I want to preface this report with a few explanations. Due to ongoing medical problems with my hip/groin and lower back, I really did not expect to be able to attend this convention. A resolute Robert fan, I desperately wanted to see Jason and with the help of several very good friends and a couple of orders to make costumes, I managed to get to the con. Also due to those medical problems, I have gained enough weight that I thought perhaps I shouldn't costume as Marion this year. Fortunately, some good friends reminded me that I'm the one always saying costuming is for fun. Unfortunately, the layout of the hotel (meeting spaces on the first floor at one end, individual rooms and a few con spaces on the fourth floor on the opposite end of the hotel) involved walking farther each day than my hip liked. But the pain was worth it because the con was great! Despite a few minor glitches, this was one of the smoothest cons I've been involved with, either RoS or SciFi. There is true magic when RoS fans gather together. I can't explain it, but I appreciate it.

I began running the costume contest way back at WiS 2, so all the paperwork and preparations are already done. All I needed to do was update the forms and print them out. Preparing for the "Costuming for Fun" panel was also easy as costuming has always been a big part of my life and I just pulled together samples out of my collection. I needed to provide costumes for a couple people involved with The Major Oak Awards, but that was easily arranged. The script arrived a little late this year, but I used it to distract me on the flight. (Side note: I HATE flying as I was once in a crash, but again, WiS8 was worth it.) I arrived on Thursday afternoon to the usual "meet everybody in the lobby as you check in" scenario. As soon as I walked in the door and encountered friends from previous cons that haven't been seen in four years, the mood was set. Nothing had changed; the magic was the same as always.

A word about the hotel, which Helen likened to a Tardis (far bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside). Most of the problems that exited could bei resolved if the hotel staff is willing to work with Chris. I can overlook the front desk service being slow, the restaurant being closed everyday at lunchtime, the bar closing early, even the catering staff arguing in the kitchen because these could be fixed for next time. The maid service was good and what staff I encountered was always helpful. The location is also an improvement since there are other food venues within walking distance. However, having worked scheduling events at many hotels, I can say with assurance that all of them have at least one problem. There is always something.

After learning the layout of the hotel, I spent time meeting with Lisa from the catering department to make arrangements for the costume contest. First problem: the only outlet for the microphone is on the opposite wall from where the head table was set up. Well, we can go with the flow. I set out the contest paperwork at the gofer hole and decided to use the hottub to settle down my hip. Never appear in a bathing suit when fans are around. I've already received photos of me looking extremely large in the jacuzzi. However, the hot water worked. When all three of my roommates arrived, we decided to go out for dinner. We ended up driving past the Denny's across the street from the hotel where WiS used to take place and decided we had to eat there. It was "our" Denny's.

When we arrived back at the hotel, I was a little disappointed to find out there would be no staff party, which in previous years I used to meet the guests and ask them to be judges for the contest. This year, people just gathered in the bar. More friends from previous cons with stories of "what have you done since" and "do you remember when" just like at a High School reunion. Robert Addie had one of those horrible trips with long drives to the airport, delays and long flights so he had gone straight to bed but Jason was at the bar getting some food. I barely had time to ask him about the judging when Rache gathered us all for our first Major Oaks rehearsal. As I've been doing the Oakies since the first one, this was not a great surprise.

A tip to any new fans: If you want to see most of the con, NEVER let Rache talk you into joining the Oakies. We have only Thursday night, Friday and Saturday to get the skit ready for performance on Sunday. It is fun, but takes lots of time. First priority is finding times in the con schedule when we are all available for rehearsals. Although Rache always tries to accommodate panels we want to attend, time for eating doesn't receive the same attention. (A typical day's schedule for an Oaker looks like this: 10am -11am panel, 11-12 rehearsal, 12-2pm guest panel, 2-3 rehearsal, 3-4 autographs, 4-5 photos, 5-6 panel, 6-7 rehearsal, 7-8 Workshop, 8-10 Mixer, 10-11 Rehearsal, 11pm Filking.) This year we used one of the con rooms on the fourth floor for rehearsals. It was convenient in that it was close to our rooms, but far away from all the meeting space. Great. More walking.

At our first rehearsal, the old players had the chance to catch up and the new-comer was introduced then we read through the script for the first time, which means we made the first changes. Afterwards, we went back to the bar only to find out that last call had already gone out and we couldn't get anything to drink. In fact, we were politely asked to leave shortly after I arrived. We spent some time talking in the lobby then helped the Mumaw sisters to get their videotaping equipment into the hotel. By 1am we went to our rooms. This was quite early for a con, but it was okay with me. I'm not as young as I used to be. If sleep is for wusses, then let me be a wus.

My costuming panel was the first one of the con, taking place at 10 am on Friday. Quite by coincident, Janet Van Meter and I both arrived wearing Marion's first season dress with the little leather vest. As it was the first panel, not a lot of people were there to start but more drifted in as we talked. I felt it went well. After the panel I had to rush to the dealer/art show room to hang my artwork and help my friend set up his dealer's table. Due to this and rehearsals, I ended up missing the other panels. I would have liked to see the one Diane Carey did on writing; perhaps next time. A word about the space set-up this year: although the room was a little too small, I really liked having the dealers, art show and auction all in the same room. Not only is it convenient, it prompts people to go through all three of them.

The opening panel with the guests was fantastic. Robert Addie is a wonderful guest, very entertaining and friendly. He has an ironic sense of humor that many people mistake for "slamming" but I have found is very typical of the British. They aren't really cutting themselves or others, it is just a type of teasing humor. Like Benny Hill. What did impress me about Robert was how skinny he looks, as if a good breeze might blow him away. But it was wonderful hearing new stories and getting a fresh view on the show. He is the first "bad guy" from the show that I've seen. Jason Connery was a little nervous to start, but soon joined in with some great tales of his own. I admire how they can remember names of people and other small details of a job that they finished over 15 years ago. (Just think of who you were working with back then and try to remember anything specific.) Then Chris called Michael Praed, who was in England. What many attendees didn't know was that the call was mistakenly cut off twice before we actually got to speak to Michael so he was leery of the lengthy pauses. It was nice hearing from him, but it can be difficult to come up with questions for a guest who isn't present. Of course, Robert and even Jason had fun talking to him.

After the panel, Robert discovered that the restaurant was not open for lunch. Since he hadn't eaten yet, he was whisked away to get food so the autograph session started a little late. This is a normal phenomenon for a con. Despite the best intentions of the schedulers and of the people on the panels, things run over time or other stuff happens. I took it in stride. It meant more time to visit with people I hadn't seen for so long. Photos followed immediately after autographs. Although my son is now taller than I, my husband is the same height. Being inbetween two men both over 6' tall was somewhat intimidating. The top of my head barely reached Robert's shoulder! However, Jason did mention my outfit looked great so I left feeling wonderful. Then came the workshop on chainmail. Very interesting and Russ was a lot of fun. Then (you guessed it) time for Oakies rehearsal again. But wait. When are we going to eat? Fortunately, Jo and Dar (roommates of mine and gofers) offered to bring back pizza for the performers. Yeah, I got to eat today! Gulp down pizza, rehearse and then race off for the Herne's Junior Archery Contest.

Herne's Jr contest is a WiS tradition and lots of fun. Once again, Janet and I had arrived wearing the same outfit, Marion's third season blue dress with the funny headwrap. This was getting just a little scary. Jason and Robert wanted to attend but needed to get a meal first, so Julianne let those present practice. Using a small toy bow, you shoot rubber tipped arrows at photos of the bad guys, scoring points. At the end, the person with the most points wins. When Robert and Jason arrived, they each took turns shooting. Jason managed to hit Sir Guy's photo. Robert was upset that there was no photo of Robin for him to shoot, but he managed to score higher than Jason. He did confess that he had been a champion archer in school. The guests settled in to watch and help out with the other shooters. Jason was even keeping track of how many arrows each person had shot and running to pick them up. Loads of fun. As usual, the winner was a person who has no experience shooting a real bow.

The mixer that night was a chance for everyone to mingle and meet the guests up close and personal. Robert tended to drift around the room, but Jason ended up with a circle of people around him asking about everything from his father to what he was currently doing in LA. Both guests were relaxed and easy to approach. Always a plus at a con. I have been to other conventions where the guests never mingle directly with the fans. The RoS guests are always cooperative, approachable and genuinely nice. The atmosphere at WiS is always communal, as if we are truly one big family. I love it.

All too soon it was time for more rehearsal and then filking. The surprise of the night was when Robert showed up at filking. When told he could pick (choose one of the filks in the books supplied by Amy), play (a song of his own choosing) or pass, he decided to do a dramatic reading. It was so impressive to watch him quickly scan a filk then read it with such feeling, such interpretation. We all enjoyed it so much we encouraged more turns. In the end, he did four different readings, which you could tell were very draining on him. But we had a great time. The night was very late. More like a real con.

I confess I slept in on Saturday morning since I had nothing that I HAD to do. The medical problems cause me to tire more easily and I have to get enough rest. The morning was spent visiting with one of my roomies and dressing in my newest costume, a Norman dress with veil and wimple. Again the restaurant was closed but I didn't worry too much since the banquet was that night. I attended Janet's archery panel, which was very informative. The guest panel was accompanied by wonderful sound effects from nature. Somehow the thunder seemed to come at just the right moments to emphasize or disagree with what Robert or Jason were saying. This time we called Mark Ryan who had been scheduled to attend but was unable due to filming in Ireland. He is working as the swordmaster on an Arthur film in which Ray Winstone (Will Scarlet) has a part. It was great to hear from Mark who was his usual humorous self, walking onto the balcony so we could all hear the river next to his hotel. He even made arrangements to go to the pub with a fan who had traveled to Detroit to meet him only to have him be a few kilometers from her home in Ireland.

That afternoon I found more friends who had just arrived, went to rehearsals, skipped photos and autographs and discovered to my horror that the Huntingdon costume we were borrowing for the Oakies had been forgotten. Then only two contestants showed up at the costume contest mandatory meeting. A suggestion was made that we just announce the contest at the banquet and have those interested in being judged step forward without doing presentations. My fear was that we would still have only two people come forward. I finally found Chris and we decided to simply have "secret" judging during the banquet. Then Annette came to the Oakies rescue. She rushed to a fabric store, bought some brown felt and made the rings with a silver marker. (The resulting Huntingdon costume was more in keeping with Oakies' cheesy effects.)

Now it was time for pavanne rehearsal. The pavanne done in the show was based on a real medieval dance. Unfortunately, it is "based on" the same way Hollywood bases movies on real events. The twirling was done mainly to show off Judy Trott, who was a professional dancer. Anyway, Julianne is an expert on the pavanne and managed to come up with a suitable version that incorporates both aspects of the show and the real medieval dance. The pavanne is difficult to explain, but actually rather easy to dance once you figure out the weaving pattern. It takes a long time to teach everyone the pattern, but once you learn it, the dance goes smoothly. After rehearsal, we planned out what we would do for the ending skit, another WiS tradition. After eight years it can be difficult to come up with something creative for this skit. Then we had all of a half-hour to get dressed and come back down for a last run-through on the dance.

The banquet hall was wonderfully decorated with banners provided by Diane Carey, Barb Johnson and myself. Janet had brought the Bayeux tapestry she had made and it was displayed on the headtable. Everything was beautiful. Seating at the banquet is arranged by signing up for a table at registration; tables are named for characters in the show. You find your table by looking for the photo of that character. As we wandered around finding seating, everyone was asked to take a slip of paper. I confess I knew the X on mine meant I could sit at the headtable. Since I was on the staff, I thought it might look bad for me to sit there, so I asked around to see if anyone else wanted to sit with the guests until a friend reminded me that I had as much right to sit up there as any one else. Diane piped in the guests, we discovered who got to sit at the headtable and Robert made a nice speech to welcome everyone. Unfortunately, those of us waiting in the hall to start the pavanne didn't get to hear most of the speech. Then the music started and we danced. As usual, it went well. At the end, Janet and I (both dressed in Marion's "Herne's Son" banquet dress) circled around Owen of Clun and fought over him. He ended the fight by saying there was enough for all and we ran out together. (Side note: Charley McKinnon, the new Huntingdon in the Oakies and our Owen, foolishly agreed to do just about anything you asked of him at this con. He will learn.)

I ended up sitting next to Sherry Lea, Jason's girlfriend. She is very friendly and outgoing. We had a lot of fun talking about the fandom (she's not seen the show) and discussing the various costumes. Jason divided his time between us and Marnie on his other side. Robert sat between Rolf and Rina with Chris and Todd finishing out the table. Rolf produced a drinking horn, which Jason filled with beer. For some reason, the women seemed to have more trouble drinking from it. Then the Lord of Misrule came forth to propose a toast. At one of the panels, the guests had talked about how much they hated doing the Showtime commercials where they said "We make excitement." So of course, the people sitting at the Gisburne table all got together, held up the photo and shouted out "We make excitement, but only at Weekend in Sherwood." When we finished eating, we all mingled around, took photos and visited. I got Jason to pose with me in front of the Nottingham banners (he says it's pronounced Noddenham, with a "d" sound). Then Diane started piping again. I have never heard Beethoven's 9^th on the pipes, but it sounded wonderful. Janet and David Van Meter, who study Scottish Country Dance, began dancing. It was amusing to see "Marion" dancing with a man in a kilt.

As the evening wore on, I called my judges together and we discussed which costumes we liked. Jason and Robert took this very seriously and liked quite a few of the outfits. I pointed out which ones I considered ineligible (like the ones I had made myself). We finally narrowed it down to four and Janet came up with some great names for the awards. We sent our secret spy to get everyone's name, filled in the certificates and headed for the podium. Robert, who has a great voice, read the certificates and Jason handed them out. In third place, for Best Hair (and because I know how much work went into her outfit) was Mary Berthke. Second place went to Tirza van Rijn and Roeland Tuk for Most Authentic Medieval Couple. The Lord of Misrule (Rick Dennis) took first place. Not only was the costume great, but he kept in character for most of the evening. Jason and Robert awarded Diane Carey the Director's Award because they enjoyed her piping and her outfit so much. They also gave an honorary award to David van Meter for Best Knees. This version of the costume contest seemed to work quite well and I plan to use it next time.

After we had cake, to celebrate the 20^th Anniversary of the show, Jason and Robert went over to the bar while we milled around the banquet, taking photos of each other in costume. (Side note: I ran out of film early. If anyone has photos of Marion, Marion and Owen or Robert [Derrick], Marion and Marion, I would pay for copies.) Jason sent over word that the bar wanted to close, so we went over. The manager explained that they had been closing because no one was in there but now graciously agreed to extend last call to 10:45, asking us to be gone by 11:15. After we were kicked out of the bar, we had another rehearsal then gathered for filking. Robert again appeared but insisted that this time he could only do one reading. Of course, he did two. Both were great, but the "Reasonable Bat" was extremely funny especially when Robert admitted that he had no clue what it was about. (The filk is actually for "Forever Knight".) Some one requested "Merry Meet," which is traditionally the last filk sung at a con, but Rache promised to play it again the next night. I retired somewhat early since we had an 8am dress rehearsal.

Naturally, 8am in con time means that around 8:30 or so we had all finally showed up for the dress rehearsal. The Oakers have a tradition of playing some sort of trick during dress rehearsal in an effort to get a reaction out of Rache, the director. This year, we had the guy who used to play Huntingdon come on instead of Charley. As with most other years, Rache just sat there, rolled her eyes and then banished Derrick back to Minneapolis. One of these years, we might just get an actual reaction out of her. Our last glitch of the con came when Chris informed us that Todd, who was supposed to accept the awards for the winners who weren't present, had been taken to the emergency room and diagnosed with an ear infection. Fortunately, Rick, the Lord of Misrule, was quickly conscripted into service. Dress rehearsal went awful, which in theater terms means the performance will be spectacular. We were lucky that this held true. Robert and Jason appeared to enjoy the show as much as everyone else. We had been nervous since this was the first year that a character in the Oakies had the real actor present in the audience. In fact, when "Loxley" told "Huntingdon" that it hadn't been 20 years for him because he was a "latecomer" Jason laughed harder than any one.

After the Oakies we took photos then chilled until the Art/Charity Auction. Robert, who has done professional auctioneering before, did a great job. He even conscripted Jason into being a runner for the charity items. At one point, Jason started kissing the winning bidder and it looked almost like we were auctioning kisses. Everyone seemed to have fun and we raised money for the charity.

All too soon it was closing ceremonies, where I gave out the Hall Costume Awards, which the guests had also helped to select. Cindy Hunt won for the great medieval outfit she wore on Friday; Jeanne Behnke won for her fabulous red Rennaisance outfit on Saturday; Annette Vogel won for her great blue medieval dress on Sunday. Robert helped us select the winners of the caption contest (photos were in the gofer hole) and tried to hide the fact that one of the winning captions was his own. Last stories were told, last questions asked and everyone agreed that we'd had such a good time we should do it again. Hopefully it won't be another four years, however I do want to point something out. It is a lot of hard work, time and money, to plan a convention. I have attended WiS since 1992 and despite having attendees from all over the US and Western Europe, this was one of the smallest one I've seen. In order to continue meeting, we need to get everyone to come, so tell a friend how much fun you had!

The gofer party takes place on Sunday evening. Snacks, beverages and pizza were provided in what had been the video room. We even had the chance to watch the Major Oaks video. Looks quite different from the other side of the table. Jason appeared briefly before going to the airport. Robert stayed a bit longer and was even still there when we all dragged out our convention books and passed them around. Another WiS tradition. We always sign each other's books. Robert complained that we took far too long with each one, saying that if he took that long for autographs the line would never end. Helen, who with Laura was in charge of gofers, had passed around plastic rats (our version of Arthur from the show) and as mature adults, we all started squeaking them at each other. Robert put one in some of the food and soon the table was invaded by plastic rats. Finally, we left to get some real food and went over to the Red Robin (seemed appropriate). Upon returning, we looked for filking but it never happened. Instead, they were watching videos in the room. Apparently once "Merry Meet" is played, the filking is over, so I returned and chatted with my roomies until the wee hours.

Monday morning found us with the typical "meet in the lobby before leaving" with tearful good-byes and heartfelt hopes to do it all again. Fortunately, Todd was back on his feet (although looking a little off balance). Final photos were taken, final good-byes said, final good wishes given. It is always sad to leave the magic behind. Especially when you need to fly back, however we did meet up with Julianne and Penn at the airport. The clerks raised their brows when we knew each other's destinations. The flight home was rough for me as we hit turbulence, but we made it. Then it was the usual post-con let down, although I was buoyed up by my family letting me know how much they had missed me while I was gone. It took a good week for me to catch up on my sleep, get my hip pain back under control and get everything put away. By then photos were back so I could relive it all again.

Despite those few glitches, this was one of the best Weekends I've attended. There were no major blow-ups and things ran smoothly. Jason and Robert were both wonderful guests who showed genuine concern for the fans. There were new fans to meet, old friends to catch up with and lots of fun to be had. My interest was sparked anew. I look forward to attending another in the future. Rumor says 2005. Gives me just enough time to save up money. Any one need a costume?