Mel of Saint Brutus
From MiddleWiki
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 Mel of St. Brutus doing their thing networking with other groups | ||||||||||
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 Per bend argent and sable, within a dragon in annulo breathing flames a hurdy gurdy bendwise counterchanged |
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Overview
Mel of Saint Brutus is the current Student President of The Medieval College of Saint Brutus, Deputy Social Media Officer of the Barony of Middle Marches, and Founder of the SCA College Network as well as a resident of the Barony of Middle Marches and Shire of Tirnewydd.
Persona
Nondescript Kievan Rus
Offices & Positions
- Social Media Manager for Saint Brutus: January 2024 - present
- Student Treasurer for Saint Brutus: June 2024 - December 2024
- Deputy Baronial Social Media Officer for Middle Marches: October 2024 - Present
- Founder of the SCA College Network: November 24th 2024
- Student President for Saint Brutus: December 2024 - present
- Baronial Arts and Science Champion for Middle Marches: January 2025 - present
Awards
- Award of Arms: North Oaken War Maneuvers 2024
- Sable Gate of the Middle Marches: Red Dragon 2024
- Purple Fret: Mugmort Melees 2025
- Gilded Reed: Mugmort Melees 2025
The SCA College Network
<p>Founded on November 24th 2024 by Mel of Saint Brutus, the SCA College Network is a coalition of official and unofficial SCA groups based out of Universities along with individual collegiate SCAdians and Alumni across the known world created to help empower the collegiate community by providing it with a dedicated social space, inter-group networking opportunities, and various other resources such as direct access to peers across the known world, inter-group officer forums, and in person meetups. At the time of writing, the Network's total population consists of over 250 members and 35 individual collegiate groups represented among its ranks, making it the largest inter-kingdom Collegiate organization within the SCA.The SCA College Network was primarily founded on a few platforms. Despite the SCA being founded out of a College and the first "event" being a graduation party for a graduate of UC Berkeley, the collegiate community as a whole was fairly under-represented and underserved society-wide. There is a semi-common school of thought that Collegiate SCAdians and SCA groups are not worth investing time, equipment, and money into because of the fact Collegiate group populations often change completely every 3-4 years, former members often move away to outside the Barony or Kingdom, meaning that recruitment and retention must always be prioritized in order for the group itself to continue to exist. Because this is the case, support for collegiate groups may be extremely inconsistent across Baronies and Kingdoms as many would much rather have college students come to local practices off-campus directly or simply do not place priority on recruiting them at all. Due to many College students not having access to reliable transportation to locations off-campus, money to outright purchase gear for themselves particularly for Armored Combat, or really know where to look or who to talk to when it comes to showing up to practices or getting to events, college students are often not recruited or are extremely under-recruited. And in the case of established college groups, without any sort of consistent, prolonged support from the outside community, groups will become isolated and eventually run into administrative or recruitment issues and collapse, usually around 8-10 years after their founding. These groups are usually not replaced by another group or the Barony which means the SCA loses presence within the area indefinitely. Collegiate groups also being extremely isolated from each other can also result in administrative knowledge and general resources not always being consistently available to student officers, particularly if the group has a split administrative structure where the SCA officers and Student officers are different people or is geographically far away from similar groups.
While Mel of Saint Brutus was not the first or only person to identify these problems as many collegiate groups independently wanted to unite and talks of uniting had been had before, they were the first to get irrationally annoyed by them to the point of action. Given all the collegiate community, at least within the confines of Saint Brutus itself, did for Mel it did not make very much sense not to take action and unite the collegiate community across the known world to make it stronger and less prone to collapse. The collegiate community deserved stability, longevity, and more importantly, people willing to fight for it and its members in the face of apathy and indifference. After all, college students are more than just potential squires, fighters, or social media fodder. They are people who deserve a space to call their own and that is not directly hostile or at best indifferent to them where their interests will be nurtured. In a bid to help improve their own group and to try to see what more existed in the known world, Mel of Saint Brutus began contacting collegiate SCA groups across various social media platforms and assembled a coalition of 4 initial 'founding' groups. Those groups were the College of St. Vladimir in Atenveldt, the College of Saint Felix in Atenveldt, the Barony of Jararvellir in Northshield, and of course Saint Brutus (represented by Mel) in Midrealm. Shortly after these groups cohesed together, they were joined by Falcons Gate in Northshield and the Barony of Rivenstar also in Midrealm. Following November 24th, the group grew exponentially, eventually growing to encompass every active collegiate group in the kingdoms of Midrealm, Atenveldt, Northshield, Drachenwald, The East, Atlantia, Aethelmearc, The Outlands, An Tir, and Calontir with almost a complete presence in the West, Artemisia, Ansteorra, and Lochac.
While the group is still in its relative infancy, plans are already being made to do inter-collegiate meetups under the College Network's banner at large wars such as Gulf Wars and Pennsic, along with potentially hosting events and helping create a Pennsic scholarship fund for college students within the next 5 years.
The Saint Brutus Book of Excellence
The Saint Brutus Book of Excellence (often abbreviated as "The Brutus Book") is an ongoing Scribal book project started by Mel of Saint Brutus roughly around May of 2024 in partnership with Steve of Tirnewydd to serve as both 'record keeping' and a celebration of the members of the Medieval College of Saint Brutus. The book is comprised of hand-painted gouache pages with Arabic Gold borders, each featuring a member of Saint Brutus, their personal heraldry, and all the awards they have earned during their time with the group since its founding in 2017. This project started in response to Brutus not having very many of its own traditions, heirlooms, or an efficient and easily accessible way of keeping track of who had been involved with the group, what awards those people had earned while at the group, and when they were involved. The book was also directly inspired by a piece of Middle Marches' champion regalia that featured the names of the previous champions carved into it. The book features current members and alumni alike. And because the book is directly tied to the success of Brutus members and the arrival of new Bruti over time; the book is perpetually in a state of "unfinishedness" as to be truly "finished" there must be no more new awards to record or people to give pages to which, functionally speaking, the end of Brutus as a group. The following are the pages of the book painted by Mel of Saint Brutus with calligraphy done by Steve of Tirnewydd.
 Book Cover |
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 Adleta Sidova |
 Steve of Tirnewydd |
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 Jalal Bahadur |
 Mel of Saint Brutus |
 Valya Abnikova doch' now Valya Kadaseva Zhena Kadakova |
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 Sigmund Grimborgh |
 Fangzhi Li |
 Maximillian Fassnacht |
Interests and SCA-related hobbies
Most of Mel's immediate interests within the SCA tend to lie within Administration as they genuinely find it, particularly social media management, fun. Most of Mel's time is often spent coming up with new ways to make social media more lucrative for recruitment and retention within both the Barony and Brutus. This can range from anything like taking pictures of Bruti during events or practices, or making video edits and memes featuring the group. Mel has given a class "The Basics of Social Media Management" at April Fool 2025 with plans on giving additional similar social media centered classes in the future.
Outside of Administration, Mel has an interest in the Kievan Rus, Steppe peoples of Eurasia, painting, and the history of medieval chronic disease, particularly those with extreme social stigmas such as Alopecia and Leprosy. Mel also has an interest in Historical musical instruments and plays the Hurdy Gurdy, although not very well.
Scroll Preferences
Mel owns a large variety of pets, particularly Lizards, and enjoys seeing these pets incorporated into the scroll art, even if they are a small part of the overall design. These pets are the following:
- Dolly: A Tri-color Pembroke Welsh Corgi with a "peace sign" shaped marking on her forehead
- Sasha: A light caramel colored Brindle Crested Gecko missing a tail (because he threw it in a fit of anger), sometimes wears a blue wizard hat
- Boris: A wildtype coloration (bright Blue with orange spots) Tokay Gecko
- Reinhardt-Dimitri: A Pink Mack Super Snow Leopard Gecko
- Sonju: A Wildtype coloration Western Banded Gecko missing his left eye
- Stickers: A hatchling aged Cuban False Chameleon (If drawn please draw with angel wings and a halo)
- Perry: A Tangerine afghan patternless stripe (a kind of moldy orange color with a pale purple tail) Leopard Gecko with a Christmas lightbulb-shaped tail
- Brutus: A Wildtype coloration Cuban false chameleon
- Buckeye: A wildtype coloration Australian barking gecko
Mel also enjoys Blackwork scrolls, black and white high-contrast color palates, fasciated flowers, moths, hurdy gurdies, whimsical Marginalia creatures, lemons, gothic cathedral architecture, orthodox cathedral architecture (particularly examples like Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow), and general Byzantine or Rus themes.
