By HL Crínóc Donn

Introduction
Many of you are accustomed to hearing the term “autocrat” to designate a person who produces an SCA event; I prefer the term Event Steward as a more accurate and more medieval-sounding term.

In Aquaterra, Event Stewards are chosen several ways. The usual case is that a person or team is interested in running one of our usual events, and puts together a bid. Sometimes the Seneschal will ask a particular person to be the Event Steward; this can happen if time is growing short and an upcoming event doesn’t have an Event Steward. Or, the Sergeantry chooses one of its members to run its events. In all cases, the Financial Committee must review and approve a bid that includes a budget, and for larger events a brief written proposal outlining the major events and the event staff involved.

Also, when Aquaterra decides to bid for a Kingdom event, the Seneschal and Baron and Baroness usually invite specific people to be on the event team, so if you are interested in helping with a premier event, make sure they know.

This document is intended to accompany the Excel spreadsheet titled “AQ event steward’s guide.xls” – a collection of 18 checklists designed to help Event Stewards manage the event planning process. If you have something to add or update, or have a suggestion about changing the way something is presented here, please do contact HL Crínóc Donn. These are living documents and will be updated as needed.

Particularly if you have never produced an event in the SCA, please read this set of instructions AND the checklists all the way through before considering a bid. Also, please ask around for an experienced Event Steward to be your co-pilot for the project, so that you have easy access to someone who can be a sounding board for ideas and help you make decisions and handle any issues that may arise.

If you have already been an Event Steward, please add these resources to your toolkit, and go on producing successful events!

AUTOCRAT

au·to·crat ˈɔtəˌkræt -
1. an absolute ruler, esp. a monarch who holds and exercises the powers of government as by inherent right, not subject to restrictions.
2. a person invested with or claiming to exercise absolute authority.
3. a person who behaves in an authoritarian manner; a domineering person.

[Origin: 1795–1805; < Gk autokrats self-ruling, ruling alone, equiv. to auto- auto-1 + krat- (s. of krátos power) + -és adj. suffix]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.