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Brooksville Raid The story behind our resignation By Bob Knowles
A brief introduction: I am the husband of Jan Knowles. She has been the event chairman of the Brooksville Raid for the last 15 years and the President of the Hernando Heritage Museum from 1993 through 2005. (Give or take a year) Most all of you have seen or met her, but were not aware of who she was. Those of you that know Jan, know she is a hands on chairman and works her tail off all year long to make this event the success it is today. She is not the (ride around in golf cart, I am important) type person. Some think we are only the registration people, but in reality, we oversee the whole event except for food. You will usually see her running from one area to another and I am the grouchy old man you see running around in a mule, doing chores for whoever needs it, and as they say, “putting out fires”.
A few years ago at the Raid we were having a lot of serious issues during the event and narrowed it mostly down to non-reenactors coming in and partying and in general causing trouble. On Saturday nights we were getting car loads of teenage kids coming up and registering as reenactors, when asked to prove it, they could not. We had the Sheriff involved a few times. We were afraid of stealing from tents and who knows what else if we did not take some measures to halt this problem. I read in a recent article written by Ralph Epifanio that claims the scouts were running through the camps and causing the problems and that they also got in free. The scouts that WORK our event are supervised by their scout leaders 24/7 and they pay $20 apiece to be there. They work the event picking up garbage, helping serve food and whatever Sertoma needs them for. The scouts that get in free are spectators only and leave after the battle. They cannot camp onsite. The youngsters causing the problems were gang type individuals. You know the type. If there is a problem with any scouts, please contact any adult at the food service area or contact Serotma and it will be taken care of immediately.
We, as a committee, (See minutes of committee meeting dated 2/09/2005) decided that ID cards or something similar would be a good idea for reenactors to carry. We asked the general and the reenactors on the committee if they could help with that process and most declined. Some units voluntarily made up their own, which was a big help for us. For the past three years we have asked each reenactor to bring a piece of clothing or something to the registration tent to prove they were reenactors. This irritated some, but truthfully, most did not mind and some made jokes about it. Keep in mind that all the people in registration are volunteers and when you say make sure they are reenactors, some get carried away. We can’ be everywhere all the time.
I met with General Hardy a week before the raid this year to help with setup and he conveyed to me that a lot of the reenactors were upset and we should look at doing away with this practice. I discussed this with the registration people and we decided to keep track this year of the people that could not show proof and we were happy to find that virtually all of the people that came up, could provide some kind of proof. On Sunday morning we had a brief meeting at registration and we decided that at the Raid committee meeting scheduled February 13th, we would suggest to the committee that we discontinue this practice and just keep a watchful eye on it in the future.
On Sunday morning General Hardy called a meeting for 11:00 am and demanded that we attend. This is the peak time of our event and we said we could not attend at that time, but could at a later time. That is like us having a meeting during the battle and expecting him to be there. The meeting went on without us. We got word from someone about an apology and threats of all reenactors pulling out. The present president of the museum (he is a reenactor) went to the meeting and agreed to the general’s demands along with some Sertoma people, who obviously had nothing better to do at that time. How can you have a committee meeting without the raid committee being notified and the committee chairman present. If they would have just brought it up at the meeting in a couple of weeks, all this heartbreak and anger could have been avoided. What was the big emergency? All the reenactors had already registered.) We still do not know what all the demands were, but we were told that Jan or the museum had to apologize for harassing the reenactors, also to stop the practice of asking for proof at registration, which is what we had already decided to do that morning. There will never be an apology from us to anyone for anything we have done. We are the ones who really care about the reenactors and do our best to accommodate. Most consider it a source of revenue. You don’t put in 15 years of work (month after month) for not a penny and then have to apologize for trying to protect the people that attend.
I believe that with all the years this woman has put into this event, someone would have had the courtesy of scheduling a meeting where she could attend, instead of dealing with a person from the museum who has not a clue how to run an event of this magnitude and over the last 3 years has maybe 20 hours invested in working this event and that was renting chairs. How can he speak for us?
Because of the lack of respect from the museum representative and reenactor generals (yes generals, Goodrich, Sherman and Hardy were there. Jan has resigned from the Raid committee and so have most all the other committee members representing the museum except for the president. These in part include the people that do, the gate, registration, firewood, sponsors, hay and powder bounties, sutler and reenactor registration mailings, website, emails, signs, modern camping and reenactor setup will not be there next year. Those of you who think Sertoma (the scouts) were the backbone of this event. Think again. I know that a few people are smug and happy that they pressured someone into their demands, but it will be short lived.
Jan and her dedication have made the raid what it is today. She worked to make this the national type event it is through tirelessly contacting the right people to get the job done. It just doesn’t happen by accident. Ask anyone who deals with the Raid, who contacted them and the answer, will be Jan. She was the one at registration who sat up until 2 or 3 in the morning by herself and got up around 6 in her robe to make sure everyone got a pass and was registered. I am not that committed. She had a second phone line installed at our home just for the reenactment. She spent hours just returning calls from reenactors, sutlers or just people wanting information. She was the one who fought to let more sutlers attend the event, (with much resistance, I might add) traveling to other events to collect business cards and sending them invitations to our festival. We had 61 sutlers this year. Previously it was restricted to a special hand picked group of 30 or so and will probably revert back to that. She does all the mailings and letters for the event. She was the one who decided to give away 5-$100 gift certificates for sutlers row, to be drawn at the Ball. It goes on and on. As I am writing this letter she is mailing personal thank you letters to all the people that helped her make this event successful. She wants to finish what she started. Who will do that next year? No One, because no one else cares.
We have enjoyed the many years working and playing with all who were involved, but this chapter in our lives is over. We will miss working with the reenactors and sutlers who have become friends over the years. God bless and good luck to all in the future.
Bob Knowles
PS Not sure what I am going to do with website after this Email: bobknowles@earthlink.net |