It’s almost time for Pennsic!

I saw a comment on a social media post saying that sometimes it was hard to know what different departments do so I thought I’d take a stab at introducing my folks:

Martial Activities is the Pennsic staff department that helps make martial activities happen. We are the folks behind the logistics, scheduling, field support, communication, and “how do we make this actually work on site?”… “this” being 8 distinct martial art disciplines.

Who We Are

Martial Activities includes a wide range of staff roles, many of which overlap heavily with the Marshalate. That overlap is intentional. Many of our staff members are also marshals, deputies, Ministers of the Lists, schedulers, coordinators, or experienced members of their disciplines. Having people who understand both Pennsic operations and martial needs helps us support the community more effectively.

Our department includes:

Deputy Mayor for Martial Activities
The Deputy Mayor for Martial Activities serves as the senior coordinator for martial operations at Pennsic. This role helps coordinate with the Marshalate, supports operational needs across disciplines, manages purchasing for martial activities, works closely with battlefield staff, and serves as a communication bridge between martial staff and Pennsic administration. It’s emails… so many emails. And once onsite this role becomes the trash taker outer and the gap filler as needed.

Executive Assistant to the DM
This delightful human supports documentation, communications, meeting notes, distribution lists, deadlines, purchasing timelines, and all the tiny-but-important things that keep the department from relying entirely on panic.

Battlefield Coordinators
The Battlefield Coordinators are responsible for the physical execution and daily management of the Pennsic battlefield. They review scenarios for logistical feasibility, paint and rope fields i.e. mark boundaries, set up and reset the War Point fields, manage battlefield volunteers, support battles and tournaments on site, and generally help keep the field usable throughout War. They also help pack, organize, and track the battlefield equipment that makes all of this possible.

Woods Battle Coordinators
The Woods Battle Coordinators prepare the woods for battle, coordinate setup needs, support the activity while it is running, and help make sure the area is cleaned up afterward.

Battlefield Pavilion Coordinators
The Battlefield Pavilion team helps coordinate the placement of kingdom, household, baronial, and other approved pavilions and day shades around the battlefield. They help direct groups to the correct locations, coordinate setup timing, and collect information if there are issues with pavilions or shade structures on or near the field. They do not set up or take down individual pavilions, but they help make sure the process is organized and communicated!

Martial Schedulers
Our schedulers help keep the many moving pieces of Pennsic martial activities from colliding with each other. This includes the Martial Arts Master Scheduler, Rapier Scheduler, Armored Tournament Scheduler, Archery Scheduler, and others who help coordinate calendars, tournament times, battle schedules, and field usage.

Martial Cartographer
The Martial Cartographer helps turn scenarios and field needs into usable maps. This includes battlefield layouts and painting to show hay bale placement onsite that help staff, marshals, and participants understand what is going where, basically how do we make this tiny drawing into a 600ft X 600ft reality?

Signal Corps
Signal Corps supports the timing and signaling of battles. These are the folks with the flags in the castle who help count points? That’s them! Their work helps keep battles coordinated, timed, and communicated clearly on the field.

Martial Point and Ministers of the Lists
Martial Point and the Ministers of the Lists support the logistics that allow individual participants to participate. This includes inspections-related logistics, stickers, authorization support, inspection paint, and the many administrative pieces that happen before someone ever steps onto the field.

Discipline Coordinators and Tent Coordinators
Martial Activities also includes coordinators for the major martial disciplines and activity spaces, including Archery, Combat Archery, Siege, Thrown Weapons, Rapier, Youth Combat, Youth Rapier, Armored, and Steel Combat. These coordinators help connect the daily needs of their disciplines with Pennsic staff; but especially tent support, supplies, scheduling, and communication.

What We Do

In short: if you are using the battlefield, woods, list fields, martial tents, inspection spaces, tournament fields, or other martial activity areas, there is a non-zero chance someone from Martial Activities helped make that possible.

We are not the Marshalate, and we do not enforce or interpret martial rules. Often the War Point scenarios are as surprising to us as they are to the populace. Rules, safety decisions, inspections, authorizations, and discipline-specific requirements remain with the appropriate marshals and marshals-in-charge (who are sometimes our discipline coordinators; clear as mud I know). What Martial Activities does do, is work closely with Marshal 1, Marshal 2, Marshal 3, and the various martial disciplines (and their respective marshals in charge) to support the practical needs that allow those activities to run.

We help coordinate the practical side of martial activities so marshals and participants can focus on the activity itself. Sometimes that means field layouts and schedules. Sometimes it means finding supplies, checking tents, moving information between departments, or realizing that something that sounded great in theory is going to be a problem in practice (and helping fix it or getting the folks into a room who can help).

We are also actively working to improve our documentation and processes. Like many long-running Pennsic systems, Martial Activities has relied heavily on institutional knowledge, volunteer experience, and people remembering how things worked last year… or 15 years ago. We are working to make that better, clearer, and easier for future staff to inherit.

Some of these roles are currently held by a single person. Some overlap with other roles, disciplines, or even other staff responsibilities. That is very normal for Pennsic, but it also means we are always looking for more help!

Martial Activities is supported by volunteers, and many of the things we do depend on people being willing to lend a hand for an hour, a morning, a day, or the whole War. Whether you are interested in helping with battlefield setup, field resets, pavilion coordination, scheduling support, documentation, hauling things, finding things, or just generally being useful, we would be glad to hear from you.

We hope everyone has a safe, wonderful War. Thank you for helping make Pennsic martial activities possible.

If you have questions about Martial Activities, please contact me the Deputy Mayor for Martial Activities at DMMarshal@PennsicWar.org.

Yours in Service,
Bruce (Alessandra Brucioli)
DM Martial Activities PW53