Are up!

I spoke to my welder and told him about our trailer project. He said he'd have to look at it to be sure, but he didn't think shortening the axles would be a big deal. I have passed his name and contact info to Aonghus and Brogan for further action. He is located quite near to Aonghus' parents place.

I offered an ad-hoc idea for fund raising at the meeting which is not listed in the notes: I think a 'merchanting table' which could be set up at our Beltaine and Samhain events for any member to sell their crafts would be a good idea. There are several members who might be keen to sell their wares. The Clann could take a percentage of this sale. If we announce this intention with enough fore-warning to visitors from neighboring groups, we might even have a goodly assortment of items to pick through!

Another idea was mentioned as well - that we could run a silent auction at these events in addition to the one at Imbolc, as this has been done in the past successfully. My only problem with this is that it depends on the charity of those members who create (or buy) items, whereas a merchant table provides a more lucrative incentive to be crafty, while still benefiting the Clann.

I like the idea of some members or friends merchanting their wares, but chargining them to do so leaves me a bit cold. I guess if some stranger wanted to set up a booth, I'd be all for charging a merchants fee, like they do at SCA events, but if Sabha or Brogan or whomever wanted to set something up, I'd say do it, no fee.

I guess you could think of it as a sort of tax imposed by the Clann for the use of the space. I have no problem with it at all - it's exactly what eBay does as well as any consignment shop, and anybody who actually crafts stuff for sale at a craft fair would agree - you pay for space to merchant your wares. If you don't have the cash to run your own shop on Main St., you use one of these venues and you pay the requisite "tax". I see no reason for the Clann to go out it's way to promote 'Merchanting' in any form, not to mention setting up a space for a merchant table if the Clann isn't getting diddly for the trouble. I think it's a great idea, and it provides incentive for folks (of crafty bent) to haul their wares to our events. Certainly anyone could still bring stuff and sell it privately anyway, but an official "merchant table" perhaps under a dining fly, or otherwise protected would be much cooler, and worth some small percentage. The whole point being, or course, to raise money for the Clann treasury - just like the auction.

I think it is a very bad idea to charge members for setting up a table to merchant their crafts. If the person wants to donate a percentage of their sale to the clann that would be great, but we are not in the business of running a craft fair where we should be charging an admittance fee to merchants

There are a bunch of ideas in this thread for fund raising. A lot of them are not a good fit for our rather peculiar form of anti-social medievalism (putting on demos at schools or for the boy scouts, or hosting themed dinners for a profit). However, you might see something that strikes your fancy more than my idea of providing merchanting space at a percentage of sale. Just to clarify my thought: the idea wasn't to open our events to outside merchants, but to provide a space where members and attending friends could lay out their wares. I wouldn't want to host unknown merchant folks from the SCA at large (unless they were attending as an invited guest of a member).

Well… look.. here’s the long and short of it really:

Our income comes to us in the form of dues, site fees and our auction (or donation). All of these methods solicit funds primarily from our membership and the odd couple of guests… our main benefactor being ourselves. That is not likely to change unless we change the nature our events (which I am neither advocating nor against in this missive).

The idea (I believe) is to get money from an outside source for a change (which I’m not sure we actually need but who the heck says “no” to more money?)

So.. how can we possibly raise money without changing the nature of our events or our soul?

Well… here’s one idea…

Once upon a time, Brogan, Volund, and myself thought about merchanting our wares.

We were gonna call ourselves the “Grouchy Elves” and sell via a website.

I had a great pic of Vollund making a face and photoshopped an elf hat on him… I think I still have it somewhere…

I took some nice digital pics of the little chests and mugs we made from reclaimed wood and whipped up a web page.

It looked fantastic. Our stuff would blow away anything put up against it in similar category.

The flaw?

Well at first we kid ourselves that we would only make the stuff to order more or less, making a few of an item when one was ordered just to be more efficient with our shop time.

But - We realized that we hate production work in any form… its soul crushing… for Vollund it would be like painting the same painting over and over again. Brogan is too excited about the next project in the works, and I’ve got a short “been there done that” kinda attention span I guess that falls roughly in between those positions.

Further complicating the issue, the small supply we did make we gave away as gifts anyway... which is probably why Walmart hasnt called any of us to fill in as CEO recently as well.

But anyway… just because we didn’t run with it.. doesn’t mean it was a bad idea. In fact its quite practical. Consider:

If someone made a website to showcase items members make and donate, you can get on the SCA merchants list or spam it to whatever relevant forums are appropriate to spam to and reach a much wider potential customer base (i.e. more sources of funds) than just ourselves.

Our events don’t have the draw to appeal to merchants and it would be out of place at this time to set a merchant table fee for so small an affair. Even moreso to place a clan tax on items sold… too much book keeping at an event anyway in my opinion.

So someone make a website.. agitate now for next Imbolc - instead of making one of something make two – one to donate at Imbolc auction, one to sell online.

And the beauty is.. web site work can be done sitting on your ass at home… so no time management issues as far as hitting craft shows or whatever.

Heck if ya wanted to be real lazy about it.. look into making one of these ebay stores or something…

Id offer to run the business back end of it with acquiring tax ID book keeping etc( I could even use one of my existing tax IDs for time being till it got a life of its own if ya wanted)…. but once again.. I’ve got too much on my plate as it is till further notice.

Anyway.. that’s my two coppers worth.

Is "monkaí" focal greannmhar.

Sorry for the short notice. I'm going to be at the shop sunday the 15th to finish some stuff and to get the trailer in shape. any help is welcome!!

In service,
~Brogan