Revels

We hold gatherings once a month, consisting of an afternoon of activities and an evening of feasting, celebrating the arts of both war and peace. Activities range from arts and craft classes to period fighting to whatever personal projects the members of our shire are working on.

Check the Events Calendar for details on dates and times, or join our mailing list for regular announcements.

Monthly Shire Meetings

Monthly business meetings are 3rd Monday of the month, at Ye Olde Watling, in the City. All members, new and old, are welcome.

Strictly Social – ‘Museum and Beer’ trips

To take advantage of the wealth of cultural resources in London, we try to get to a museum for an after-work view of a few artifacts, before going for a beer. You can decide which part of the evening is most important!

Calendars, Newsgroups and Forums

Calendars

Thamesreach’s calendar can be found on the Events page and contains an up to date listing of all current and forthcoming events, meetings and revels.

There is also an alternate Yahoo! calendar detailing Thamesreach events (requires a Yahoo! ID to view, and membership in the Thamesreach Yahoogroup to add events). This contains a detailed listing of events, as well as other items of interest to the shire.

Offsite, the Kingdom of Drachenwald official calendar contains the events relevant to Drachenwald.

Newsgroups
Across the kingdom, we rely on e-mail and newgroups to keep us in touch. There are too many to list here, but some of the key ones are:

Thamesreach Yahoogroup – an active list of discussion on things relating to and of interest to Thamesreach members. It is highly recommended that participants join this list, so as to keep up to date with all the latest news, as well as take part in various discussions with others in the shire.

(Not the) Isles’ Yahoogroup is the mailing list for Insulae Draconis.

drachenwald.sca.org lists can be viewed and joined by registering here. These are:

• Drachenwald Mailing List (DML): Drachenwald announcements, news, discussion…
• Drachenrapier
• Drachenwald Marshals’ List
• Drachenwald Heralds’ List

The Rialto has a useful (and more detailed) listing here of Other SCA Mailing Lists.

Forums
Drachenwald forum

Fighting and Rapier Practice

A detailed summary of the Thamesreach Fighter practices can be found on the Fighting and Fencing page. Fighter practices occur usually once a week, with rapier practice falling fortnightly.

All abilities welcome, although we have a limited amount of loaner kit available. If you would like to borrow something, please contact the Marshal, who will arrange for kit to be brought for you.

The long-standing West Dragonshire Tuesday night practice is in Basingstoke, and is reachable by train and cab, or by car.

Combat Rules & Websites:

Kingdom of Drachenwald Marshals page - regulations, manuals, forms, and contact info for armoured combat, rapier, archery and equestrian marshals and participants.

Arts of War, on Insulae Draconis site – several useful articles, legacy of Sir Michael de Lacy, one of the founding members of Insulae Draconis.

For an explanation of SCA combat from a local member, see Lord Ozbeg Mangudai’s Combat page. (Not updated recently, but still good info.) His personal homepage The Mongol’s Horde includes a selection of armor and SCA combat photos.

Master Paul de Gorey’s excellent handbook Basic Armouring: A Practical Introduction to Armour Making is hosted by House Brighthelm. You won’t find a more readable and useful starter resource on this topic anywhere.

Sword Maiden – SCA website for women fighters and their supporters, written in response to….

The Armour Archive – popular forum for discussing all aspects of combat, across SCA and other reenactment groups.

Heraldry

Lucien, Genevieve and Robert are experienced heralds, who are happy to advise you about armory design, choosing a name, or submitting your name and arms to the Society College of Heralds.

The heraldry section of the Drachenwald website outlines the policies of the kingdom College of Heralds, and has many helpful articles, and the submission forms as PDFs.

Some other useful reading:

Heraldry on the SCA website.

Modar’s heraldry page – a large website with plenty of reading about SCA heraldry

Medieval Names Archive This collection of articles on medieval and renaissance names is intended to help historical re-creators to choose authentic names.

Medieval Heraldry Archive This collection of articles on medieval and renaissance heraldry is intended to help historical re-creators to choose authentic armory.

Scribal Guild

London is a goldmine of galleries, museums, and of course, the British Library, providing unparalleled sources for scribes.

Thamesreach has several scribes of varying skill levels, and we hold weekend scribal gatherings periodically, as our schedules permit. Contact the seneschal, or Mistress Nerissa, for more information.

Culinary Guild

There is no formal structure to the Culinary Guild, and unless otherwise declared, everyone in the Shire is assumed to be a member! All level of cooks (from the culinarily-challenged meal-in-a-can cook to the hobby chef) are very welcome, as you can all learn from and offer something to the Guild. All you need is the ability to peel apples and eat.

The aim of the Culinary Guild is to teach people about the techniques, ingredients, health theories and other such matters of early, medieval and renaissance cuisine, mainly through practical experience. Also the skills of menu selection, budgeting, goods acquisition etc etc that are necessary in cooking for Society events. At the end of the day however, we do it because we like to eat good food and have fun.

Event and recipe enquires welcome. For details please contact the Guildmistress, HE Lucrezia-Isabella di Freccia (Tina Nevin)

Cooking Guild Yahoogroup, the mailing list for the cooks of Drachenwald.

SCA-Cooks Mailing List – a very informative, helpful and fun list on medieval and other cooking open to anyone. Expect to learn a great deal. Put only the following line in the BODY of the message:
subscribe sca-cooks

Brewers’ Guild

Brewing is a fun form of do-it-yourself home chemistry, with results you can drink! It’s also an excellent social pastime, and doesn’t require a lot of experience. “The Wrecked Angle Brewery” in Thamesreach has supported brewers of all skill levels.

With the loss of our local guildmistress and alewife, the brewers have been dormant for awhile.

If you are a brewer and feel a bout of brewing coming on, please don’t keep it to yourself! Post to the Thamesreach list, and see if you can find some fellow brewers.

(past) Guildmistress: Lady Meesha de Valence (mka Michelle Horowitz)