New date for 2010 Battle Day: Saturday 17 April

Please note the new date of Saturday 17 April 2010. We have moved it from the week after to avoid clashing with Salute.

Society of Ancients at UK Games Expo

Clarendon Suites, Edgbaston B16 9SB


The Society of Ancients shows team will be at the UK Games Expo this weekend. Come along to this great event http://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/index.php - the place to try out new games. We will be taking along some Field of Glory kit with a Crusades theme in support of the mini tournament they are hosting, and to fly the 'ancients' flag. Please join in - especially if you haven't tried FoG before, or to break up the diverse choice of other styles and interests the Expo caters for.

http://soawargamesteam.blogspot.com/

2010 battle for Battle Day announced!

With unprecedented speed and decisiveness, the organising committee has already selected the 2010 battle for the seventh annual Society of Ancients Battle Day. It's Zama. So that gives you all plenty of time to dust off your Hannibals and your Scipios, or paint up new ones. Pencil in Saturday 24 April 2010, at the usual venue in Bletchley near Milton Keynes.

Result of Vote

We now have the result of the postal ballot, the forms for which were sent out with the last Slingshot. A total of 74 votes were cast, of which 70 were in favour of the proposal to adopt a new Constitution, and 4 were against.

We will therefore now go on to the next step, which is to hold an EGM on 27 June 2009 at The Old Coffee House, Beak Street, London, starting at 12.00 noon. The new Constitution will be introduced as from that date, unless voted down by a quorate EGM.

This announcement serves as notice of the EGM. Any member has the right to attend and vote.

For the record, 43 votes were submitted via the Internet, and 31 by post.

Thanks to the noble 74 who voted, and also to Bill Thurlow for acting as Returning Officer.

Proposed Constitutional Changes

The latest Slingshot (263) includes a voting form on the set of constitutional changes proposed at the last AGM. To respond, you can either post the completed form (to the address printed on the form) or send an email to elections [at] soa.org.uk.

To find copies of the current constitution and the proposed changes, you can either log into the Members' Area (for information about obtaining a password for the members' area, see the previous entry in this blog) or else, if you are a member of the society's Yahoo group, then you can find copies of these files in the groups files area. If you are a current member of the society, and want to join the Yahoo group, you can request membership from the Contact page – select "Newsgroup Invitation" as the topic in the form.

Members Area Open on Website

Hi. As you should be able to see from the tabs on http://www.soa.org.uk, there is now a "Members Area" on the website. The purpose of this is described in more detail in the editorial of Slingshot 263, but, briefly, the idea is to provide an area for additional material and also for stuff which is specific to the running of the society, such as minutes. The members area also allows for the facility of free member "home pages" (actually they can consist of multiple pages) on which you can host your own hobby and history related material, only accessible by other members.
There isn't *that* much there at the moment – at the time of writing there are just some hi-res versions of the campaign maps from the recent campaign articles in Slingshot, and the homepage area. Some content from the main site may migrate inside the members area.
For the members area, your userid will be your membership number; you'll need to get a password from the webmaster. Either write and supply your name (first and last name) and membership number, or use the contact form from the "Contact" tab – put your membership number in the message. Also say whether you'd like a homepage setting up.
Thanks
Mark

Slingshot 263

The latest issue of Slingshot (number 263, March 2009), the bi-monthly publication of the Society of Ancients, went to the printers last Monday. Apologies for the lateness of this issue. My understanding is that the issue has been delayed a further couple of days to accommodate the printing of membership cards, which are enclosed with the magazine, so it may be another week before it arrives with you. The incentive game is not included with this mailing and will be sent separately.

This issue is 60 pages long, not including the cover pages. It's published in the same format introduced with issue 258.

The contents of Slingshot 263 are as follows. For games articles, I've indicated the relevant rule set where it's not immediately obvious from the title; with historical articles I've tried to indicate period if a similar issue applies.

• Cogadh Gaedhil: Medieval Irish warfare 600AD-1500AD, Part I, by Mick Hession
• The Battle of the Granicus, by Patrick Waterson
• Recent Reconstructions of the Battle of the Granicus, by Philip Sabin
• “Oh merchant, how you use up silver!” (Mesopotamian Notes VI), by Alastair McBeath
• Ambush at Callinicum 531 AD (The Case For Reliable Arabs), by Stewart Hey
• The Longbeards, by Robert Heiligers
• [DBA] Campaigns for Wargamers 7 – The Normans in Italy, by Paul Burton
• [WAB] Thinking About Romans, by Adrian Goldsworthy
• [AMW] Ancient and Medieval Wargaming, by Neil Thomas
• Of Brushes and Bowstrings, by David Edwards
• Honouring the Dead, by Edward Harvey
• Plastic Alchemy Update 2008, by Andrew Lawrence
• Book Reviews, by Marc Adda, Phil Barker & Will Whyler
• Figure Reviews: 28mm Celts and Romans, Tibetans & Macedonian Successors, by Mark Watson
• The Great Commanders at Milton Keynes Campaign: 9 -10 May 2009, by Graham Evans