Spring Camp 2025 was held over the long weekend at Braythwayte Manor. As always I love getting to events at the manor. Spring Camp is a fairly laid back affair with people organising the things they want to do, rather than having a set timetable of activities. The main area of the camp is kept as free of modern things as possible, all food is prepared in camp and cooked over open fires, bread is made fresh and baked in a wood fired bread oven. It was lovely to catch up with old friends and meet new people. I spent a bit of time teaching some basic fencing while Master James did more advanced work with the more experienced fighters. The weather was variable but the sun came out before we had to break camp so the tent was mostly dry.

This months tournament was held in Cluain. A total of 9 heavy fighters and 6 fencers took the field

In the morning the heavy tournament took place. This was again a round robin tourney. It was fought as a single pass. Ultimately Master Rudiger was victorious.

After lunch it was the fencers turn. With six fighters we also held a round robin, best of three passes. To keep things interesting each pass against a specific opponent had to be fought with a different weapon combination. After all the results were totalled I am please to say I, Baron Sympkyn, was victorious and retained my champions title.

The first of the monthly tournaments for Ildhafn was held on the 10th August. There were 8 heavy fighters and 3 fencers participating.

In the morning the heavy tournament took place. This was a round robin tourney. It was fought as a single pass. Ultimately Leo of Ildhafn was victorious.

After a pot luck lunch it was the fencers turn. Only 3 fencers were able to take part so they decided to fight a Pass d’Arms, beginning with single sword, then moving to sword and dagger and finally using sword and buckler. Each weapon form was fought as a best of 3. After all the results were totalled I am please to say I, Baron Sympkyn, was victorious.

The annual Ildhafn winter event, this year entitled ‘Ad Fundam’ took place over the weekend of the 26th and 27th July.

Ad Fundam is a latin term which has different meanings depending on context – it means ‘ from the bottom’ and is often used as a toast ‘Bottoms up’ but can be interpreted as ‘Back to Basics’ it has been chosen because of this duality as many of the classes are aimed at beginners but the event is also a celebration of the Baronial Anniversary.

Over the weekend of the 17 and 18th May 2025 Ildhafn hosted a martial academy. On offer was Armoured(heavy) combat, Fencing, Archery and Combat Archery.

I wanted to do all of the streams but as that wasn’t possible I decided to do the Armoured Combat stream.

Sir Eva von Danzig, a Knight and former Queen of Lochac had been persuaded to fly over from Innilgard(Adelaide) to impart some of her wisdom. In her first session she took us through some of the theory and preparedness for heavy combat. Then after a lovely lunch we armoured up and went through defensive exercises, practicing maintain range with an opponent, look to assess where a threat is coming from and how to move to best avoid it and take advantage of the resulting position. We then moved outside to do some full contact drills and pick-ups(free sparing).
The afternoon finished off a session on war tactics and brought the combat archers in so we could look at how to best work with them. This was followed by a couple of skirmishes.

Cluain hosted another magnificent event over Labour Weekend, October 21st to October 23rd. As always this was at the marvellous setting of Braythwayte Manor just outside Rotorua, New Zealand.

We had 3 days of camping, eating wonderful food prepared from scratch in the camp’s open kitchen and cooked over a fire. There was also dancing, music, fighting, archery, games and craft work.

Labour weekend camp is less structured than most and is very much a ‘bring what you want to work on’ style of camp. While my current health doesn’t allow for much in the ways of physical activity I did spend time playing games and talking with friends both old and new.

Another year and another St Sebastians event. This year about 90 people attended the event. It was truly lovely to see so many people enjoying themselves

While St Sebastians is traditionally an archery focused event, we also had both heavy and rapier tournaments happening.

The heavy tournament had a random weapon wheel. Each fighter was weapons were determined by 2 spins of the wheel, one for each hand. There were also some special weapons, such as a haddock, a broken bottle, rolling pin and troll club, that added to the mix.

St Sebastian’s was a special event this year. It marked the 10th anniversary of Ed and Elizabeth running this on their property. As such Ed had made some extra special site tokens, individual pottery cups, for the attendees.

As always there was a game running over the weekend. The prize this year was a crossbow. This was eventually won by William de Cameron.

The main event at St Sebastian’s is the archery tournament.
This year it was broken down into 3 categories, all shot at the same time.

Within the SCA there are a number of Kingdoms, each ruled by a King and Queen. Every 6 months a new King and Queen are appointed by a heavy combat tournament, with the winner becoming the next Monarch along with his or her consort.

Within Lochac these tournaments take place in May and November. The in July and January the new King and Queen are crowned.

This year the Midwinter coronation was held in the Canton of Cluain, at the beautiful Hamilton Gardens.