[Darkwood-SCA] FW: [sca-west] Great Western War may be canceled, please read...

[Liz Kerridge]

----Original Message Follows----
From: "Ysabella Dolfin" <rachimov02 at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: sca-west at yahoogroups.com
To: sca-west at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [sca-west] Great Western War may be canceled, please read...
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:25:19 -0000

(cut and paste from another list)
Greetings All,
It is with very heavy hearts that we announce that Prado Park has
suffered a catastrophic event. We were told today that the major
electrical lines that run through the heart of the park have
suffered a total melt down and will have to be replaced. Before the
repairs can begin the county must find the funds and then trench the
site. Then they plan to rebuild the entire electrical
system. Prado Park currently uses huge pumps to supply water to the
entire site, without electricity they have no running water. At the
very earliest these repairs can not be finished before November.
Even if we trucked in water we will not be able to access major
sections of our camping area due to the trenching.

This information coupled with a truly painful price increase has
forced us to cancel our plans to use Prado Park for GWW 10.

We are left with only seven weeks before the set up weekend of
September 30, October 1. The Stewards, with the agreement of the
Kingdom Seneschal, have decided that IF we can find another site by
September 1 we MAY be able to proceed with the event for this year.
Of course we would have to find the
replacement site very quickly and it would have to have many
required facilities in place already.

Please use your best judgment about how to inform the event guests
you are working with (Merchants, teachers, performers, weddings). We
suggest that you let them know that we are trying to find another
site but there is a STRONG possibility that GWW will be cancelled
for this year.

For now we will hold all pre-registrations. Once the final situation
is known (Sept. 1) we will finalize our refund or transfer policy.

As is the normal policy for GWW staff, please let the Main Event
Stewards make any public announcements regarding the status of the
event. The situation is changing very quickly and incorrect
information being circulated could cause unnecessary stress.

We encourage anyone who has ideas about optional sites to please
pass them along to us right away. We will be spending the next few
weeks doing a great deal of traveling throughout the Kingdom in
search of a suitable venue. We also ask that you NOT make inquiries
to these sites on our behalf. Please simply pass the contact
information or site location on to us and we will
handle the negotiations. AGAIN, it can be detrimental to have
several people speaking to site owner/operators about the event.
Please do not contact sites as a representative of the SCA or GWW.

For now, we have put a hold on all deposit payments and contracts.
We fully understand that this may cause us to lose any discounts or
we may incur additional fees for late reservations but this is
obviously unavoidable.

Gavin and I are heartbroken to have to make this announcement and we
want to assure everyone that we will do everything in our power to
find an alternative site...in time.

We will keep everyone informed.

Cara & Gavin