WEEKEND IN SHERWOOD IX CON REPORT
                              by Julianne Toomey-Kautz

Whew! What a great weekend!  What a wonderful time to see old friends,
meet some new ones and reminisce about -- well, about a large number of
years that have gone by!

    My trip to Weekend in Sherwood started out just fine at Logan
Airport in Boston, MA on Thursday evening. Sadly, things went awry with
the hotel shuttle and I didn't arrive at the hotel until nearly
midnight.  Helen (Avry) and Rache were sitting outside and Helen
presented me with an 8 1/2 by 11 of a photo from last time's Major Oak
Awards with the players in costume and Jason kneeling among us.  Thank
you again, Helen!  Then I checked in and went straight to bed.


    Friday was a busy day. Started out with a fan panel that Kitty asked
me to be on at 10am, "Costuming in Sherwood," so I brought along a bunch
of children's books to help illustrate the various ways costumes have
been portrayed in hte literature. Then there were rehearsals for the
Major Oak Awards cast -- there were lots of rehearsals: 3 today, 2 on
Saturday and a really big dress rehearsal on Sunday starting around 8am.

    "Opening Ceremonies" with Mark Ryan were just wonderful!  He
answered some of the usual questions and some totally new ones, and told
stories that had us rolling in the aisles, and then he turned the tables
and started asking *us* questions!  It was a wonderful, hilarious 2+
hours!  (which necessitated some scrambling by the con committee to do
some rescheduling, but hey, all in a good cause!)  Then I ran Pavanne
Practice for the exhibition pavanne before the banquet.  We had lots of
brave souls who tried out the pavanne for the first time, as well as a
bunch of folks who have done it before, so I managed to get the dance
taught in a bit over an hour.  We plotted out the end-of-pavanne skit
and warned some folks that they were going to be participants in the
skit. When the time came, they performed bravely: "I'm Robin!"    "No,
I'm Robin!"    "No you're not! I'm Robin!" and so on until Marion (Janet
Van Meter) ran up to the one Robin in the room who had not been warned
and declared that *he* was Robin!   Laughter erupted from all.  We also
had a performance, thanks to Janet  and David Van Meter's efforts with
Clannad's music -- you mean there's a music-only track on the DVD?!
Thanks, Janet!! --  and choreography, of the medieval dance "Hole in the
Wall."  The banquet food was very good this year.  I really liked the
"Steak on a stake" and that cream of broccoli soup was wonderful
(usually, I hate broccoli!)  The costume contest was filled with
excellent costumes from more people than we've seen in a while.  Someone
won for "longest sword" --please pardon me; I forgotten who it was.
Then came filksinging until we all collapsed from exhaustion.

    Wandering though the halls of the hotel was a fun experience. The
staff smiled and said hello and occasionally looked bemused at all these
strange people in strange clothes (we had a number of people wearing
costumes in the halls this year -- hooray!).

    Saturday was just as busy.  I had a panel with Rache from 9-10am
(urk--early!) on "Robin Hood Minstrelsy" where we chatted with the
audience about songs in the RH legend and in RoS. Great way to start out
the morning, talking about some of our favorite music!  We had a phone
call with Clive Mantle, where he chatted quite comfortably with Mark and
the fans about all kinds of things.  Later on in the day, we had a phone
call with Ray Winstone who --  wouldn't you know it? --  was filming in
Boston while I was in Detroit. Sheesh. Timing.  Oakies rehearsals
through both lunch and dinner breaks. My gratitude once again to the
kind, helpful Gofers who got some lunch for me from the restaurant or
else I wouldn't have been able to eat at all.   From 4-5pm, we had the
Herne's Jr Archery tournament.  Since I'm in charge, I decided that
Kevin Costner's RH would be worth the most points, and that if someone
even made a picture wiggle using the little kid toy bows, it would count
as a hit.  Have you tried those bows? It is not enough to aim, let me
tell you! It works better if you don't aim!  We had a great deal of fun
and laughter.  A couple of people even killed Kevin Costner twice!
Hooray!  Nikki and Marnie gofered the tournament, retrieving arrows that
went every which way but straight!  My thanks to them.  Janet Van Meter
took over my Medieval Dance class for me, since I was feeling ill; ill
enough to call my doctor, who gave me a prescription over the phone that
Mick drove me to pick up at a local CVS. Thank you again, Mick!   When
we came back and finished Oakies rehearsal, the RoS DVD PAL episodes
were showing in the main programming room, but I decided sleep was
better. It sounded like a lot of fun, though.  Only one person showed up
for circle, so we talked instead.  I don't know if filksinging happened,
because I went to bed.

    Sunday morning started far too early for a Sunday of a con.  We
started rehearsing around 8am for the Major Oak Awards. My poor roommate
awoke to my wake-up call, but Robin (Nash) is a good sport.  She went
back to sleep, I think.  Spent most of the Oakie rehearsals in laughter
and fun.  I think the awards ceremony went well.  We didn't forget our
lines (well, not many) and the audience laughed a lot, but not as much
as we did in rehearsal. Rache wrote a hysterically funny script.  I
can't wait to see the photos! Thank you again, Nikki (I think it was
Nikki), who volunteered to take pictures with my camera during the
perfomance.  Many wonderful pieces won an Oakie. I bet the winners are
up on the Spirit of Sherwood site. If they're not yet, they soon will
be.  I was startled and pleased to win two awards this year for poetry.
:)  The Art and Charity Auction went very well.  I actually bought back
a piece of artwork that I'd donated, because when I saw it there, it was
too beautiful to let go!  I bought a RH bear that was too cute to resist
and a RH cross stitch needlework, too. And of couse I bought the latest
edition of Albion and a Middle Earth zine.  :)

    Closing ceremonies were wonderful with Mark, as always.  He's such a
nice person!  :)  After that, people started to wind down.  Matt Whitney
and I began to pack up for a flight back to Boston that night. I
acutally had to work on Monday! Fortunately, there were no children in
my school library because I was too tired to think straight.  And
tomorrow  (Saturday), we're (my husband and I) off to Aruba with my
parents, brother and sister-in-law.

    So, that's my version of events in Sherwood.

    Congratulations again, Chris!  Your hard work made the convention a
fun time.