Tarmach ben Yehuda al-Khazari

Photo
Photo taken by Her Grace Runa EikBrandrskona {{{photocaption}}}
Information
Status: Current Member Pronouns: he/him Preferred Title: The Honorable Lord Resides: Barony of the Cleftlands Awards: {{{Awards}}}
Heraldry
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Awards & Honors

• Award of Arms (27 Jan 1996)
• Award of the Purple Fret (11 Jun 2005)
• Order of the Dragon's Barb (26 Sep 2015)
• Award of Saint Alfred (20 Dec 2017) (Baronial Award)
• Award of the Purple Fret (27 Jan 2018)
• Order of the Willow (11 Jun 2022)
• Order of the Dragon's Heart (13 Apr 2024)
• Order of the Azure Chalice (14 June 2026) (Baronial Award)(https://wiki.cleftlands.org/Category:Order_of_the_Azure_Chalice)

Offices & Positions

• Cleftlands Exchequer - June 2007 to January 30, 2009
• Baronial Archery Champion - Standard Bearers 2015 XXIV

Stewardship

• A Regular Event in Cleftlands 1996 II
• A Regular Event in Cleftlands 1997 III
• A Regular Event in Cleftlands 1998 IV
• Faire Weather Friends 1999
• Standard Bearers 2000 IX
• Standard Bearers 2008 XVI
• Standard Bearers 2023 XXIX
• Standard Bearers 2024 XXX
• Regional Arts & Sciences Faire 2012
• Fletchings of Spring 2016 I
• Fletchings of Spring 2017 II
• Fletchings of Spring 2018 III
• Fletchings of Spring 2019 IV
• Fletchings of Spring 2021 V
• Fletchings of Spring 2022 VI
• Fletchings of Spring 2024 VII
• Fletchings of Spring 2026 VIII

Affiliations & Relationships

Households & Guilds

• Archery Guild
• Woodworker's Guild
• Midrealm Photographers Guild
• House of the Mountain Bridge

Miscellany

I am most known through my work as a photographer at SCA events. I will speak to that, last.

After a brief few years in the Society, I offered to co-steward the second Regular Event in Cleftlands, the major event on the Barony’s calendar at the time. Just several weeks before the event was to take place, the primary steward abruptly quit the Society. Sir Ephraim ben Shlomo, who had created and hosted the original Event, came to me and calmly said, “You’ve got this. We won’t let you fail.”

That Second Event succeeded. And I’ve never forgotten Sir Ephraim’s words, with each event I have stewarded.

I have tried Heavy Fighting. I was a fencer for several years. Now I am a target archer, with a crossbow of my own design.

The Fletchings event was my own creation for the archery community. As we use a public park with an adjoining picnic shelter, I have prepared hot dogs and hamburgers on the site grills for lunch, to the enjoyment of many. It’s been a relaxed, happy event that has seen steady growth -- the first Fletchings had perhaps a dozen attendees. At the eights, we had 43 people on site..

I have contributed essays to Tournaments Illuminated, have an article in the current Known World Handbook, and have helped to edit the Cleftlands Baronial newsletter. I wrote, with assistance from several friends, a musical revue titled “Forbidden Pennsic – the (filked) musical” that was the first original work performed by the Known World Players at Pennsic, in 2008. I updated the show for a reprise by the KWP in 2019, for their 20th anniversary. I later wrote a serious play, “Hector of Troy,” which was an Elizabethan telling of Homer’s “The Iliad.” It was an entry in regional and Kingdom A&S, and was then also performed by the KWP at Pennsic, in 2018.

What I cannot readily document is that I have, for several decades, aided Society friends when they suffered setbacks. Aided by my Lady, we have ensured they had food and shelter, helped secure housing for them, and provided transport when needed. Currently I am Power of Attorney for a couple whose age and health preclude them from participation in SCA activities – they have needed my help stabilizing their finances, getting to appointments, dealing with official entities, and other tasks. I help them where I can. It’s what we do…

While photography is definitely not period, the recording of events in a society predates our Society’s period. I strive to capture all that makes our hobby special – the works we create, the martial arts in which we participate, the moments of joy and, occasionally, the moments of pain. My photos have been in Tournaments Illuminated, on the SCA facebook page, and in several Middle Kingdom newsletters. For the Pennsic 50-year celebration, I gathered, edited, and enhanced more than 300 photos from about 20 different sources, and created a "Day in the Life of Pennsic" slideshow. Some of the pictures I used were taken before Pennsic 15. And, I have begun teaching others how to take pictures in the SCA setting, and ways to obtain their best picture.

To borrow a phrase from our Knights, Blessed is a Life in Service to Others. I, Tarmach, Serve Where Serve I Might.