MrsBrown's philosophy of life and stuff

Normally, I come home from Festival full of ideas and enthusiasm. This year it's mostly outrage, determination to make sure it doesn't happen again and a bit of embarrassment.

Getting what happened written down will help.

When we signed in, we weren't reminded about an ID token for Rose and I forgot. There were several announcements about them and I made a note that I should do that but never got around to it. I was keeping a close eye on happenings at the children's fort because Rose can be crap with new children and I wanted to make sure she kept playing nicely. So I was there when a camp mate quietly walked up to R and asked to see his ID tag. She walked away with a purposeful stride and came back shortly with two constables (people who I normally respect the behaviour of). They stopped the joyous playing of the children, made them form lines and checked their ID tags and the presence of their supervising adult.

A brought Rose to me and asked me to get her an ID tag, we discussed the fact that troll hadn't provided one at signin but I agreed to go and get a tag for Rose while she kept playing. A told me, "you need to nominate a supervising adult", I replied that our camp was 30m away, Rose is 8 and I would be gone for only a short time. Rose was anxious to keep doing the awesome playing she'd been doing. A repeated, "you need to nominate a supervising adult" and I told her to "Fuck Off" and walked back to camp where I told mr-bassman to go and be a good parent because I was incapable of it. Rose tells me that she was told to go back to camp.

I'm embarrassed about losing my temper, but I'm also very angry that;
1. a person I consider R's close community didn't trust his mother to appropriately supervise him - in this case by making an arrangement for him to play at the fort with a large group of children
2. That the kid's happy playing was interrupted to apply a rule intended to be used when there is wrong-doing or a genuine emergency.
3. That the stewards/constables have judged my parenting to be inadequate.
4. That the power of the constables was misused and I wasn't able to do anything about it at the time

The similarity of the situation to apartheid or nazi like identity paper checks emphasised the power imbalance and made my emotional response much stronger than it should have been.

My inclination was to take the civil disobedience approach and keep supervising Rose at the fort from afar as I would normally do. But Aste is a better person than me (and had the resources to do it) and arranged for Tree to sit with the children at the fort, while we kept checking in with them.

BUT THEN THE FORT WAS RAIDED AGAIN!!!

On Monday there were fewer children at the fort and Tree was again sitting with them. A constable and the head steward raided the fort asking for supervising adults. Tree was deemed "too young" to be supervising them, and Aste was not quite in sight from camp at that moment (although Tree says she could see Aste, the Steward couldn't and didn't believe her) The kids were sent home again. When I arrived back at camp soon after, Rose greeted me angrily with, "they did it again!" and spent 5 minutes unable to do anything with her anger. I was impressed when she finally decided to go back to the fort - staging her own sit-in.

Finally, Aste was as annoyed as me and arranged to identify the constable involved and speak to her, and then we arranged to speak to the constable in charge. He arrived with the head steward and we had a thoroughly frustrating conversation based on our interpretations of civil law and what that meant we could do with our own children vs what the SCA thought we could do. It started being more fruitful when we focused on the behaviour of the constables and agreed that it was not OK to make children cry. During our conversation there was no way that the second supervision scenario, with Tree, was acceptable, but 5 min later, at court, the Steward appeared to have changed her mind and it was OK after all.

As this is my journal I get to lay blame on some early incidents - they're a bit gossip-y but indicate a bit of a culture around this stuff.

On Thursday night a Stormholder came to my camp and described an incident in which he found 3 young teenagers walking a track between the Tavern and their camp (although he didn't bother to find that out) at night (about 7pm). He came to discuss his outrage at this behaviour and I tried to suggest that there was really no problem. I found out later that he had told off these kids to the point where one was hysterical for the rest of the night and whose parents had referred the incident to the steward and asked for clarification of the site rules. I believe that's when the Steward came up with the 14year old supervision rules and requirement that under 14years olds stay in camp or with their parents. The teenagers in this incident were 13.

Last year after Festival there was a lot of gossip about some Stormhold children who were found in a campsite on their own during the day. The campsite belonged to friends of their parents, but the child free adults in this campsite were outraged and spent a lot of time decrying the supervision of these children and the abilities of their parents. I think these discussions have led to a bit of a culture of hyper vigilence about the supervision of these children which led directly to the "dobbing" that occurred at the children's fort on Sunday. This is an issue I need to stay alert for and say something when I see or hear it.

Since Festival, the Steward has posted 5 items as evidence for why the rules changed so much this year:

These three are all related to the changes for Working with Children Checks;
http://www.kids.nsw.gov.au/Working-with-children/New-Working-with-Children-Check/New-Working-with-Children-Check
https://aifs.govspace.gov.au/2012/06/25/new-working-with-children-check-legislation-in-nsw/
http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/nswbills.nsf/0/df79955e6bd3eabaca257a1b00208c26/$FILE/b2012-025-d15-House.pdf

and the last is the SCA policies;
http://sca.org.au/board/documents/policy/child-protection
http://sca.org.au/board/documents/policy/background-check

Using those sources, I can't find any reference to children's ages, or a definition of what "supervision" is and, following the conversations online since, I'm a bit worried that everyone is going to focus on improving the communication of the rules - because that doesn't label someone wrong, and forget to make the rules work for the freedom of children.

The rules, as written by the Steward, with the benefit of hindsight were:
"children had to be line of site(sic)  from a nominated care giver when around the site. Over 10's did not have to be tagged, under 10's did have to be tagged. Over 14's could roam during the day but not at night. Over 14's could not look after younger children. Children could go to the nearest privy themselves. "

I don't want to maintain line of sight supervision of my 8 year old, let alone my 13.5 year old! 

My rules/guidelines would be:

All children to remain within the boundary of the main campsites, unless accompanied by an adult. 
Children under 14 (I would prefer 13, but 14 seems to be OK with people) are expected to be in their campsites after 8pm/dark, unless with an adult approved by their parents.
Tagging children with identifying information, such as name, campsite and parents, is strongly encouraged and tags are available at the troll tent.
Children found wandering alone, away from the village green will be asked their business and may be asked to return to their campsites or the village green.
Children are expected to comply with the Code of Conduct for the SCA, and hurting people, theft  or damaging equipment is not OK.
Children are expected to know where to find their caregivers and caregivers are expected to provide a level of supervision suitable for their child's age and maturity.

Now can I get on with the rest of the post Festival stuff?!!

Watching stuff going on in the Barony and remembering my own problems with harassment and difficult people I was motivated to find out some stuff and I'm saving the links here with my comments so I can find them again later.

I started with the Lochac dispute resolution document here . It's changed a fair bit since I last looked and has some good stuff on timelines and who should do what. I can't help feeling though that it doesn't quite address the consequences to the harasser that I'm looking for and also doesn't seem to be very good at some of the social group management that I think needs to happen.

Some of what's happening almost feels like some of the tech and fan conference harassment issues that I've read about both here, and through the geek feminism blog. (These sorts of things)

So I went and found the conference harassment policy resources prepared by the Ada Initiative. It has some things in common with the dispute resolution stuff, but obviously has a bit more about proactively discouraging bad behaviour and what to do about harassers and their impact on the conference. I like the stuff about making the reporting process really obvious and making the actions taken transparent to the whole community.

One of the interesting comments that comes up in the SCA community is that we are so used to dealing with people who have poor social skills that we make allowances for bad behaviour.  From my reading tonight I think we should stop doing that.

I think the SCA needs to
1. have a code of conduct
2. publicise it
3. provide dispute mentors so if you're not sure what to do, you know who to ask.
4. Be a bit more transparent about sanctions

I haven't always been thoughtful about posting online.

The first time I posted to a mailing list, I suffered a flaming that hurt my soul and is still remembered. I didn't write what that person thought I wrote, and most of my emails are now read several times, and occasionally checked by my husband, before I send them. Does that say what I mean? What's the emotional state of the person reading this? How will they twist this? Is this the right forum? How many other people will read this? Depending on the email/message I could agonise over these for 20min or so. Although I think I've developed a set of rules that keep my natural social anxiety in check and make this process a bit faster than it was immediately following my mailing list incident.

There was also that other time, when someone had committed suicide from the Westgate Bridge and for some inexplicable reason I allowed myself to be my nasty self who send a lashing of thoughtless, flame ridden words to a mailing list (actually I think it was a usenet group) complaining about the insensitivity of this bloke who had tied up traffic in my city. It felt good at the time, but I think the guilt hurt my soul too, I certainly remember it as vividly as the mailing list email.

And then we come to the latest storm in a teacup. The moderator of a male dominated group I'm on posted some pictures that were in poor taste and I blinked. Then others posted comments on those pictures and I saw some ineffective attempts by people to suggest that the comments and original post were not ok. I ignored it thinking that people would stop soon and the group would get back to core business. The moderator deleted them and then the comment'ers came back to ask more about them and make some more blokey comments. Then someone posted a picture of Xena with her barely there armour, referencing the previous posts and "jokes". It looked like the behaviour was not going to go away and could turn into a more permanent feature of the group. So I spoke up.

I have a lot of practise at speaking up. I was the person who stood up in the train carriage and tram and asked the menacing guy to put out his cigarette. I was the person who called her teenage peers on their sexism and racism. I was the only woman in a group of male engineering students. I've been called lots of names, I've been gaslighted and I've been ostracised. For a long time I stopped speaking up about racism and sexism when I observed them and then I realised that what other people think or do in response to my words is irrelevant, the important thing is that I speak up.

Speaking up is hard and it makes you feel awful, but not as awful as if you don't speak up. Interestingly, many people receiving your words also have a very emotional response that is not their normal behaviour. They feel awful too. These days I imagine my children's emotional response when they've had their bad behaviour pointed out to them. They know what the rules are and are embarrassed at being caught wrongdoing, and they often lash out angrily and incoherently.

I might be an apologist for them, but in my experience of being the only woman in a group of men, when men are being blokey, they don't realise they're excluding women. They don't necessarily consciously do it and they won't do it when there are a significant number of women around. To stop them you usually just need to tell them you're there. The incurably sexist of them will then attack you, some of the others will be like the children I mentioned earlier and respond in an obviously juvenile, slightly incoherent way.

You can't change the incurable ones and the others don't need you keep telling them they're being dicks - they already know. So there is no point in continuing to engage with them. The important thing is that you said something and maybe next time they will remember this awful feeling you made them have and avoid it. Incidently, this is also my approach to parenting - I don't need my kids to make amends or agree with me when I tell them off, they don't like having arguments with me and will modify their behaviour to avoid arguments, even while they think my rule is unreasonable.

I also need to manage my own awful feelings in stepping over normal polite society boundaries, so I have developed a process that minimises the aggression opportunities available:

1. Tell the people/person how you feel - it's a statement of fact they can't argue with.

On Sunday.  And this year I would like presents, 'cos we have no money.  This is a list of the stuff I have wanted lately and haven't bought for myself;

a stainless steel cheese making thermometer with a clip to attach to the pot.
a  second cheese mold with pressing plate, although bigger would also be good.
Now I'm looking at cheesemaking stuff, I also want this draining mat
And this book is better than the one I have.

I'm also told that Bunnings has a temperature display that also shows humidity - that would be useful if I want to set up a cheese fridge.

And my bright idea this week is that I should plant 3 blueberry bushes in my front garden and pull out the silly white flowered tree and the old grapevine.  So I would like blueberry bushes to do that with.

Rose was hungry this afternoon and Sneetch had eaten the last two slices of pineapple pizza.  She was very disappointed so I suggested we make some and could go to the supermarket to buy bread to make pizza with.  She refused and requested that I make flat bread.  Thinking about it later I realised that the pizza was one of my slow food recipes and I had to share.

To make flat bread pineapple pizza;

7 days early - buy pineapple and leave in fruit bowl.  Occasionally look at it and think, "I should cut that up so people will eat it".
4 days early - tip out the previous batch of ignored sourdough starter and refresh with new flour and water.  Look at it 24 hours later and think, "I should either make bread or refresh that starter.
On the day - chop the mouldy and brown bits off the pineapple and put in the fridge.
Scrape the black tinged bits off the top of the starter and put in the compost.  Use 1/2 cup of remaining starter and 1/2 cup flour to make dough.  Leave for 10min then divide into 4 and roll out flat.  Cook both sides in the cast iron pan.
Put bread onto griller, spread with tomato paste from the back of the fridge (scrape white mould from the top of the jar and put into compost, make sure none of the eaters notice.  Only take non-mouldy paste from jar.)  Chop pineapple bits smaller and add to pizza.  Sprinkle grated cheese on top (reject the mouldy cheese, but leave in fridge because it might be useful for something else).  Grill until brown and feed to man and small child.

This was going to be a class outline for one breadmaking class, but I think there's too much I want to share to fit just one class. Here's what I can tell people about;

• Ovens - history, construction, how to fire, how to cook stuff other than bread.
• Bread - process, routines at home and at Festival, sourdough and yeast
• Cooking bread without an oven - flat bread recipes, cooking techniques

And, now I think about it, I can also run;

• Currant buns - tour of community bakery and watch currant buns come out of oven.  Eat currant buns, materials charge of $2 per bun
• Making faggots - kid friendly class on fuel for the bakery.  Faggot makers will receive a currant bun.
• Bread making with children - mucking around with dough.

Bread making -about 10am on Friday

Discuss flour - wholemeal, spelt, white
Discuss routines - sourdough and yeast, at home and at Festival
Make sourdough and shape loaves
Make sponge for next day  (enough for current buns at current bun eating class on Sat)

Charge for materials - 0.5kg flour per person - $2 each?

Ovens/Bakeries - Friday about 3pm

How to fire - practical demonstration while talking
types of ovens - brick, wicker, cob
How used in period - central bakery, household bakery, communal bakery
Tools and equipment in the bakery

Cooking bread without an oven - in the morning sometime, 9am so the fire is still going?
 
Make the following breads

• sourdough in dutch oven and on flat plate
• flat bread - with yeast
• flat bread - with shortening

Plan:

pre-make bread dough for playing with, shape half into loaf
pre-heat dutch oven (tiny or borrow one) (5min)
mix yeast flat bread - leave to rise (20 min)
mix shortening flat bread (20min)
roll out some sourdough bread

put loaf into cook in dutch oven (30min)
cook yeast flat bread on lid of saxburger/pizza stone (15min)
cook shortening flat bread (15min)
pull out bread

eat and enjoy!

Some evenings we say "oh my god" and have a tin of tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner.

I'm a bit proud of this evening's incarnation; 

the tomato soup was made with a can of tinned tomatoes and real onion, garlic, sugar and herbs.

the toasted cheese sandwiches were yeasty pancake/drop scones (no egg) with cheese put between them as they came out of the fry pan.

That's what you do when you can't even be bothered going to the supermarket to buy bread and tinned soup.  Tasted quite good too.

I've been making a dress and I'm quite concerned that it won't suit me. You don't get to try on dresses before you make them.

Last week I thought I had the skirt for the dress sorted out. I'd carefully measured my fabric and worked out how much skirt I could fit into it. Then I made a prototype and finished it (except for the hem which doesn't count) yesterday. It's a 2 circle circular skirt, and it looks fine. If I squint and get rid of my belly, it even looks awesome.

So last night I finished off the patterning of the dress bodice and cut out the lining for the last test fit. Yay, that all worked and then I measured how much fabric I have left after cutting out the bodice in the dress fabric. Damn! I have less fabric than I thought so I need to rethink the skirt and I don't have time to make a prototype again. I just need to make a decision and go for it.

This site talks about body shape and the best skirts for what body shape. According to it, "the full circle skirt is almost one-shape-suits-all" and I do have enough fabric for a single circle.

Then I had another look at the dresses I liked from the Vintage Pattern wiki.  In particular, this one.  It looks like a circular skirt with pleats and the description in the entry calls it a "full, four-gore skirt with unpressed pleats".  So I went looking for the back of the pattern. to try to understand what a four gore skirt is.  The back of the pattern packet includes a picture of the pattern pieces.  The skirt is actually a rectangular skirt with a hem to waist ratio of 4-5:1.  Wow, that would be so easy to make!

This morning I was struck with indecision.  The full circle skirt has more potential for problems, but is possibly more flattering.  The full gathered skirt will be easier but might just result in over-emphasising the shelf of my hips.  Thanks to this blogging, and re-finding Gertie's version of the full gathered skirt  - Gertie is not too far from my shape and I like the look of the skirt she made, I've decided to go with the easy option.  I may need to make a petticoat too, but I'll see how stiff my cotton sateen will be, especially with a deep hem.

I've had these links open for a few days and I should make sure I don't lose them, so I'll save them here.

the main page

I like the back shape of this one

This is the basic shape I like - I like the sleeves too.

This one has a nice cummerbund

I finally found an online recipe for hand kneaded spelt bread - http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/recipes/wholemeal-spelt-sourdough.html

I made it yesterday and I'm still waiting for it to rise some more before I bake it.