Success!
I hope
to tell a story of success. I have to type fast as the
computer, modem and router are running on the battery backup.
As I write this, we are two days on from having had a house
fire. We just got phone/Internet back today, but don't have
electricity back yet.
Think of this as a parallel to the story that I intend to
write. You live, learn and grow. You deal with
adversity. You adapt. You continue in life. I'm
describing the life (so far) of an entity near and dear to my heart,
the IKV Melota.
The IKV Melota was born of a Star Trek discussion group that hung
around at a great book store. The members of the discussion
group became tired of just talking and decided to create a group
that did something.
After that sedentary start, the IKV Melota grew with various
activities. The IKV Melota had weekly Batleth practice and
language classes each Tuesday. We met monthly at a buffet
steak house and had nearly 40 regular members. Of these
members, 25 were combatants. The IKV Melota would do book
wrapping for donations for the book store and serve the "kids games"
at our local fantasy faire. This also caused us to camp out
together during the faire weekends (Camp Khitomer).
We can not claim to have invented the Batleth Tournament.
Since KAG existed for a decade prior to our existence, I'm sure that
somebody had a Tournament prior to us. We, however, were
involved with creating the first known hard core Batleth Tournament
and style. Technically, even we did not create the local
Batleth Tournament, it was a local ship that was shuttled from the
IKV Melota. This style uses proper size and weight plywood
copies of the TV weapons. These are not boffers or other
pretend weapons. These can and do break bones. We
developed in conjunction with the new ship a style that is realistic
and useful for real world training. We won't claim that it is
the "right way". We do believe that it is the most useful way,
though.
Using the concept of "Force Projection", we enticed two different
KAG ships (IKV Deliverance and IKV Bayou Serpent) to start annual
disrupter wars (paintball). This allows our ships to have good
reasons to drive the nine and five hours to visit each other. (We
later found a seven hour route to the IKV Deliverance). We
play well with each other and have a dang good relationship.
Some of our members have visited each of those two ships as friends
visiting friends without the ridges.
When JudmoS created our local version of Good Day to Dine, the IKV
Melota became a regular member. Until the last Good Day to
Dine, there was always at least one IKV Melota member
attending. I admit that after twelve years, I missed my first
one due to an injury. The IKV Melota has been rock solid in
supporting the Lone Star Warrior's Association's Good Days to Dine.
We did invent
the AER as used by KAG. As Communications Officer, I would
email a report of the various events that took place. Running
the official website (1999-2009) I tried to keep an up-to-date and
educational website for KAG and the mundanes. We were not the
first to have locally made videos (I figure such, but am not sure),
however, I
believe that with over a gig of video, that the (legacy) IKV Melota
website was and is still the website with the most klingon
video. The IKV Melota voted in 1999 to acquire equipment to
make videos and to build a premiere website in order to serve
KAG. As a legacy site, it is still present and up-to-date for
the benefit of KAG and the mundanes.
There is also a new official website and a separate Youtube site
available for the benefit of KAG and the mundanes.
All is not glory and fun. Regrettably, the IKV Melota has had
its occasional "roof damage and house fires". In spite of
this, the IKV Melota has been moving forward. The IKV Melota
added the occasional "INformal campout" and "klingon Ball" to the
list of things to host.
The Informal campout is a camping event that is just the families
getting together to camp. No structure at all exists for the
weekend. It is just pure camping for the sake of camping together.
The Klingon Ball is a very much formal event. Just imagine
women dancing in armored gowns. No children are allowed as
this is a grups only event. The ball has food contests as well
as door prizes and an auction. The ball raises money and hard
goods for our local favorite charity, the Safe Haven of Tarrant
County (a women's shelter).
As well as raising funds for our favorite charity, we have also
served other non-profits. For years we provided parking lot
security for a local school when they had night events that would
draw a big crowd. We assisted other local ships (Starfleet as
well as the IKV Bayou Serpent) in putting in uniforms for our local
symphonies whenever they played a science fiction musical show.
For less formal and more familial events, the IKV Melota has had
"net game nights", "Guitar Hero night" and there is an upcoming
"Drag Racing night". With these events, no uniform is
needed. These are more just families getting together to have
fun without the ridges and leather.
In spite of the occasional power outage or even local house fire,
the IKV Melota has just cleaned up and moved forward to serve
KAG. We have added new reasons to play with us. We have
served KAG since 1997 and intend to continue serving KAG as an
ongoing concern bringing new fun to our crew and the mudanes.
Strength and Honor,
Commander Salek, Sutai
Brewmaster, IKV Melota
[email protected]
