Yule has come and gone, and was a great success when compared to past gatherings. We enjoyed the company of the Folk River Tribe in sport, feast, blot, sumbel and learned much from each other.
During the course of the weekend the talk did center around tribalism, and ways to make it grow. One subject discussed at length was the need to begin working towards establishing a Federation of Heathen Tribes. Both Folk River and the Normanii were in agreement on this subject, considering the failure of the AFA to fully support Asatru tribalism and the Alliance being generally hostile to the idea. The decision was made to begin the process of hammering out a proposed charter of Federation, with Normanii Thiud and Folk River Tribe being the initial signatories. Our goal is to have a smooth draft ready for final tweaking by next Yule.
I cannot stress hard enough the need to keep this absolutely secret for now. We don't discuss this outside of our own, nor do we allude to it in any form on any other list but this one. For now it needs to be cloaked from view until we are ready to present it to the world as a done deed. The two tribes chose representatives to begin working out the details, with William Thain and myself acting for our folk, and Kevin and GW of Folk River acting for Folk River tribe. I have set up a e-list for the tribal representatives to work on this, but from time to time we may bring issues to this list for input.
A very abbreviated moot was held at the end of the gathering, with several proposals made and approved for action. These are:
Establishment of a tax on rooftrees/individuals - Set at $15 a month, payable by the 15th of the month beginning in January to be deposited in our treasury for use in funding our Yule gatherings. The $15 is a flat rate for rooftrees as well as single individuals. This tax currently will only be applied to oath sworn Normanii, not dreng or goodfolk. The money is to be sent to my wife, who is our treasurer. Her address is: Maribeth Decker, 8213 Cedar Landing Court, Alexandria VA 22306. Please make checks available to her until we can get an account in the name of Normanii Thiud. She will need a copy of the Tax ID#, articles of incorporation and IRS paperwork from Lord Dan. The account will operate on a two signature rule, one being Maribeth as treasurer and the other being Lord Dan. For accounting purposes payment need to be sent to her, even though we will utilize a bank with nationwide branches. She will need to keep detailed records of deposits as well as disbursements. Currently our treasury holds $291 after paying $140 for cabin heating fuel, the fund being established with proceeds from our auction Saturday night.
Establishment of a Hearth Guild - This will be headed by Micha, and will ultimately cover a wide and diverse area. She will build on the ideas begun in the Winland Rice as the Frithyard Project, incorporating a uniquely Normanii woman's views. She has total control, we menfolk may only offer what assistance she requests. All women in our tribe are encouraged to participate fully.
Establishment of a Smith Guild - This will have two branches; black metal and precious metal. Kevin and I will work on this as we both have interests and talents in this area. Lord Dan decided we would earn our charter rights with the creation of an oath ring worthy of our folk.
Creation of a Normanii Heathen College - We will begin discussion of what topics need be included this month with a IRC Thingtide. It is our intention to go beyond, above and deeper than Wednesbury Kings School ever did, with a realistic testing and evaluation program. We decided not to impose a timetable just yet, as this is too important to risk buggering up with rigid schedules. As a parallel we also will look into forming our own "priest" school for training folk, moving beyond what was done by Gering Theod.
Now the final points to be made. This Yule was a total success, by any measure. Everyone worked hard to pull it off, particularly Cynthia,Diane, Micha and Maribeth. They did us proud! Compared to last MudSummer, our costs were well below average. We still spent far too much money, and will address that in planning for next Yule. Not counting the hall rental which Lord Dan has assumed as his responsibility by a deeming, we spent a total of $1158.51. When we take into account the excess food and mead, plus the fact many people don't get up early enough to warrant three meals being served we should expect the budget for next year to be limited to $695 to cover food, mead,fuel and miscellaneous expenses. We can do that easily by halving our food preps, and dropping breakfast and lunch in favor of a late but full brunch. I am absolutely serious on this regard, because cutting costs will allow our treasury to grow, making it possible for us to embark on other worthy projects. As I have said before, the days of pissing away money to impress others are over, we need to husband our resources to build our future.
The time is not too early to begin thinking and planning for next Yule, so I ask everyone to begin the process.
Charlie Thain
Steward of the Normanni Thiud, Gedrytha Sigewita