The History of
The Kingdom of The West

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EMailing: NEW -- see section on emailing below ... Thanks. -- Hirsch

The Wishlist

1. First, foremost, and always: PHOTOGRAPHS (See section below on Submitting Photographs)
2. More historical information for local branches ... if you know, or have access to the history of your local branch, please provide as much info as you can. (To see what I have now for the site, go to: Local Branches)
3. Descriptions of events -- if you were there, and the event doesn't have a description, please contact me, and describe the details (please make sure you give the date, the event title, etc. -- otherwise I will have no idea ...). This can be helpful to make the event "come alive" to those who missed it, and to help folk who were there remember it better.
4. Bardic pieces (see Bardic Arts).
5. PHOTOS OF FOLK AND EVENTS IN THE OUTLYING REGIONS: The Principality of Oertha, the Marches (Earngyld and the Far West in particular, but all ...) would be nice as there are very few photos from there. Photos from Lochac from the time that they were a part of the Kingdom -- there are a small number of photos from there, but not many ...
6. Photos from years gone by ... if you have photos from the early years of the SCA, they would be GREATLY appreciated for use on this site.
7. Photos of artwork (Scrolls, Arts and Sciences, Artifacts, Regalia, etc., and whatever else) -- remember most of the folk in the Kingdom may not ever see some of this stuff, and good photos are great to show folk your or someone else's work.

Submitting Non-Photographic Items

Adding to or giving details/descriptions for specific events -- as above, you can email this information directly to the History Site Web Minister, but for individual events, please provide as much information as you can -- for example, the URL (go to the top of your browser and copy the URL out of the entry area there), the name and date of the event, that sort of thing. If there is no event description already, please provide the name and date of the event as well as the description. If you are commenting on someone else's comments, please note this -- it helps when laying out the page to show comments in an appropriate fashion.

Adding or providing information about photographs -- as you work your way through some of the photos you may find question marks for people's names, that sort of thing -- if you know who someone is in a photo, please provide that information with the URL for the individual photograph. If you know what's going on in the photograph and that information might help make the photo more useful or interesting, please feel free to send that information as well. If you feel something in a photo description is not accurate, please send corrections and updates!

Submitting Photographs

1. Digital Images -- If you already have these images in an electronic format (either via digital camera, from your film processor on CD/DVD, or what-have-you), these are acceptable as well. If you can copy the image files to CD/DVD and (postal) mail them to Hirsch (see above) that will be greatly appreciated. If you are using photos from a digital camera, please check file sizes and if possible, using some software such as PaintShop Pro or something, you may want to reduce the size of the photo (PSP removes information like what camera was used to create the photo out of the image header, as it's not necessary). Please see the request below for sending/submitting photos ...

   NOTE: if you can find Hirsch at an event, you can hand a CD or DVD of photos to him directly, and they will be taken home and worked on from there.

2. EMAIL: Please use compression software such as PKZIP, WinZip to compress multiple images into a single file before sending ("single file" is important, and if emailing, please provide multiple .zip files if needed -- if the .zip file is greater than 1 or 2 MB, it may end up too large to be emailed -- a lot of email servers on the web won't allow really huge files).

   NOTE: Two kind souls have offered to assist with emailing of photographs, which can make things easier. Send the photographs (or, if you have uploaded to a website, the URL and any helpful details) to one of these two people, and they will put them on CD or DVD and get them to Hirsch for the website:

   
        or
   

   Please follow the guidelines given below (under the heading "Please Provide Details About Each Photograph"), providing any details that you can about the photos. ** EMail Links will be provided once I have the ones that they wish to use ... **

   Many thanks to both of these folk ...

   If you have photos already on the web on another site, and would like to submit them to the History site, Artus Quintus and Vlasta von der Weissen Sonne are willing to do the necessary work of selecting the photos and downloading them, burning them to CD, and getting them to us. Drop either of them an email at:
   
      or
   .

3. If you have a scanner or have access to a scanner, please scan your photographs for us, and provide information as noted below (see "Please Provide Details ..." below). Save them as JPEG (.JPG) images -- this is a good format for photographs, and able to be viewed by all browsers. If you cannot save them into JPEG format, don't worry -- this can be dealt with. Email images with information as defined below -- they will be handled as they arrive.

   When scanning, if your scanner has a "Web" option, please use it. If not, please try experimenting with resolutions -- in many cases when scanning photos, you don't need the highest quality settings for scanners for web photos -- the images end up too big anyway and need to be resized. The higher the resolution the larger the image. While we don't want tiny photos for the site, we don't want them too large either. We attempt to find a compromise ...

   Please burn your photos to a CD or DVD if you can. If you can't, and know someone who can, please do so. Then , and you will get the Postal address ... please send via US Postal service. Anything requiring a signature may be a problem ... (NOTE: You can also hand to Hirsch at events ...)

   If you have an FTP or just a standard website that you can upload .zip files of photos to, please use that option, and Hirsch will download them as soon as possible (but you'll have to send an email to let him know ...). Let me explain about .zip file: this means a single file download for me, which is much easier than going through a web page, one image at a time and right clicking, and downloading it, etc. While in many cases, .zip compression does not really reduce the size of the images much, it can put everything into a single file, which makes it MUCH easier for me to download. I am a busy person and cannot take the time to download one photograph at a time from a website ... thanks for your patience.

4. If you do not have a scanner or access to one -- OR if you have slides, please contact , for directions on where to mail the photos. I check my email very regularly. Note that since anyone helping with this project is a volunteer, turnaround may not be immediate, but we will make a lot of effort to be quick. Return postage is guaranteed if desired (and frankly I would rather not store stacks of photographs in my small house!). If you are not comfortable with using the postal service, please contact me to see about making arrangements to pick up your photos somehow (at an event, etc.).

   People With Scanners (Who Have Volunteered to Help)
   The following people (I am trying to note approx. region) have scanners and have volunteered to help out -- if you know them, please contact them. If you do not, and want to get in touch, please drop us a note, and I will try to get email address(es) for you.

   • Hirsch von Henford (Mists/Teufelberg -- Walnut Creek, CA) -- may be able to handle slides, no guarantees ... contact information elsewhere on this page as well as the main page of the site. (NOTE: Current scanner is on the fritz, but a new one is being obtained, with thanks to Parlan MacGillivray.)
   • Fionn O'Cathain (Mists/Southern Shores -- San Jose, CA) -- can handle slides, can handle file format transfers, optimize for Web photos and more.
   • Eyvandr Gunnarson (Mists/Esfenn -- 'East Bay', CA) -- can handle slides and negatives as well as photos.
   • Kevin Perigrynne (Mists/Caldarium -- Marin, CA) -- can handle slides
   • Flavia Beatrice Carmigniani (Bjo ap Griffen) (Southern California)
   • Katherine Goodpasture (Mists/Darkwood/Montaigne du Roi)
   • Vlasta Ulvaeüs (Mists/Vinhold -- N. Bay, CA)
   • Gracye of Guthrie (Cynagua, Golden Rivers -- Sacramento, CA)
   • Alison Gray of Owlwood (Cynagua, Golden Rivers -- Sacramento, CA)
   • Leopolde Wolfegange (Cynagua, Alpensee -- Lake Tahoe, CA)
   • Khevron Oktavii Tikhikovich Vorotnikov (Oertha, Moroedd Oer -- Alaska (Kotzebue))

5. Film/Video/MIDI: Note that at this time we do not have the facilities to deal with streaming audio, streaming video, or creating streaming video. If you know someone who does, however, we know folk who want this information.

Please Provide Details About Each Photograph

1. The name and date of the event (if you don't know the exact date, if you know the name of the event, and the SCA year, or the mundane year, it can be found, as long as it was on the Calendar of The Page). If the event was not on the calendar of The Page or you cannot remember the event, you can submit it anyway, if we decide to use the photo, we can put it in the "People Pages" part of the website.

2. If the photos follow a specific sequence of events, please either name the photo with a number (i.e., 1_FinalRound.jpg, 2_FinalRound.jpg, etc.) or in an attached text description (either in email, or text file in the .ZIP that describes each photograph) list the photographs in the sequence that works. Otherwise it's very possible photographs will be out of sequence. This won't be intentional, but if I wasn't there in person, I may have no idea of the sequence when looking at the photos (if I can figure it out, I'll try to take care of it.).

3. The names (SCA) of everyone in the photograph that you recognize (don't feel bad if you don't remember everyone, it's ok).

4. A description of what is happening in the photo (such as "The Knighting of Sir Fred the Lame"), which can help put the photograph into context.

5. The photographer's name and yours if the two are different.

6. Please get permission from the photographer if you are donating photos. We have to work under the assumption that you have permission, and would rather not get into a legal battle.

Really, that's it.

What Kinds of Photographs Do We Need?

Disclaimers

Second, we reserve the right to not use all photographs submitted. In other words, while we want photos, some may not be very useful (poor lighting so you cannot see people's faces, taken from far enough away that no details can be seen, etc.), and some may be similar enough to other photos already submitted that it would be redundant to show another photo of the same event(s). This is not discrimination, just pragmatism. We do tend to use most photos submitted.

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The West Kingdom History Website was created by and is maintained by Hirsch von Henford (mka Ken Mayer).