Potential UK Campaign Event

[Tim Edwards]

All,

I would like to scope interest and ideas for an organised non public campaign event in the UK.

Several other reenactment eras regularly run these, especially WW2, ACW etc. I think it would be rewarding to launch one for our era in the UK.

My intial aims are twofold:

i) To increase inter group cooperation and friendships
ii) To enhance our development of campaign equipment and practice

I would be very keen to hear from anyone who has any experience with these type of events in this or any other period, and particularly from anyone who would be interested in partaking or co-organising.

My initial idea is to run it over a single weekend, Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. The first 24 hours would be non tactical, ie an insertion march, setting up shelters, firelighting etc. The final 12 hours would be go live, including nightime sentry duty, patrolling and possibly a close recconaissance on a nominated ''enemy' position. I do not intend any simulated combat, most UK reenactors are not appropriately equipped or practiced.

There are some themes which would shape the characteristics of such an event which I would like to get some feedback/suggestions on:

Location
Insurance
Feeding
Health and safety
Shelters
Event support/control

I'm not expecting hordes of attendees, and am aware this will not appeal to some. I would however seriously countenance running such an event with a minimum of 15 pax from any group, male or female.

[Crispvs]

Domestic considerations aside, I would certainly be interested, as long as it did not clash with school holidays or other events I might be committed to.

Your suggested outline seems good to me, but it would be worth having a set of substitute activities in case weather or other circumstances made the primary plan difficult or unworkable. There would also need to be an agreed chain of command. If people gather from different groups we may find several officers of equal rank or alternatively no officers and only men used to following order rather than giving them. Thus the hierarchy for the event needs to be agreed in advance. Two many chiefs and no Indians is not a good idea but neither is a group of Indians from different tribe with not a chief amongst them.

As to a location, living in Birmingham I probably have a Midlands bias but I would think that the more central a location for the people involved, the easier it would be to attract attendees. I think that if possible, rolling or hilly farmland with a fair degree of wooded areas, along with a river or streams would be ideal, as it would give the best potential for a variety of activities, although we should avoid being too picky of course. Does anyone have a group member who has a sheep, beef or deer farm?

For insurance, as long as all equipment was the property of the individuals or groups concerned, I would think it would be covered by their own insurance. With no members of the public present I am not sure whether public liability insurance would be necessary, and I would expect that most re-enactors would probably already have their own accident and injury insurance. So to my mind, as long as it was not organised officially as anything more than a gathering of friends for the purposes of enjoying a hobby together, I don't think that any further insurance would be necessary.

For feeding, the easiest thing would be for everyone to bring their own food. However, there would be no guarantee that everyone would remember to bring their food or that everyone could be relied upon to bring appropriate food. The best alternative then would be to calculate the cost of feeding the likely number of participants with appropriate food for the necessary number of meals and charge each participant accordingly. We would need to sort out cooking and food preparation roles and duties as well.

As far as H & S is concerned, I think far too much unnecessary emphasis is placed on this these days. I think most re-enactors are fairly sensible adults and should be able to take care of themselves without feeling the need to blame someone else when they trip over their own shoelaces. I would be far more concerned about clean water and sanitation. Even for a two day event toilet facilities would be needed. A 'portaloo' could be hired, but this would add to the cost and although it would be an interesting and quite instructive process to make some sort of attempt to make a Roman style latreen, this would require some work beforehand and could get pretty unpleasant quite quickly. When I was in Scouts we always left a spade and a pile of earth next to the latreen pit and each user was expected to shovel enough earth over their own 'deposit' to hide it so as to keep flies to a minimum. We normally used to dig a pit about one and a half feet square and about the same in depth. If eight or ten of us were camping such a pit could easily be filled in a weekend and when camping as a full troop we often dug a new latreen pit each day to avoid the problem of a pit becoming too full and their not being sufficient depth left to cover it over sufficiently. Then there would have to be toilet paper, which is an area where we would have to dispence with authenticity as I doubt that most people would be content with the idea of cleaning themselves with sponges or moss when it came down to brass tacks.
We would need a source of clean water for drinking and cooking and we would also need a suitable method of disposing of waste water and rubbish. Streams are not always suitable for either of these tasks.

For shelter, tents are the portable and obvious option. However, if people were attending as individuals rather than groups it is unlikely that they would have access to their own groups' tentage, which would, in all likelihood lead us to a situation with modern camping but everything else as authentic as we can make it.

Finally, there would have to be a properly equipped first aid kit on site, along with someone who was first aid trained or better. There would also need to be the ability to call emergency services if necessary and someone empowered to co-ordinate emergencies.

So much for my thoughts so far then.

Crispvs