I'm glad we have some people from Dominion joining in the conversation here. I was starting to feel guilty talking about them on our boards without them here to defend themselves.
To be honest, my hope in inviting you guys from the midwest boards was that we would temper our discussion to be more respectful, and thus, more productive. I feel like we're starting to get somewhere now. Of course we're all happy to volunteer to help run events. That ought to go without saying, and it's certainly not a Haven thing, every realm is willing to help out. I would say that most of the complaints on the Haven end are problems that come from the event getting too big for Dominion to run without help. This is a good thing, really, it means you're doing something right.

If I might make a suggestion, put out signup sheets at troll. Make a separate signup sheet for each type of work that needs to be done. (Troll, Weapons Check, Heralding, Courtesy Patrol, etc.) Put info on the sheet, like who to contact and when and where to meet. Have each person write down their name and realm.
You wouldn't have to hold them to it or anything, just the act of signing something is usually enough to commit someone to volunteer.
The issue that faces Dominion now is kind of what I was talking about in an earlier post. You can't run the event yourselves anymore, you've got to lead by example, and be able to delegate a lot of the work to other people. It can be a difficult transition, but it's the only way to make such a large event go smoothly. And I say this knowing full well that being the leader takes more effort and more work, and it's more to ask from a group that already works very hard to put these events together.

On the issue of ending the fighting early, I have another suggestion. Each realm has their own homemade scenarios that they like to run at their practices. I would like for there to be an hour or two toward the end of the day where each realm has the opportunity to teach us all a new scenario that we can take back home and use at practice. This could be around 4 or 5, when the fighting is starting to die down, and the attitude starts to get more casual.
For example, Haven steps up and explains a short scenario that someone in Haven has written recently, then we Herald that scenario (something quick), and then Ravenwood steps up and does the same thing.

I'm not sure about heralding or troll, but I do know there was in fact a Courtesy Patrol signup sheet at Troll. But anyone who's ever even been to Troll knows how big a cluster-fuck that winds up being, and most people (including myself) want to sign the waiver, pay the money, and GTFO from the chaos. It might be beneficial to place a separate sign-in off to the side for tournaments and the like.. but hindsight is always 20/20 unfortunately. I'd even be willing to make like, a huge easel to display some poster board with signup sheets tacked onto it and pens tied to the display so people can see and sign up at their leisure. (I'm hoping to coordinate troll at Gates, since I was HIGHLY disappointed in how it was run this year. Now I have a concept I can run with too )

We've started to branch out to delegate things to other realms, but unfortunately part of the problem at War was those that the projects were delegated TO failed to show up to the event. It's insta-fail like that that has caused more doubt that we can handle branching out to other realms. At least - in my eyes. It sounds silly but it's become one of those "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself" situations.

November 8th is our next Dominion council meeting, in which a LOT of the fallout from War will be discussed as well as the initial planning for Gates 7. I know of two people who are already planning to offer to coordinate the event, and it will then be up to those two to further delegate the responsibilities such as running weapons check, troll, courtesy patrol, heralding, etc. As soon as that's done I KNOW that they'd be happy to take any volunteers they get. We may even post up information about Gates as it's discussed on the midwest boards from our meeting place.

The meetings are ALWAYS open for folks to attend, even other realms. If anyone is interested in attending or will be in the area - please PM me either here, on the Midwest forums, or on Facebook and I'll be glad to give you directions to where we'll be meeting to discuss this.

Well usually that's what winds up happening. A committee will work on battle scenarios and if one person drops the ball there are others to pick up the slack. I have NO idea how the battles were supposed to run, but all I know is the person that was designated didn't make it and we had like 3 weeks notice >.< So battles got pulled outta the back end of Kaine - who was co-coordinating with Kultprit.

However what might be suggested to those who step up to coordinate the whole event is to ensure there is a fail-safe in place in the event that something falls through. I mean, emergencies and things ALWAYS come up.. I don't see why they couldn't have three people or so set for specifics and then have multiple resources to pull from.

Unfortunately for me, I was left in the dark on everything about the event planning for War intentionally - for fear I might start helping everyone And sure enough, the one tournament I ran wound up sending a dear friend of mine to the ER to get seven stitches..

How far in advance does the planning start? Has planning for Gates VII already started? I never thought much about all of the planning and coordination that goes into events until now. Since I don't have my own transportation, I don't attend events very often, but I plan to in the future, and I'd like to help as much as a can then.

The planning usually gets mildly underway one month after the last event has ended (though War usually gets the short end of the stick, since there is realm-wide planning for Ragnarok between Gates and War). We'll designate people to coordinate the entire event and from there they get in talks with folks who are gonna run other facets of the event.

There is sure to be a post on the Midwest boards after the November meeting, which will cover who's running what and how to contact them.

Usually how this works is we'll have 2 people coordinating the whole event, and then it breaks down into roughly 10-12 different areas that have a head appointed to deal with stuff like Troll, Weapons Check, and a mind boggling amount of other things. I'd totally be willing to spill that kinda info, if people want to look over different options to where they'd be willing to lend a hand. It's not like it's a super secret hush-hush list

I really, really like the idea of a separate table near troll for people to volunteer at. I honestly had no idea that there was a sign-up sheet at troll for courtesy patrol, and I know when I was up there it was definitely chaotic so I'm assuming that's why.

I also asked around at our practice yesterday, and I had 15 Haven members volunteer to work courtesy patrol at the next event if they can come (so count on about 3/4 of that to be safe) and I had 10 people volunteer to help herald at least one or two battles during the day. That number doesn't include the people on here who already volunteered like Turrin and Constantine, and not everyone was at practice yesterday either, so we could likely get a few more to help out as well.

Being that my job in Haven is to help coordinate and run things smoothly, I understand how stressful just simple things can be, and I image it's about 100 times that sort of stress to run an event. If anyone ever needs help with anything in particular, I am always willing to do whatever I can. Regrettably I won't be able to make that meeting on November 8th, but hopefully someone else from Haven will be in the area at that time. Does Dominion have any particular place on the midwest boards where other people could see what you've discussed and decided on at a meeting?

It's usually posted on the Gatherings and Events board if it pertains to the events. Otherwise we do post important info in the Dominion forum for those of the realm who may have missed the meeting.

I'll be bringing my laptop so that I can keep everything in order and make sure I don't miss any important information before I come home and post it all.

Yeah, but the difference is Tyr, you go and do and be damned the chaos. But if they wait until after the event, complain about problems then, offer their help for the NEXT event, then it makes them look like the good guys. saying "Oh, I would have offered to help but I couldn't find a sign up sheet" doesn't work. If you were going to offer to help, find any member of Dominion and offer, don't wait till after the event to complain and offer help for the next event.

Um... I'm really hoping you're not meaning to be super offensive by saying things like that Kurai, though that's certainly how it came across. :\

Tyr, you're like the Renaissance Man of Dagorhir. You do a little bit of everything, haha. I know we definitely appreciate it when you help us out, and I'm sure other realms do too. Likely Dominion does quite a bit considering the list you just gave; I didn't realize you did all that at War. Drag us with you next time since we're not smart enough to realize the help is needed.

Um, ok, seriously? If you're going to act like that, please get off our boards. I don't want to have a flame war with anyone, and if you really feel that upset about something, you can talk to me via pm, because this isn't the place to do that.

I've also said my piece plenty about the blowup doll, and I still feel the same way I did. Just keep in mind that while some people find it funny, not all 'adults' will, and that has the potential to push people away from our sport. I don't think that's something any of us want.

Look, I'm gonna go ahead and just speak my mind here, since I don't have to play the political niceties game with you guys, since I am not in charge of anything;

Blow up doll: You've said your piece, I'll say mine. Grow up. It's inflatable rubber meant to be put to use as either a gag or a replacement for lonely, creepy men who got tired of their hands. Deal with it.

Drinking: You don't like it, stay out of the camp. I'm pretty sure we don't need to mark the wet camps. They're loud enough to tell.

Rowdiness/Debauchery on the trails: Report it to someone right then. Or be kind enough to help them back to their camp. Don't whine about it a few weeks after the fact when nothing can be done about it.

Fighting stopping Early: Organize some pick up battles and people will come to fight. It doesn't have to be official.


tl;dr: Step up or shut up.

soooo yeah this topic was being kinda productive, and now it's turning to a flame war. let's all just chill out here people

I think we're past the point of arguing. Those who made complaints obviously weren't aware that help was needed, and the complaints they made were in the interest of preserving the integrity and enjoyability of Dagorhir for everyone. Because of those complaints, they learned that there are some issues with organizing, planning and staffing the events, and they are now attempting to provide aid. Attacking them any further is essentially less effective than the "whining" you're attacking them for. They first identified what they considered to be problems [underage drinking, lewd activities, presence of sex toys on the field and the negative reactions of parents who were watching], identified the sources of those problems [under-staffing, unclear need for help] and are now suggesting solutions [marking wet/dry camps, making volunteer sign-ups more noticeable]. It seems to me like all of the parts of the problem-solving process have been followed.

As far as the presence of the doll on the field, it's not about how we as fighters feel about it. We can obviously form our own opinions of that and choose whether or not we want to fight in battles like that. The problem is that younger kids who are interested in Dag may not get as much exposure to it because their parents, who control their attendance to events, may not approve of what goes on at these events. I don't know how many adults disapproved of the doll, but I'd say any number isn't really worth it.

In the interest of avoiding further conflict, I won't say any more on the matter. We've already started on the path toward doing our part and helping out. As far as I'm concerned, continuing to bring up these problems is only taking steps backward.

Like Odin said. Let's just chill out and start being productive again.

I could totally see Turrin sitting on an ottoman eating a scone with a smug smile on his face

Well, I don't actually care about anything anyone is saying, but I will say this, Constantine, for some reason I don't like you and you have offended my honor for long enough. I demand a duel at your soonest convenience sir!

/non-sequitur douche