pubs where you can virtually ALWAYS find one or more Wenches and/or Rogues, visiting, drinking, eating, or whatever. During Parade, when we've gone to our usual spots, there is often someone who is not that interested in parade and is willing to watch over baskets, etc while the rest of us are gone. We try to post every year that location, and when we hear that someone is coming ot visit, we try to contact them and make sure they know exactly where to find us.

At TRF, we also have a usual location, however most of us that are very active at Scarby aren't at TRF every weekend, but we do try to announce both here and on the yahoo group when groups will be down there, especially when our Madame & Vice will be there, so we can arrange at least a meet & greet.

A fixed hostel, with a place to store water, ice, first aid supplies, and stuff we've purchased, but don't want to haul to the car midday is a wonderful thing to have, but is just not always possible. In my experience over the last couple of years, cultivating relationships with vendors (both shoppes and food/beverage) and other people who DO have facilities has worked out just fine for the most part, as we don't wind up with a lot of purchased stuff stacked around our tables. Most of the Scarby beverage vendors are willing to provide ice in your drinking vessel at no cost, and there is virtually ALWAYS a wench in our usual area who has first aid stuff in her basket. It is not a perfect solution, but we've managed to make it work quite well, AND, there is much more cameraderie with the "hostel" being out in the open, rather than behind a shoppe. Plus we don't have to worry about our presence disrupting business.

[SHpepperKat]

Our faire here is still in the rebirth stage. So we are used to making do. We tend to congregate in the ale house as all adult beverages must be consumed there. Also that's where we can see and hear the lovely Miss Bonnie Strangways. Most of our vendors will hold purchases until cannon so we don't have to worry too much about having a place to store things that we purchase. It's the extra water and such that we worry about. The alehouse has ice for our bodice chillers, and the vendors are pretty good about sharing ice as well. As for first aid, this year I saw them more than ever but they have everything and then some and it is well staffed by very good people.

I personally don't think that right now we need a hostel per se. We can always arrange meetings as the gate should we end up with Wenches that are not 21. And we all love to wander and shop. So spending time is easy as well.

Most of us camp out and are planning to do that again next year. So we do have a place to put things as needed as well.

It would be nice at some point to have a specific place that is wench haven, but for now, I think it more important to work on our standing with management and just having fun.

[Bonnie Strangeways]

Ooh, look at me dragging up a dead horse. *snicker*


1 - Congrats to the ladies that worked so hard to find a "home" for the ladies of the Pacific Northwest. It's nice to see a presence "catching on" up here.

2 - Insofar as the Oregon ladies establishing a Local of their own…I concur with all of the previous posters that establishing a Hotel at first at some of the events might be a better way to start out. Stormfeather, as someone who has been blessed with a naturally abrasive personality, let me attempt to express in the politest way that your initial posts here may have not painted you with the kindest brush. You came across as quite confused/confusing, and somewhat offensive to the very people that you are attempting to “recruit” to your cause.

As has been pointed out – if you are just looking to form a backyard clique full of like-minded women to hang out with at some local events – then you do not need a Local, nor go through all of the hassle/rigmarole to get one in place. (This is what it seems you are attempting?) If you want to toss in recruitment for the IWG in there…more power to you, but I would insert a word of caution. Encouraging ladies who embody the quality of Wench (see front page of IWG website if confused) to find us and join us is all well and good….finding every drunk hooker on the block and signing them up is not. Not as to say that you are…but the caution flag needs to be thrown.


You can take the commetns posted here by me and the others as "flaming" if you choose to...or you can take them as they were meant - constructive commetns geared towards clarification and helping you with your goal. Your choice.

[Ysobelle]

Drat-- I meant to come back to this. There ARE two official Locals now, according to Lars: Oregon and Washington. Both applications were submitted almost at the same time. So y'all have lots 'o Wenchy fun out there!