Pentamere Dirty Dozen Donation Derby

The first Pentamere Dirty Dozen Donation Derby was a HUGE success!!! 11 entrants made 35 dozen items to be donated as largesse. I’m so thrilled! Read on to see photos of the largesse, notes on how the tourney was run, and my ideas on changing it for next year. This is a very picture-heavy post, because there were so many beautiful items made! There will likely be a lot of exclamation marks, too. 🙂 Thank you to everyone who entered and made this so amazing.

Set-Up Materials

• small cups for a bean count + beans
• a pen and spare paper for people to fill out with their names and destination of largesse: this information tells me who to thank and give prizes to, and tells me where to donate the largesse at the end of the tourney
• Masking tape or painters tape for adhering the paperwork to the table
• The paperwork laying out the rules of the tourney, prizes for the tourney, and instructions for entrants and populace
• Small slips of paper for the various Baronial/Royal winning choices*
• Small slips of paper with each of the various Over the Top prizes (so the winners could take home the descriptions)
• Plastic bags for packaging up the largesse to be donated

Future Changes to Set-Up Materials

• • bring small ziplocks for tiny items like earrings/pins

• • bring some sturdy cardboard boxes for more fragile items/packing the largesse easier

• • retrieve Kingdom thank-you cards ahead of time (so I don’t have homework after the event!)

• • have Over the Top prize donors include contact info with their prize

• change how the Baronial/Royal choices are collected*

*See future tourney changes

Over the Top Awards

In addition to the 11 entrants in the tourney, 4 Over the Top prizes were contributed! This is a great way to support the creation of largesse, without having to create 12 items yourself. Thank you to everyone who donated their time for OTT awards!

Announcing Winners and Choosing Prizes

As the prizes for the tourney came from the entries and the winners picked out their prizes themselves, I couldn’t think of an easy way to give out prizes during court. Instead, I had all the entrants gather an hour before court. The winners were announced to the group, and they chose their prizes then. That gave me enough time (with several awesome helpers!) to package up all the largesse for the various Baronies and Kingdom before court.

I had originally planned on presenting the prizes during court, but with so many entries, it seemed too difficult. I call this a good problem to have! While the prizes themselves weren’t presented in court, I did announce the winners during court, along with the fact that we had an astounding 35 dozen items donated! (Minus a couple dozen for prizes, of course.)

This was my first time speaking in court. It didn’t hit me until about a couple hours before court that I would be. It was surreal. This was also my first day getting noticed by Royalty. Strange and awesome!

Future Changes to the Pentamere Dirty Dozen Donation Derby

Prize Cache: This is a fabulous suggestion by Lady Catalina of the Barony of Delftwood, in AEthelmarc, from her 4D tourney. One item from each dozen will go into a prize cache, and each entrant will get to choose one item out of the prize cache at the end of the tourney, just for joining in! (Names will be randomly drawn from a hat to determine order of choosing items from the prize cache. Extra items, from entrants with more than one dozen, will be returned to the largesse.)

Baronial/Royal Choices: As far as entrants are concerned, this is staying the same. I am changing the way I collect the results.

This year I made special slips of paper for each of the Baronies and Royals, with instructions that they should choose their favorites, write it down, and then return the slips to me. This resulted in me having to track down all Their Excellencies and Highnesses several times throughout the event, especially after Their Highnesses told me that they wanted to know all of the Baronial choices before they made their own decision. So two problems existed with this setup: more work for me, and less transparency for Their Excellencies and Highnesses.

I think I have a solution to these problems.

Next year, I will made small tokens (perhaps small beaded pendants in the colors of the Baronies and the Crown), and give them to each of the landed Baronial and Royal couples at the beginning of the event with a short slip of instructions. The couples will then put their tokens into the bean-count cup of their choice winner. It allows them to see where other choices have already been made (allowing them to honor another entrant, if they wish to), and I won’t have to be present to receive their choice. Seems easier on me and easier on our esteemed leaders. Anyone have any thoughts on this proposed change?

Photos of Entries

Their Highnesses changed their choice from 1 person winners 3 items to 3 people winning 1 item each (as it their right). Genoveva won one of their choices with her beautiful beeswax ornaments.

Tangwystl made this entire table!!! She won 3 of the Baronial choices and the bean count. She worked hard and got heavily rewarded!

Their Excellencies of Andelcrag chose these beautiful pouches by Heilve for their winner.

As no one from the Barony of Donnershafen was in attendance, I gave their dozen neck coolers to Kingdom (it was my entry, and it was easier on me that way). So if anyone from Donnershafen is wondering what happened… that’s what happened.

Sunnifa won one of Their Highnesses’ choices for the neck coolers and her spindle kits (picture below).

Their Highnesses honored me with choosing my trim as one of their winners. I took home some of the delicious mint-infused honey seen above!

Thank you so, so, so much to everyone who made such beautiful and generous largesse! I’m already excited and planning for next year. I have permission from Their Excellencies of Roaring Wastes to host this again at Pentamere 12th Night 2016, so start making your entries! I am also looking for people to donate their time for Over the Top awards. Please feel free to put whatever restrictions on your commission (size, time/effort, materials) as you wish to – it’s supposed to be fun, after all. 🙂

Looking forward to more great largesse next year! If you’re searching for inspiration or information, here is the Facebook Group for this event in Pentamere, and here is the general Dirty Dozen Donation Derby group.

Lady Birke die Jägerin

Barony of Cynnabar

Pentamere Rapier XO of the Dragon Army