Unfortunately, we were unable to participate in Glenloch Baptist Church’s annual “One Night in Bethlehem” Living Nativity Pageant. According to Chris Stewart, in conjunction with other construction the church is re-locating the site of the event to a new permanent home, which means that it was not available in 2011. All of us look forward to seeing it in its new location and renewing our participation in 2012. We’d all like to wish the congregation the best of luck in all of their projects.

Workshop Report:

Now that the tent is complete (except for maintenance and upkeep between events), we are returning to some more familiar projects as we wait for the plans for our next major project, a Roman ballista.

December had a pretty good gathering featuring Chris Stewart, Alex Kyrychenko (with Andriy, his designated driver), Chip Lewis and myself putting in some time on a variety of projects. Chris made a new baldric for his gladius that turned out very well. He then oiled up his caligae for the winter and capped off the day by making and attaching some very cool crest hooks to his Italic B helmet based on research by H. Russell Robinson. This Deepeeka Italic B is a very good reconstruction, but more importantly it is the only one we’ve found that actually fits Chris’ head. With the new crest hooks, he’ll now be able to wear his crest in even greater style and comfort!

Chip Lewis started on that perennial favorite of all Legio XI milites, getting to learn the joys of the jigsaw as he cut out his scutum blank, glued the separate pieces together, and got it strapped onto the form. I gave him minimal assistance on this project, and then both of us applied a coat of varnish to the tent poles, completing that one last detail of tent manufacture.

Alex Kyrychenko has decided to make the terminals for his new balteus (with the cool plates from Matt Lukes) himself – and these are some really complex pieces. Accordingly, he started cutting them out of very thick sheet brass – .032” – and shaping them into the distinctive “spade” shapes with cutouts for details. Really, really tough work which he accomplished with his usual skill and attention to detail. This is going to be an amazing piece when completed.

After the workshop, we were joined by Michelle, Jay and Robin Stewart along with Daisy Lewis and all of us (Piper and her sister Blair included) then ate hors d’oeuvres and played Nasty Santa – the most popular gift of which (stolen three times) was a bottle of wine and a bottle of vodka. Chip got a great set of tools that he stole from Andriy!

To cap it off, we then watched the rest of the SEC Championship game where LSU (Piper’s alma mater) whooped up on UGA!

Awesome evening. I was glad there were plenty of designated drivers!

Member News:

No new news from this month, although we hope to hear from those members, new and old, that we’ve not seen for awhile.

Next Project:

As soon as we can get some plans, we intend to start.I know we’re all looking forward to this one.

Upcoming Events

Note that I’ve set the date for Anabasis – they can still be changed (for instance, to suit folks with other commitments), just trying to get a mark on the wall since we’re about 60 days out. I don’t have the Georgia Junior Classical League convention dates yet, but I’ve asked the organizers for them and should have them in the next newsletter.