[Cynnabar] Vikings helping sick kids. And you. :-)

[Jeffrey Sean Huo]

Dear everyone:

Hello hello! This is Jeff, who years ago used to dance and sing and  
fiddle in Cynnabar, before real life took me onwards to the Barony of  
Three Rivers in Calontir. And it's from there, that I wanted to invite  
you to join me in something I think is awesome, invoving Vikings  
helping sick kids. :-)


In St. Louis, on the big lake in the city's central park, every year  
they have a charity fundraiser, where teams build boats out of  
cardboard and race them around the lake. The money raised helps  
support Wings of Hope, a charity which helps fly sick kids from poor  
families to Wash U and other major medical centers. It's silly and fun  
and raises money that helps the sick kids I helped care for at Wash U.

So this year, some of my close friends in the Barony of Three Rivers  
had the wild idea that it would be awesome to enter into the cardboard  
boat race a cardboard Viking Longboat. A *twenty* foot, multi-man  
longboat. The rest of the Barony thought it was a neat idea. And so,  
they did it:

http://gallery.spundreams.net/v/jeffshuo/album133/album153/boat.jpg.html

That's all cardboard. That's *awesome*.

Once the organizers of the city race found out and saw what the Barony  
did, they promoted the SCA Longboat to the Flagship of the whole  
regatta. They even put the Three Rivers Longboat at the head of the  
race, all by itself. It'll be all over the local media, as the  
featured boat of the race.

And the Barony of Cynnabar's Arms are going to be hung off it's side. :-)

I spent many happy years in Cynnabar, with so many dear friends; and  
to honor the Barony, when I sponsored a shield for the side of the  
Longboat, I commissioned the Arms of the Barony of Cynnabar. It's  
being painted by B3R artists, and will be hanging off the side on race  
day.

What I'd love to do, is to invite anyone interested to join on, so  
that it can become a truly Cynnabar shield, and not just mine.  
Northshield as a Kingdom and two other Baronies -- one in Artermsia,  
one in Dracheswald -- are already aboard. If I get a bunch of Cynnabar  
folks, then it can be said on race day that it's from us as a group,  
and not just me; and when they tell the story of the Cardboard  
Longboat, the Barony of Cynnabar will be among those who helped make  
it happen. Which I think would be awesome. :-)

$1, or $5 -- that's all; it's not the *amount*, it's the *number* of  
different supporters that'll be most neat. At the end, having a big  
long list of Cynnabar folks who helped contribute would be awesome;  
saying we were the Barony with the most different supporters would be  
awesome. Cynnabar's shield is already going up on the boat, and is  
going to be on newspapers all over St. Louis, even maybe television.  
What I'd like, at the end, is to say, to the people of Three Rivers  
and Calontir: here is the big long list of awesome people in Cynnabar,  
who helped make it happen.

Just e-mail me directly (at jeffshuo at umich.edu) if you'd like to join  
Cynnabar's shield on the Cardboard Viking Longboat, saying you'd like  
to donate, and how much. Again, $1 or $5 is just fine. After all the  
pledges are in, we'll figure out how to get the money to me --  
probably I'll see if one of you can volunteer to collect money  
locally, then send it to me. Let me know by Wednesday, so I can have  
the list to the boat crew.

Scadians helping sick kids. We'd love to have you aboard. :-)


- Jeffrey







_______________________________________________________________

Jeffrey Huo

jeffshuo at umich.edu
jeffreyshuo at gmail.com

http://www.umich.edu/~jeffshuo/