Betsy Snow White Bibliophile

Tag: International Wenches Guild

  • Are You Going to Renaissance Faire? Part 2

    So…I became a wench.

    And on the forums at wench.org I met many new wonderful women from all over who were from all walks of life. Including my lovely friends Gellis Indigo (Jean) and Grace (Sarah). In 2006 I worked for a booth at the Ohio Renaissance Festival for several weeks with a coworker, and Gellis and Grace came by to meet me in person with Gellis’ rogue husband Kyas (Pete). This photo is of the three of us a couple of years after this first meeting.

    As time would go on Jean and Sarah would become the Madame and Vice-Madame of IWG 57 which was the local for Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. We would travel together to Michigan to be with our fellow Local 57 wenches because Ohio Renaissance Festival at the time was not open to an active Wenches Guild presence. We had fun, but there was always the underlying feeling that we were outsiders. We tried to get unofficial wench events together at home but never got the response we would have liked.

    Fast forward to 2018 when my friend and fellow wench Susan says to me that she would like like to start an Ohio Local for the IWG. I agree and the two of us set out on a mission to create an Ohio local and to get permission from the Ohio Renaissance Festival to be part of faire. We met with some resistance from our formal local, but eventually we were granted the designation of IWG Local 73 – The Wenches of Myth. We got our official status just before opening day 2018. After our first vote I would be voted Madame, Sarah would be Vice Madame and Susan would be our Arbiter.

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    The 2018 season at Ohio Renaissance was spent networking, meeting wenches, and finding out how to get our official status.

     

    In Spring of 2018 Susan and I had a meeting with the entertainment director of ORF. We talked about our vision for the wenches at ORF. It ended with us feeling really positive that we were going to get the blessing to be part of Faire. The official word came in July, we would be welcome at ORF. The first official Ohio local would be an official part of the festival.

    Sarah, Susan and I began plotting and planning. We came up with ideas for games and events. I came up with the idea for a game that would end up being called wench collecting. We would have a meet up to decorate our Collect Me pins.

    Since the beginning of ORF labor day weekend we have given 3 toasts in pub sing, walked in several parades, played wench collecting twice and had 5 new wenches join with promises of many more. We are beyond proud of how successful our first season has been and hopeful for many many more!

  • Are you going to Renaissance Faire? Part 1

    Are you going to Renaissance Faire? Part 1

    Did you sing that title? I did. Thanks Simon and Garfunkel.

    It was the September of 1995 that my mom bought tickets and took me for the first time to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. I remember walking through the front gate that day and thinking “This is it. I am home.” It is a feeling I still get to this day. We watched The Swordsmen, belly dancers, the Washing Well Wenches of Willy-Nilly (Ohio Renaissance is set in the mythical English town of Willy-Nilly on the Wash.), human combat chess and Full Mounted Joust. Some of the acts from that year are no longer active, and others are still going strong, but all of them penetrated into my 14 year old brain.

    I auditioned and was a cast member in 2003, when I was 22. I was Emma Cricket the town gossip. I was paid I think about $250.00 for the full season, plus “peter pounds” an in faire currency that could be used for food and drink. I spent close to $1500.00 in costuming, etc. So I came out at a solid -$1200.00 for the season, but it was worth every penny. I loved talking to patrons, and especially playing with children who were attending with their parents. I had several fellow cast members (Sue, Jen, Ashley, and Lynk as well as many others) who I would walk about with and spend the majority of my days. Jen was playing nobility while I was very lower class, and we had fun with me acting as something of a servant for her while also teaching her fun peasant things.

    It was while I was on cast that a fellow cast member told me that I would be an amazing wench and that I should look into it. He was a member of the brother organization the International Brotherhood of Rogues, Scoundrels and Cads otherwise known as the Rogues Guild. I did some research into what the International Wenches Guild was and how it worked, and immediately sent off for my pin and membership. Several months later I received my certificate declaring me a certified wench, and my wench pin #2648. It was 2004 and I was 23 years old.

     

  • Sisters are doing it for Themselves!

    Sisters are doing it for Themselves!

    I am a woman with sisters. I have biological sisters and chosen sisters and one spectacular sister-in-law. There are few things in this world I find as important or as necessary as the relationships I have with these women.

    I have three half-sisters, two from my mother and one from my father. From my dad’s side there is Chelli. Chelli is a boss babe and an entrepreneur who created Bloom a coworking space for women and women owned businesses. She is gorgeous and amazing. I don’t know her super well, but I am proud to be her sister, even distantly.

    From my mom there is Krystie and Traci. Krystie is eight years older than me. She lives in Oklahoma so I don’t get to see her as often as I would like to, but isn’t that just the way. She worked her ass off and is a manager for Raising Canes, a job that she loves (most of the time) and is good at. She is also studying business management through SNHU online and working hard on bettering herself and the world every day. She is also a bad ass. Traci is ten years younger than me and she and I are super close. She is a creative power house. She is an amazing artist, a lovely singer (though she refuses to do it in public) and is becoming a fabulous cosplayer. She is sensitive and smart and hilarious. She is a bad ass as well.

    Apparently my family only produces absolutely bad ass women.

    My sister-in-law Niki is one of my best friends. She embraced me as the strange coworker her husband befriended because she had no life. She, and her husband Chris who is his brother, were instrumental in my meeting and falling in love with Seth. She is an activist, amazing mother to my two bad ass neices and one bad ass nephew, and a great friend.

    I am involved in several women based groups as well, and those bad ass women are my sisters by choice. I have spoken before of the Lady Gang and those women are precious to me. They are smart, funny, brilliant, creative, and the most fun. The lady gang has had numerous happy hours, hygge nights, wig nights, gone to conventions, gone to put-in-bay, and we are planning a big camping trip soon. These ladies always have something going on.

    There is also the International Wenches Guild which is a Renaissance Festival based group that I have been a member of since 2004. It is made up of naughty, bawdy women who love ren faires and love to play. My friend Susan and I had been spearheading to get Ohio it’s own local and we suceeded last year in establishing Local 73 – The Wenches of Myth bringing my friend Sarah into the mis to be Madame of Vice. Then just in the last couple of months we found out that we also have official sanction from our home the Ohio Renaissance Festival. The guild council had their first meeting today to plan for the season, and I have no doubt that it is going to be amazing!

    Do you have amazing, bad ass women in your life?