August 2018 Volume 9, Issue 8 A First Time For Everything! By: Jenna Louise Richelle McFarland Greetings friends and distant family! My family and I were mentioned in the May newsletter, after we agreed to take over hosting the highland games in Michigan. Now having hosted our first game, I would like to share with you how we prepared, What our first experience was like, and what we hope to do to continue to improve our hosting capabilities. Speaking with Marie Robb and Barb Duff at the Alma games gave us a good starting point for what we were going to have to buy and what responsibilities we were taking on with hosting. A quick internet search can give you a pretty good list of the major highland games in your state if you are starting fresh or wish to expand where you host. When it is closer to the event, the games website usually has a registration form for clan tents. If you are interested in the clan tent contests, (which I have heard we have only won once) judging seems to vary per festival so you should speak with the coordinator to see what criteria they look for. After getting a list together and searching the internet for ide- as, I've come up with a good basic list to start hosting a tent. Hosting is a process that will take several years of trying things out before you will be happy with what you believe is necessary to bring. The approximate cost is around 300-500$. It will vary de- pending on what you already own and what you think is important to in- vest in. We didn't have garb so that was an additional cost for us as well. Now what is it like to host a tent with a toddler? In a word, hectic. Our son woke just as we were starting to get him in the car at 5am. He was awake the whole ride to Livonia. Once at the games he preceded to run amok by running towards cars, and attempting to pull our cart of supplies away from us. Once we found our tent and began setting up, He contin- ued to “help us” by running off with various PVC pieces and attempting to take things off the tables we had just set. Right before we opened to the public, the coordinator came by each tent and introduced themselves and welcomed us to the games. Once open, people began filtering through ei- ther, stopping at tents they knew or wandering around. It's good at this point to have any food you brought for guests available and known to them. Our tent neighbor had bananas and popsicles. We had shortbread © Clan MacFarlane Worldwide, Inc., 2018 Volume 9, Issue 8 1 and coconut jam tarts. I saw other clans with homemade lemonade. It was going to be very hot so it was good to think of hydration. Throughout the day we had to rear- range our set up to try and keep our sitting area out of the sun and by 11 our son passed out in his wag- on. This drew quite a few guests to our tent to see a cute sleeping baby. The Parade took place around noon and was typical organized chaos. As we came back from the parade we noticed the wind had broken loose some of the fittings holding our banner up so we had to pull it down to reset it. Keeping in mind that our little helper had had enough rest to want to assist us in this endeavor by continuously making a run for the cows up the lane. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that the larger clans host a lunch for the other tent hosts. Not knowing this ahead of time — and not wishing to spend a fortune keeping ourselves fed on festival food — we packed snacks and sandwiches to keep us fed all day. If you have picky eaters or diet restrictions I would say it's a good idea to pack food. Coming to the end of the day everyone is tired and sweaty and that is when the tear down starts. I would say that it went much like setting up, with our son running away with our cart and trying his hardest to get hit by cars as he cackled maniacally. On our way home we started making of list and going over things we would like to do differently having our experience fresh in our minds to help us plan bet- ter for next year. Things that I hope to do to improve our tent for the future SUPPLIES include: more MacFarlane themed decor including banners, flags, and historical artifacts. I would also like to become Totes (to carry supplies) more informed on our history so we can share more confi- Tent (sometimes provided or rentable) dently with our visitors. By next year I also plan on having 8 ft banner (provided by society) 2 tables (sometimes rentable) things to sell, and would like to start a children's story time 2 chairs (sometimes rentable) with Scottish folklore and faerie tales. It can seem grueling Wagon (carry supplies or kids) to host a tent especially with the long days, and unpredicta- Table cloths ble often uncomfortable weather. I find it is important to Picture frames (for your map of Scotland,list find hobbies that can connect to the tent. I love baking, so it of septs,certificate of membership) Parade banner makes hosting more fun for me to bake treats for visitors. I PVC banner support would also like to add that we had to fit all of our supplies Flags (scottish and home country flag) plus a baby in our Honda Fit. So the ability to compact Books (History of Clan MacFarlane, My Tar- things was necessary. We are hoping by next year to have a tan and Me, Scots Kith and Kin) Stamp and larger vehicle which will help with my desire to expand our stamp pad Sign In book displays. Wandering through other clan tents while you are Printouts for society (Information for join- at games is a good way to get ideas and find out where they ing the society. Information about the ar- purchase display items. In this process I was informed cheology work done) about different things clans will purchase for tent hosts and Bungee cords I now have a running list of things I would like to purchase Case of water for next year. (Clan MacFarlane purchased the 8 foot ban- ner and you can get refunded for the cost of We had a lot of fun hosting our tent even with all the hosting, which can cost around 50$ without little things that went wrong throughout the day. There renting extras. ) were many things we learned after hosting that I don't think © Clan MacFarlane Worldwide, Inc., 2018 Volume 9, Issue 8 2 we could have prepared for without having experienced it first. Without a clan banner for the pa- rade it was difficult to discern us from other clans. After having to move our things around all day definitely buy something to enclose part of your tent sides to keep sun out. Pack some hand tools like channel locks, multi-tool and razor blade knife to help with set up. Most tents are 10ft wide so, make your banner display Websites For Purchases: wider. I made ours just over 8ft so we had one leg of the sup- port cutting off the entrance to the tent. Also with the banner Designasign.us support, if it is going to be windy try and bungee the top of the Kinkos.com Amazon.com banner to the tent to keep the wind from breaking your con- Scotclans.com nections. Lastly we definitely failed our judging for the tent thetartanlady.com contest. We were caught off guard and were unable to answer Scottishtradingcompany.com the judges’ questions very well. We additionally weren't aware Stcroixweaving.com of the judging criteria. So besides not doing well on the ques- Sportkilt.com tions, I'm not sure what else was not up to snuff. I hope this has been informative, we are certainly looking forward to continuing our hosting experience which should get easier as we become more efficient and our son gets older. Loch Sloy! The Stories of Our MacFarlane Tartans (Part I) By: David Pope The tendency to romanticize our Scottish heritage is not a new one. One particular facet of Highland culture that has been prone to myths is the subject of clan tartans. This article will address some basic infor- mation about the tartans associated with Clan MacFarlane. There are three main tar- tans associated with Clan MacFarlane: MacFarlane, Hunting MacFarlane, and MacFarlane Black and White. The oldest of the MacFarlane tartans is predomi- nately red, with blue, green, white, and black overstripes. This is the oldest of the three tar- tans. It can be dated to 1819, as it is contained within the Key Pattern Book used by the William Wilson and Sons weaving firm in Bannockburn.1 Wilson and Sons was a company which wove tartan in mass quantities. One staple of their business was the weaving of tartan for Highland MacFarlane Tartan army regiments. Noted tartan expert, Peter Mac- Donald opines that this tartan cannot be dated much before c. 1780 and shares similarities with Wilsons’ MacKintosh pattern.2 1MacDonald, Peter Eslea, The 1819 Key Pattern Book, 2012. pp. 2-4. © Clan MacFarlane Worldwide, Inc., 2018 Volume 9, Issue 8 3 MIRAMICHI SCOTTISH FESTIVAL by Andrea MacFarlane-Grieve Earlier this summer (July), I attended the Scottish Festival in Uxbridge, Ontario (Canada) with Barb Duff and her husband.