In my first post I explained the motivation for creating this blog and gave you some insights into what I hope to achieve here and how I intend to do it.
My second post was reprints of the SCA Board of Directors e-mails that I either quoted or mentioned in my first entry. I will always republish any official SCA announcement that I quote or make reference to for both the sake of clarity (being quoted of out context sucks) and out of respect for the “Permission to Reproduce” clause that is included in these releases.
Now we’ve arrived at my third post and, as previously mentioned, it’s time for me to explain why this suggested rule change is of concern to me and why I feel qualified to comment on it at length.
Here goes nothing…
Please allow me to introduce myself and summarize my background & experience as it relates to the “the future of water bearing” topic under discussion on this blog and in numerous other locations.
My persona is Baron James Douglas and I have been a member of the SCA for 30 years. I have been actively involved in both Water Bearing and the Chirurgeonate (and several of their previous unofficial incarnations) for the past 25 of those years.
I have served in the role of Local Group / Baronial / Principality / Kingdom Water Bearer in locations from Halifax to Vancouver and have also been both a Canton Chirurgeon and a ‘Chirurgeon At Large’ (warranted and serving at events but not holding a specific Officer position with any one group).
Between 1996 and 2001 I served in a senior staff position with, or as Director of, Water Bearing at Pennsic. I’m credited with the creation of the "Pennsic Water Cow” and I’ve been actively involved in the ongoing research, standardization, and promotion of Non Contact Water Bearing within the SCA for over a decade.
Additional Pennsic service experience includes a multitude of volunteer shifts at both Chirurgeon’s Points and on the battlefields as well as being an ambulance driver and spending three years as the “Chirurgeon On Crisis Pager” for South Point whenever overnight staffing volunteers were not available.
I have had the privilege of being recognized for my volunteer work with everything from service awards from multiple Kingdoms to the very simple (and incredibly meaningful) offer of a smile accompanied by the words ”Thank you for helping today.”
Mundanely I am a Certified Chef with experience that extends from cooking in a five star restaurant to being the manager responsible for the operation of all food & beverage facilities at a ski resort and a hotel / conference centre. My alcohol service experience is equally broad and ranges from tending bar in a Pub to serving as Bar Manager & Liquor Controller for a Cruise Line.
Within the SCA I have done just about everything that’s related to hospitality from running taverns at seven events in a single calendar year to being a Server & Dishwasher or preparing large Feasts to being the guy that agreed to stay late to sweep & mop the floors of the rental hall so we didn’t lose our deposit money. I once even spent three weeks “fighting City Hall” so my Canton could have legal outdoor alcohol service at an event being held in a public city park (this was back before the rules curtailing SCA funded taverns).
I am currently in a consulting role assisting restaurants with everything from menu design and food cost engineering to training both front of house service staff and culinary kitchen staff. I have a previous background in Law Enforcement that provided me the opportunity to serve as a professional First Responder / Emergency Medical Care Attendant in two different Provinces.
My current consulting duties include performing HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) reviews that help clients identify and correct possible “areas of risk” in the chain of events that begins with raw food being received from the supplier through to the meal being prepared & delivered to the Guest and ending with the dishes being washed and the garbage being taken out at the end of the night.
In addition to being a “Papered Chef”, my relevant formal education includes Diplomas in Hotel & Resort Management and Technical Documentation (specifically, writing training & teaching manuals) and I have a variety of Safe Food Handling, Safe Alcohol Service, and Sanitation & Hygiene certifications at Server, Manager, or Trainer levels from multiple jurisdictions.
I am currently working towards certifications as an Alberta Food Safe Instructor and as a St. John Ambulance First Aid / CPR Instructor. I sincerely hope to be able to bring these new skills to the SCA and to eventually make Food Safety and First Aid training much more readily available to members of the Principality of Avacal where I currently reside.
It’s just like I said in my first post… I’ve been doing this as a highly trained paid professional and as an unpaid volunteer (both in and out of the SCA) for a lot of years and I take the ideal of “safe & sanitary” Guest service very seriously.
In my first post I also stated that, in my experience, properly planned and executed Water Bearing has done more good for the general health and wellness of the SCA populace than it has ever done in the way of harm.
I’d now like to expand on the concept that Water Bearing has been good for the general health and wellness of the SCA as it relates to what is probably my most widely noted SCA accomplishment, the creation of the Pennsic Water Cow.
You might want to go and get a coffee before you continue reading. I have a feeling this is going to turn out to be 50% potentially informative history and 50% mild personal reminiscing.
What’s A Water Cow?
After hearing a great many horror stories about how bad the water was at Pennsic, I built a simple three-stage filtration system under a sawhorse (that had been painted bright Ealdormerian scarlet red) for use in our encampment at Pennsic XXIV.
Several Gentles that saw the filters hanging from the four-legged structure made jokes about cows (admittedly, they did look somewhat like udders) not normally being bright red and that it must be embarrassed by the fact it had a garden hose sticking in it’s rear end.
Before that Pennsic was over, the term “Water Cow” had been coined and after the success of having our own source of filtered water in our group encampment, it was decided that we should “expand the herd” and make another Water Cow for use up on the battlefield to water our fighters at Pennsic XXV the following year.
A sense of fairness prompts me to stop here and take a moment to clarify something…
For the record, the drinking water at Pennsic has been safe for as long as I can remember. I can vouch for this personally as I’ve seen some of the lab test results first hand. The problem is that because of local geology, it has much higher naturally occurring iron salts and dissolved sulphur content than many people are used to.
Higher, but still well within the limits set by Pennsylvania Health Laws. This means that it can cause some people (those whose digestive systems aren’t used to the higher mineral content that can be found in rural water) to experience temporary symptoms of gastric distress.
In most cases a day or two of discomfort was all it took before people adapted to the mineral rich water but for some people (especially those with extremely delicate stomachs or from cities with very highly processed, chlorinated and 99.999% mineral free tap water) the distress would continue for the entire war unless they opted to drink bottled water from the store.
Additionally, because of the high iron content, the water can actually experience oxidization when it’s left out in bright sunlight in a transparent or translucent container (such as a 1 Gallon Water Bearing jug). Water that was perfectly sparkling clear in the morning could turn several shades visible darker and have an almost ochre tint to it by the end of a bright and sunny day.
These two factors combined over the years to give Pennsic water a pretty bad reputation. Even before my first Pennsic I remember hearing wild rumours that Pennsic water wasn’t safe to drink and stories that made it sound as if it was better to go without water on the battlefield rather than end up with a stomach ache that prevented you from going out drinking on a camp crawl later that night.
Apparently it was all just a case of bad press. The Pennsic water is, and was, fine.
There, I feel better for having done my part to try and keep the record straight.
Back to the Water Cows…
Ealdormere has a very active and creative populace and by the time Pennsic XXV arrived, the Ealdormere Commissariat (essentially a support system for our army) had been born and we had a grand battlefield presence that included a Royal viewing pavilion, a wheeled armour cart (the Wain) for transporting weapons & shields to the battlefield from our camp at the bottom of Heart Break Hill, a giant red sun shade for fighters to rest under, and a drink & refreshment table (with pretzels, fruit slices, jerky, pickles, and even hot soup on the rainy days) that got set up and made available to our fighters and our official allies during every major battle.
We also had the new and improved Water Cow (now painted white with black spots, it had a carved wooden head, a frayed rope braided tail and had been upgraded to a four stage filter system) set up near the sun shade and our corps of Ealdormerian Water Bearers were going to make sure that they only served water from the cow.
Partisan Water Bearing (only being willing to serve certain people such as your own household or Kingdom) isn’t allowed on the battlefield at Pennsic so we gave all our Water Bearers blue baldrics that had big white Trilliums on them. They happily served anybody that asked them for water but the Ealdomerian and allied fighters knew that Water Bearers with the Trillium baldrics had the “special cow water” that had been filtered.
I was on the Pennsic Water Bearing staff at this point and had made no secret about what we (the sneaky Ealdormerians) were planning on doing with our Water Bearers. As long as Team Trillium remained non-partisan, the Ladies in charge of Water Bearing at that Pennsic were quite happy to have the extra help at their beck and call.
By about the third major battle of the war, we noticed that the Trillium Water Bearers were almost run off their feet and that a lot of the other Water Bearers had started to come to the cow to fill their water bottles rather than going to the other fill stations that had also been set up around the field.
Apparently when 5,000 fighters get together and spend their days hitting each other and then spend their nights drinking together, news travels quickly. The Water Cow was quite a hit and the topic of much positive conversation.
On Wednesday of War Week, the Water Bearer in Charge of Pennsic approached me and asked me: If Pennsic paid for it, could I build another Cow for one of the other fill stations on the field in time for the weekend?
I responded by spending that night and part of the next day building two more cows (they weren’t as fancy as the original mind you) so that all three of the battlefield water stations were now serving filtered water. Because of the four-stage filtration, people were saying that the water smelled & tasted better than it ever had before.
I think I received more than a dozen marriage proposals that year and don’t think I had to buy a single drink for myself during the second half of the War.
Now then, humility demands that I again stop here and set the record straight about something. Despite the almost mythical praise for the Water Cows that first year, there are two equally important factors that I believe were critical to the Water Bearing success that we experienced that year…
The Coopers (the good folks that own the campground where Pennsic is held) spend a small fortune on the Pennsic infrastructure every year and large portions of that money are devoted to things like improving their water supply and distribution systems. When older metal pipes and temporary extension hoses running above ground get replaced with modern high density plastic piping that’s been buried underground, you can’t help but see a general improvement in the overall water quality.
Additionally, the lovely Ladies in charge of Water Bearing at Pennsic XXV were incredibly smart & well organized and under their leadership, the Water Bearing volunteers that year all had to attend a formal safety & sanitation course before they could be warranted to enter the battlefield during water holds.
Even the much younger volunteers that could only water the crowds around the edges of the battles were all taught the basics of Water Bearing safety and shown how to watch out for basic health risks like cross contamination of water bottles and squirt tubes.
I am of the opinion that the health & safety standards and Non-Contact Water Bearing protocols that were set for Water Bearing team that year are probably the cornerstone of many of the overall improvements that have taken place in organized SCA Water Bearing during the past decade.
Add the Water Cows to this already powerful equation and Water Bearing at Pennsic XXV turned out to be a huge success.
We had to wait for the official post-Pennsic Chirurgeonate report to be released to confirm our theory but, in comparing notes at the time, the Chirurgeons and Water Bearers responsible for servicing the battlefields came to the conclusion that the volume of dehydration related incidents appeared to be down from previous years.
Apparently, more people (fighters and spectators alike) were willing to drink the water & the Gatorade and stay hydrated once the stories about the magical Water Cows had started making the rounds.
Physically, all the cows did was filter the water for sediment & minerals and improve the taste and smell with an active dual charcoal treatment.
Psychologically, however, the cows became a symbol of the very real effort that was being made (by an staggering number of hard working volunteers) to improve not only the quality of the water at Pennsic, but also the quality of the water service at Pennsic.
In the years that followed, I built more Water Cows and experimented with other creations like the “cool mist sun shades” (I’ve been told that they still get set up outside Chirurgeons Point and on the battlefield) and the “nine water bottles at once” quick fill stations at Water Bearers Point.
By Pennsic XXX, there was a Pennsic supplied Water Cow at every outlet on the battlefield, at both Main and South Chirurgeons Points as well as at the water spigot near Merchant’s Row. A team of us even hand buried 750 feet of plastic piping (that had been supplied by the Coopers) so we could install a spigot and put a Water Cow at the new Archery Field located way the heck and gone behind the reserved parking area.
And yes, our initial theory that dehydration related incidents appeared to be down from previous years at Pennsic XXV was borne out by the official Chirurgeonate incident summary that was circulated after the war.
Even better? These types of preventable incidents continued to decrease over the next few years as the Water Bearing team came into it’s own as a full fledged Pennsic Service (prior to either Pennsic IIXXX or IXXX it had been a division of the Chirurgeonate Service) and the safety standards and Non-Contact Water Bearing protocols continued to improve as a result of what was learned every year.
My heart and my career took me to An Tir not long after Pennsic XXXI and unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get back to “The Debatable Lands” since then.
But every year, normally sometime in June or July, I still get at least 1 or 2 e-mails from Gentles asking me for advice on the best way to design and build a portable water filtration system to take to Pennsic for use in their group encampment.
For some reason, this pleases me immensely.
Hopefully you now have a better insight into why the continuance of official SCA Water Bearing is of concern to me, why I feel qualifed to discuss it at such great lengths and why it is that I’m willing to set myself the challenges I described in my first post.
Unless the SCA BoD issues another official release on this topic or I get some particularly invigorating feedback on these first three posts, you probably won’t see anything new on this blog until after I’ve had my first official meeting with the Peace Country Health Department sometime after the July long weekend.
Until then, stay well and stay watered.
Baron James Douglas
"Honor In Ministerio"
(In Service There Is Honour)
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