Author: Captain Treader

On the opening weekend of the 2020 season, the stage was set for a showdown between the forces of darkness and the forces of the night-light. A call had been placed for the stuffed animal super-hero team, The Naptime Buddies, to assemble. For the forces of darkness, known as the Nightmare Beasties, had gathered to spread evil upon our beloved Sherwood Forest Faire.

Lead by Dread Neko-mancer, the Nightmare Beasties attacked the Naptime Buddies in the Heirs of Asgard camp and cast a spell of Nightmare corruption on their leader, Captain Naptime… turning him into Captain Nightmare. “Resistance is futile”, he told his former friends and the Beasties left camp to spread nightmares to the humans in the festival. Person by person, they attached “nightmare tags” to the visiting patrons. If left on the victims, they would suffer endless nightmares and become evil themselves.

Not knowing how to save their former Captain, the Naptime Buddies began making nightmare-warding mug charms to save the innocents. Into the faire they strode, disposing of the nightmare tags and searching for clues on how to save Captain Naptime. A group of NTBs lead by Knight Owl and Stardust, the Bunny of Boopsville, discovered a prophecy known to the Sage Alexandra that foretold of how to save the Captain.

“In order to save Captain Naptime, you must cast a spell of love binding at sunset tonight or he will be lost forever. For the spell to work, you will need to reunite Captain Nightmare with the Naptime Helmet, Sargent Hoppu his bunny familiar, and a magic pin signed by all of those who love Captain Naptime.”

It took most of the day, but the NTBs collected all quest items and rescued Captian Naptime. Defeated, the Beasties were willing to set aside their evil ways so that the Heirs of Asgard could once again party together in friendship.

Other fun events this weekend:
Golden’s Counter Proposal Flash Mob: Golden led a surprise Uptown Funk flash mob inside faire and offered a counter-proposal to me, Captain Treader (he said yes). Golden had planned her proposal before I proposed to her at the January Gathering, which was quite the Heirs of Asgard event in itself.

The Heirs took over the Puffin!: A big thank you to our host, Nemo, for being so accommodating and thanks to Lauren McMullen for organizing payment. We reserved an entire half of the Puffin’s 2nd floor as a base to hang out and enjoy hooka for the day.

Our Blanket Fort Tapwall was a huge success: We served hundreds of glasses of beer and cider to our friends and neighbors and hosted a huge turnout of stuffed animal and onesie creatures.

Best costume: Corporal Bananas by Mat with 1 T (Mat Keech)
Odin Chef: Sloppy Joes by Diccalo (Geordan Major)
Co-Raid Leader: David Nowlin

Thanks for the great weekend! Together We Are Tanks!

Captain Treader

We gathered in earnest at TRF’s All Hallows Eve weekend for our 9th annual celebration of good fortune with our favorite things; friends, beer, and food! Aegir’s Ball ranks as our biggest gathering of the year and it’s a time to reflect on our growth and thank those who have worked hard to advance the health and prestige of our clan. It is also a time to vote on clan wide issues.

This year, your’s truly had the pleasure of hosting and Sandi stepped up to provide a Viking themed feast. Our Friday night pot luck was possibly the best we’ve ever had, highlights included fresh ceviche, pork ribs, parmesan chicken pasta, pulled pork, and tons of desserts! For breakfast, Sandi prepared us a Viking style honey glazed sausage and barley porridge with apples, cranberries, walnuts, and honey. The dinner feast included venison stew and amazing Norwegian style flounder cakes served with caramelized onions and honey mustard, Yum!

I thought it would be fun to include a raffle in this year’s awards banquet. The Elders pitched in wonderful raffle prizes like Trisha’s wizard cape, PJ’s epic sword, Joe’s extra tickets, a guided Kayak fishing trip, and a box of Hopper’s hot sauce. We raffled these off in between our annual awards.

Clan Awards:
– 2018-2019 Odin Chef Champion: Toothless (Joe Kaluza) for Aegir’s Ball 2018’s 7 course Feast
– Community Service Award: Luis Leal
– Photo Contest: Photo Baggins (Caleb Pickens)
– G.U.E.S.T. (Guest of Unrivaled Esteem and Sincere Temperament): Ariel (Angel Crespo) for diligently watching our bar and his exuberant kindness
– Team Player: Catalyst (Amelia Dolby) for sitting out the Get Lit service weekend to watch over our Sherwood camp all by her lonesome.
– Legendary Act: The Law (David Nowlin) for donating his Kings pass and tent to give us a semi-permanent kitchen at TRF.
– Rookie of the Year: Mat Peach for always showing up ready to help out, especially on our work weekends
– Most Valuable Member: David Paul for always helping out everywhere in camp. If it was cooked, cleaned, hauled, or rescued this past year, there’s a good chance David was involved.

New Member Inductions:
– Kyri (Amber Nawlin), Catalyst (Amelia Dolby), Ariel (Angel Crespo), April Bates, Avery Stinson, The Law (David Nawlin, James Nawlin, Katherine Bates, RC Mosier, Robyn Gould, Solymar Puente

After the awards were bestowed and new members inducted, we quickly wrapped up some bylaw required housekeeping. With quorum in attendance, we updated our “No Asshole Rule” to allow for the Council of Elders to determine the punishment for anyone kicked out of camp at the next monthly meeting. We also reelected Captain Treader, who ran unopposed, to lead us for the next two year term.

There were many adventures, too many to list here, so let me just say this. The weather was perfect, the homebrew flowed freely from the Heir’s tap wall, the new clan safety binder came in handy, and amazing pictures were taken. Thank you all for making this clan the best damn group of people anywhere!

Together We Are Tanks!

~ Captain Treader

First, let me apologize for the late post and thank everyone for the fantastic events and weekends we’ve had at Sherwood Forest Faire so far this season. We are meeting our goal of being good neighbors and are getting real traction in becoming established members of the clan community.  Best of all, we’ve made hundreds of new friends and several of which may join our ranks.

I had the pleasure of Raid Leading our first event, Hugin’s Quest: The Search for Munin. Odin, the Allfather of the gods, had two Raven familiars, Hugin and Munin (thought and memory), that traveled the nine realms and reported all things to Odin. It is said the Allfather feared one day they would not return.  He worries for Hugin, but he worries more for Munin. And this was weekend Munin did not return.

The Heirs of Asgard and their allies knew Munin was last seen near Nottingham Castle, an area known well to only a few heirs. Their quest was to map out Sherwood Forest’s clan camp grounds, make friends, and bring Munin back to camp. Throughout the weekend our adventurers visited 30 different camps, met hundreds of midgardians, and ultimately brought Munin home.

Congratulations to Melinda and Doug from Odin’s Children for finding Munin, who was lost in Mug and Flame, and to Britt and PJ for mapping the most clans and residents! Special thanks to Joe, Peter, and the Brew Crew for the full tap wall; to our dedicated TABC certified bar tenders; and to our Odin Chef, Jenn Treadway, for the wonderful meals!

One day, hopefully far in thet future, our memories will struggle to return. But, perhaps all we need is a little help from our friends to bring them back. I hope never to forget these wonderful weekends we get to enjoy together.  Thank you for being part of them.

Together we are Tanks!

Captain Treader

Huzzah to the courageous Asgardians who braved the weather forecast and joined us for the opening raid of our 2018/2019 season!  Fortunately, there was very little rain and we were able to enjoy great competition as well as the 40 gallons of homebrewed beer and cider provided by the Brew Crew (lead by Peter the High Technomancer)!  You may notice from the pictures the tap wall now includes 8 taps of brew as well as 1 water tap named “Amy’s Good Decisions”.

This was the first event for our new “Odin Chef” competition.  PJ provided bacon pancakes for breakfast and brought food truck style to this festival. He set up two windows and cooked up made to order plates like venison stir-fry, smoked chicken burritos, hot dogs and brats.  Attendees have been sent a scoring survey and I can say it will be tough to beat his strong showing.  Should PJ win the Odin Chef competition, he and his sous chefs will receive prizes next Aegir’s Ball.

This year, 5 teams competed including our neighbors Adrian and Kelly who presented me the Roman Dirk of Friendship 2 years ago.  Thors Hammered (James, Joel, and Ryan) lead the field by 1 point going into group play, but The Beards (Josh K. Josh H. and Adam) overtook them by a point going into the playoffs. After the semi-finals, it was Thors Hammered vs. The Beards competing for the championship.

With the point advantage, The Beards chose beer pong and sent Adam and Klein to the table. Thors Hammered was down a James after he was bedly wounded by one too many ciders. Ryan and Joel were drunk, but still ready to fight to the end. What followed was an epic duel. As drunk as he was, Ryan was sinking shots like a champ,  even fighting back from defeat once with multiple redemption shots.  In the end, The Beard’s won the day to join Into the Freja (Jenn, Trisha, and Golden) as Beer Fest Champions.

This was my second and possibly final Beer Fest to raid lead.  I hope to enjoy Beer Fests solely as a competitor and Captain next year and I’d be happy to help the next Beer Fest RL anyway I can.  Thanks to everyone who participated and I’ll see you at Aegir’s Ball!

Together We Are Tanks,

Captain ATs

First I want to thank everyone who braved the high winds and warm temperatures to come out to my fishing expedition on June 23rd!  To say that it was a wonderful, memorable time is an understatement.

Golden and I arrived at the rendezvous midafternoon on Friday and after establishing a beachhead, I set out to chase the fish.  Clan members trickled in through the evening, a few fish were caught, and merriment was made. Joe the XO brought the last keg of our spring apple wine, while Sarah Stout brought homemade pulled pork tacos, guac, and pickled cabbage. A big thank you to Sarah!

Friday night, when the moon was high, Matt(The Red Viking) Johnson joined me for a midnight gigging adventure in Christmas Bay.  We returned a with a beautiful 19″ Flounder and 3 giant blue crabs.  The Flounder was cooked up by Momma T for the clan Saturday afternoon.

Saturday kicked off our first Sand Castle Competition and honestly, I was blown away by all the participants! Many of the entries took hours of work by multiple builders and the hard work paid off.  I strongly encourage everyone to view the event photos, because they’re great.  Ultimately, Susie, Joe, and Audrey’s full-sized sleepy dragon took first place. Honorable mentions went out to Golden’s dragon guarded castle, Jenn’s Viking longship, and Amy’s dragon head.

Several members wet their lines on Saturday but the only keepers were caught by Adam and Cody.  Cody caught the largest trout of the weekend at 21 inches, but I had the fortune of hooking up with an absolute monster of the surf while wade fishing on the 3rd sandbar.  Fortunately, the Red Viking was there to hold on to my stringer to keep me from being pulled out to sea when I jumped to say above water.

The fight went on for 35 minutes and took us a mile down the beachfront before we had landed what became known that weekend as Jörmungandr, the Midgard fish. As we left the water with this 44″ Jack Crevalle, a search party lead by Cody pulled up to us to give us a lift back to camp.  In all my years of fishing the gulf surf, I have never landed such a beast and it was truly the greatest gift of the weekend. I like to think our fallen members in Valhalla were with us this day and helped land this fish.

With fish caught and eaten, Sand Castles erected in honor of our clan, and the keg drained, our first beach raid came to a close. I’m honored to have been the first to lead Njord’s Raid and I hope a Raid Leader steps forward to carry on the tradition.

Together We Are Tanks,

Captain ATs

Midgard date 01.24.2018.10:28
Susie wasted no time in creating our website once she took over Keeper of Lore and our first officer has put in the leg work of collecting and uploading photos, outlining our history, and linking the calendar.  Its currently a work in progress, but its already surpassed my expectations.  I expect it to be wildly popular with our members and we owe a great deal of gratitude to the Kaluzas for their initiative and effort.

Susie is working with our Lore Committee on official color schemes and fonts and with Golden on finalizing our crest and logo concepts for clan approval.  The most promising design is a raven over a valknut.  I’d like to have these ready by Sherwood Forest Faire, but I believe in giving artists free reign over their work.

We’ve been going through a transformation recently in an effort to make our clan more transparent and democratic while encouraging more events and participation.  I fear some may be put off by the complexity and rate of change, but ultimately this structure will allow us more events, opportunities to participate, and bring us closer together as friends.  The challenge we face now is education and engagement.  I will hold periodic “Office Hours” meetings for anyone who wants to talk shop, but please reach out to me anytime to chat.

I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished in 2017 and of what’s to come.  I can’t describe how excited I am to see this group of people grow and expand into the best clan around.

Together we are Tanks,
Captain ATs