Where does THIS END of the hobby need to improve MOST?

[OldKingCrow]

High-quality EBUFU events are what this end of the hobby is all about. If "we" can only get a dozen or so military reenactors to attend what promises to be one of the most educational and logistically challenging EBUFU events in recent memory, "we" don't need to be encouraging "us" to waste effort attending more mainstream events. If we want our end of the hobby to remain, "we" need to fill up the schedule supporting each other first, then support mainstream events in the extra time when nothing else is happening.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

There are folks across the spectrum, (dare I say the preponderance of the authentic community based on the 5-7% attendee moniker which is worn so proudly) doing their own "historically representative thing" and applying a research based, MMM and PEC approach, combined with one helluva amount of requisite due dillegence and never attend a single EBUFU event.

Chris Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[Hank Trent]

There are folks across the spectrum, (dare I say the preponderance of the authentic community based on the 5-7% attendee moniker which is worn so proudly) doing their own "historically representative thing" and applying a research based, MMM and PEC approach, combined with one helluva amount of requisite due dillegence and never attend a single EBUFU event.

Chris Rideout
Tampa, Florida

I've asked it before and I'll ask it again. How? Because I'd love to attend a few more events each year, closer to home, but they're all mainstream.

Let's say someone is portraying a private. Who marches you out to stand picket and who relieves you after two hours? What officer signs your pass? Who drills you for five hours in garrison or where do you march for five hours on campaign or who tends you for the rest of the event after you're wounded in battle? What do you do when there are no other privates in 186x to socialize with, because they're all talking as if it's 2010?

And the same types of things apply if one is a civilian. I literally do not understand how one can reenact anywhere near as accurately at a mainstream event as at an event where others are being supportive. The only possible way would be to pick a role where, historically, one would be mostly isolated from everyone else. Sometimes, at the historic time and place, there just aren't any--especially for military reenators who are, by definition, part of a larger army. But even if it might fit historically, I really don't want to travel even two or three hours to spend a weekend virtually isolated at what should be a cooperative venture--I can camp alone in the woods here at home if I wanted to do that.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[OldKingCrow]

I just did it at Resaca...many of the things mentioned in thread.....

Rode out from horse trailers spent the days riding the park in some advanced, high paced equine conditions (at lest for this flatfoot), spent nights on a cold camp on a ridge over looking May 15, 1864 Johnston entrechments (actual 146 years to the date)....bivy'd in the rain (rained every night), the three of us huddled under two ground cloths.....biled coffee...lousy wet rations...tacked up/ down in the dark...came down from the hills to participate on the periphery of the battle in a historically representative role...got invited to period dinner party put on by reputable folks from this site at their awesome civilian camp....pulled a regiment of ticks off of me... puked a fair share.

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[Edmund{Road Apple}]

On a more positive note, Campaigners should focus more on being brilliant at the basics. What I mean by that is focusing on solid company drill, marching, fieldcraft, military discipline, in other words... Soldiering. Too many spend too much time trying to find the next cool impression or trying to stand-out from everyone else when they should be looking to the most common, everyday soldier possible.

I have to agree with Mr. Sullivan on this, I havent been to an event going on over a year now but if your going to go become a "Campaigner" "hardcore" what ever term you use. Drill is the most important thing to be shown its what the soldiers did daily, It created discipline and morale. Having a "100% had sewn" or "Correctly Marked period Under-drawers" is going to do you squat unless you can drill, and know your place in the camps and I must say respect towards superior ranks. That bugged me the most in reenacting and will become more of a pep-peeve of mine, You should know the place of your NCO's SNCO's and your Commissioned Officers, NCO's should not be around a fire with a group of Privates and so fourth. That is where all forms of this life style fail horribly at and will continue well into the future.

And for some reason I can see my response spurring angry responses from the "Hard Core" "Campaigners" saying they do not want to be classified with "Mainstream" or "Farb" reenactors

Dear Mr. Lockhart,

You've been a member of this forum for five years. You have a grand total of eleven posts. You still don't have a proper signature as required by forum rules and after being warned as many as five years ago. Here's a reminder which was inserted into your first post five years ago :

Dear Edmund,
The AC posting rules clearly spell out the requirement that all members MUST sign their full name to their posts.
Please add your full name to your signature line for your account to avoid further warnings up to including deletion of your account. Thank you.

Here's a link to the thread where the above language first appeared : http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...0799#post40799 The post following yours from a former moderator is also relevant.

Post again without a proper signature as required by the forum rules, and your account will be suspended.

- Silas Tackitt, a moderator

[Garryowen]

Howdy folks, I feel like tossin' my hat into the ring.
I'm fairly new to the AC end of the hobby, and admit I have not yet attended a EBUFU, but maybe some insight from someone with a "finger in both pies" might help.
Back in the day, when I was a wee lad just starting out (15ish) , I was accosted at a mainstream event by some dirty ragged guy with a long gray beard, and called all sorts of names. Not having any idea who we was or what he was about, I went back to camp and told My pards what had happened. They explained to me about hardcore and mainstream, using some rather unsavory descriptive phrases I'd just as soon not repeat here. Needless to say, I had a bad impression for a few years of those "hardcore guys".
A few years later at Cedar Creek, a friend of mine wanted to cross the creek and see what those "hardcore guys under the trees over there" were all about. I agreed, with a little unease after my first experience. We moseyed over, got to chatting, and found out, Hey those guys ant so bad. One nice "older gent" saw my haversack dangling low and offered some friendly advice on how to fix it. We hung out for an hour or two, and went back to our campsite feeling a little enlightened about things.
I joined the army after high school, and was out of re enacting for awhile. When I came back a few years ago, I started on what I'd like to think as being progressive, but some might disagree. I read more and different books, look at pictures and read the AC (after I discovered it, like Columbus discovering a New World already filled with people). Now I find myself eating salt pork and hardtack at mainstream events, attempting to hand sew things (my sewing needs work) and helping people with authenticity (or at least trying to).
Now, that was a little long winded (or typed) but my point is this, GET YOURSELFS OUT THERE. Make your self's accessible to people who want to talk, or start down that road to a better impression. Had I never "crossed the river and rested in the shade of the trees.." I may have always carried that first bad impression around with me.

[OldState]

Got to say I disagree. I'd hate to see this end of the hobby become the reenacting equivalent of a multi-level marketing scheme, where the goal is not to create real value, but to recruit more members.

If there were no EBUFU events, what would we tell mainstreamers or the public, who asked what they'd get to do if they joined our hobby? If the answer would be, attend events just like this to recruit more reenactors and educate more people like you, then there'd be no more "this end" of the hobby. That would also mean no higher level for the public who wanted more education (which is how I got into reenacting originally).

The public would get the 10-minute sound bite, but if they wanted to spend the money and the time to get the clothes and the knowledge, so they could learn more through living history than they saw at mainstream events, the answer would have to be well, sorry, "we're not for people like you," as a museum docent once told me when I was too interested in the history he was telling about. This end of the hobby should be for people like that, because if we don't do it, who will?

High-quality EBUFU events are what this end of the hobby is all about. If "we" can only get a dozen or so military reenactors to attend what promises to be one of the most educational and logistically challenging EBUFU events in recent memory, "we" don't need to be encouraging "us" to waste effort attending more mainstream events. If we want our end of the hobby to remain, "we" need to fill up the schedule supporting each other first, then support mainstream events in the extra time when nothing else is happening.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

I never said the hobby should stop EBUFU. What I did say was that they are a poor way to recruit new people. There are a good number of people at mainstream events that are probably interested in taking a step to the other side, but if this side doesn't represent then where to they gain access? If EBUFU is all your interested in so be it. If that was sentiment of everyone here then we would EBUFU ourselves out of existence.
On another note, I agree with Mr Beasley that preservation should be one of the primary efforts of this end of the hobby. That and Living History for the public. I will speak for myself here, but I've never felt better about my participation in this hobby than after attending an event that raised a bunch of money.

[Spinster]

I just did it at Resaca...many of the things mentioned in thread.....

.......got invited to period dinner party put on by reputable folks from this site at their awesome civilian camp....pulled a regiment of ticks off of me... puked a fair share.

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

Just poor common folks sharing a supper with soldiers who looked hard pressed.

Mainstream events such as that one provide excellent rehersal for some aspects of EFUBU events, in a supportive environment--it's easy enough to remedy missing gear if several attempts at fieldcraft fail.

But it's still not this end of the hobby. Nobody asked for my pass or my good conduct certificate. A rare 3-4 men knew how to play when we sent a girl out peddling eggs at inflated prices that would have been in place at the time. (Even when I was there to whisper "open your period wallet and pay her in scrip"-folks don't get it. It's a different mindset. I'll bet you there was not another child there who'd raised the period chickens that gave their breakfast eggs.

And if we'd been playin for real, we'd have been wary of soldiers and you'd have not gotten food so easily.

Still, I learned that women and girls working alone can hill a wagon by hand. That hand made noodles are work, just like everything else, and how to balance a particular medication in heat.

Memorial Weekend I practiced at a different event. I functioned better and could do more work. Educating the public happened too, and money was raised. But I cannot offer the depth of insight in those short talks if I do not venture beyound the comfort level of mainstream events.

If I'm going to offer my personal best, I have to explore deeply in as many aspects of period life as I'm capable of doing. But if those around me are not in that mindset, it does not throw the curves needed to make me grow.

History-heavy, immersion events are not for everyone. Even a local reported gave us one look and understood how much heavier our workload was, and how different our camp looked from the others he saw. We will eliminate about half the gear we take to our next history heavy event, because we did learn a lot by practicing.

This larger hobby needs events all along the spectrum. But make no mistake. They are not the same, and this board serves this end of the hobby.

If we continue to give lip service to our types of events, and use the board to promote events that diffuse efforts for OUR events, folks will continue to mistake a piece of the pie for the whole pie.


same.

[Eric Fair]

Drill, drill, drill. I'm not just talking about evolutions of the line, battalion maneuvers, etc., but even simple things like the Manual of Arms. Remember, the real soldiers spent untold hours drilling, until the positions and motions for the manual of arms were muscle memories - snappy and crisp, and they can do it in their sleep. If you doubt this, watch the old vets reunion movies - they still have it ingrained after all those years.

I also think the devolution from larger company sized units into small messes has contributed to this. No one has drill weekends anymore! Back in the day everyone started the season with a drill weekend - now you rarely see this anymore. Those weekends accomplished a lot - a great way to BS with the guys and get it out of your system, share your research/latest projects, and, of course, work on every aspect of soldiering. Every unit had someone that enjoyed some aspect of drill, material culture, weaponry, etc., and was willing to share their knowledge/research findings. Then when you hit the season, you were good to go. I think everyone should be ready and have a working knowledge of drill through the School of the Company, an understanding of basic fieldcraft, and a basic understanding of the historical events surrounding the event they are attending before they start the season.

I've never been a huge proponent of the "persona" movement, but I will say I've noticed a distinct fall off of first person at events as well. So, while I don't personally feel it necessary to create an entire personality for oneself for an event, I do think one should be able to refrain from modern conversation for 36 hours.

[dirtyshirt]

I have seen a lot of people here saying many of the same things, and the one I would have to agree with the most is to be more tolerant of main stream and progressive events and individuals. I recently went to a dinky little local event here (that my son dragged me out to) and ran in to a group that I would consider to be progressive; guys I have never met, and I am glad I met them. They want to learn and grow, and who else are they going to learn from if we don't open our doors to help. Additionally, I would be glad to fall in with them at any other event I might attend around here outside of the authentic world.

[OldKingCrow]

History-heavy, immersion events are not for everyone.

This is all I am saying. I have lived this mantra for years now.

I only add the further qualifier that history heaviness exists all around in various forms and manifests itself in some pretty knowledgable and capable folks outside of the 5-6 or so EBUFU annual events.

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida