Help wanted

Could you give the event an hour or two of your time?

Cudgelwar, like all events of the Society for Creative Anachronism, is run entirely by volunteers and almost all "staff" also pay to participate. In order for everyone to have time to enjoy the event and participate in it in other ways than by working, a lot of people and many pairs of hands are needed. You don't have to know how to do anything special to be able to help make the event better.

In the words of Heather Dale: The work is always lighter when there’s many hands; if many people are doing it, one person won't have an unreasonable burden.

How to volunteer: If you find something in the list below that you could do for a day or maybe even a couple, register at cudgelwar@cudgelwar.org. From there, your message will be directed to the correct person.

In the kitchen (You don't need to know how to cook!)

Breakfast teams or breakfast steward(s) or helper(s)

Baroness Rikissa has written great breakfast preparation instructions, so the task is not difficult, it just requires a pair of hands and a watchful eye. 2-3 people are needed to prepare breakfast. You can sign up for it with friends as a team or alone, and the organizers offer a day when help is needed.

Since there is a longer breakfast/brunch this year, it would be desirable for one team to set out breakfast and take care of the beginning of it, to then be released by another team to take care of replenishing the breakfast table and cleaning up. One team can also take care of the entire brunch from setup to cleanup if desired.

Breakfast cleanup will be a little less hurried than before in summer 2026, because there's no lunch, and the dinner cooks don't have to spend much time in the kitchen before brunch is cleared.

Helping with dinner preparations

In the afternoon before dinner, all kinds of chopping and setting help are needed, as well as occasional washing up. After dinner, the leftovers need to be put in the fridge, the counters cleaned and the dishes washed so that the breakfast team can come to work the next morning. Those working a full shift in the dinner kitchen are allowed to eat dinner (if there is food suitable for them), even if they have not paid for it, so that they do not have to think about feeding themselves while working.
The dinner kitchen needs help on all other days except feast days (the pirates recruit their own helpers for Monday, below more about the banquet and the feast).

Helping with feast preparations

If you prefer to work a longer shift for just one day, would you go to the feast kitchen to help on Wednesday (banquet) or the second Friday (feast)? Since the feasts offer more dishes, there is a need for a lot of choppers, pot guards, pie makers and the like during the preparation phase during the day.
Note! If you take a full cooking shift on a party day when you haven't bought a party, you can eat whatever you want of the leftovers that are returned to the kitchen. Popular dishes may run out, but there has always been enough to fill the stomachs of the kitchen staff. This way, you can focus on your work without having to think about how and when you'll feed yourself that evening.

Cleaning the kitchen after the feast(s)

Once a feast has been enjoyed, it's time to let the feast kitchen staff off. They've been standing in the kitchen for a working day at that point, and Aarnimetsä has long had the principle that if you cook a feast, you don't clean up afterwards. If your hands can't handle washing up, the feast aftermath also requires sorting and storing the leftovers, drying dishes, and carrying the cleaned serving dishes to the side room (they don't need to be packed at that time, just of of the way). Finally, the kitchen is cleaned to a standard that the breakfast team doesn't need to clean before cooking the next morning.

Serving coordinator(s) for the feasts

For the banquet on Wednesday and the feast on second Friday, someone is needed to ensure that the food being served is transferred from the kitchen to the banqueting area, and then to the feasters' tables. The coordinator also arranges for the empty dishes to be carried from the banqueting area back to the kitchen building. The task requires some advance planning, recruiting people and passing on information from the kitchen to the waiters and diners.
The serving coordinator for the banquet (Wed) and the feast (2. Fri) does not have to be the same person. 

"Fika" (afternoon coffee) coordinator for the feast days

The organizers have decided to offer afternoon coffees (fika in Nordmark style) on the feast days (Mon, Wed, 2. Fri). To spare the feast cooks from having to think about two things at once, someone is needed on fika days to make coffee and hot water and to put out the drinks, milk, and sugar as well as snacks, and to clear everything after coffee time is over. There are instructions for everything, the work is not difficult. You can do the task alone, but it can be more enjoyable with a friend (or two)!

Site-related tasks

Cleaning coordinator(s)

The daily cleaning coordinator ensures that the daily cleaning tasks of the event are taken care of. The most important thing is that the toilets, sauna and washing facilities are cleaned daily. There are separate instructions for these. The event organizers divide the cleaning tasks to the different groups, so the cleaning coordinator is primarily a support person and ensures, for example, that cleaning supplies and instructions are available.
The leaving-day cleaning coordinator is a person who can be there on the last day of the camp and coordinate the cleaning, check the cleaned facilities and mark them ready for handover. Finding a leaving-day cleaning manager would help the main organizers significantly, because they could focus on all the other dismantling and packing work without having to also supervise the cleaning.

Court space arrangement coordinator

The courts are usually held in the middle of the week, possibly only on the days of the feast (Wednesday and the last Friday), perhaps also on the first weekend and Thursday. The person responsible for arranging the courtroom ensures that the thrones, wall hangings, kneeling cushions, etc. props are in the right place at the right time and that there is a suitable place for the audience. How easy or difficult the task is depends on the weather and schedules, but carrying, for example, can of course be delegated to someone else. The task does not require you to ensure that the Royalty are there at the right time, the goal is just to prepare a functional environment for those holding court. The task can also be carried out, for example, as a team effort, so that different people handle the task on different days, so that the previous one always tells the next one what is being done and what needs to be taken into account. Finding a designated person for this task before the event would reduce the workload of the main event organizers.

High table organizer for the banquet and the feast

This role is suitable for someone who is there on Wednesday (banquet) and the second Friday (feast) and who likes to organize things beautifully. It is possible that the high table will have to be moved due to the court or that it will simply accumulate all sorts of things, so one person is needed before the banquet and the feast to ensure that the table has a clean tablecloth, possibly a runner on top, and the people sitting at high table have appropriate seats in the correct order. Organizers would also appreciate it if the high table organizer comes late that night or perhaps early next morning to clean up the high table, take any remaining serving dishes to the kitchen to be washed and removes any dirty tablecloths and takes them to the laundry pile (most likely at the attic).

Textile workshop steward

It would be desirable for the textile workshop steward to be present at the event at least Sunday to Friday, but even a part-time coordinator is better than nothing. The textile workshop steward's main task is to set up the textile workshop in Lassila's workshop room together with the library manager and put up signs on the walls. After this, the workshop only requires attention once a day, either early in the morning before the day's program starts or in the afternoon/evening after the program in the workshop has ended. Duties include collecting trash, putting things back in their places and moving books to the library tables, as well as moving left items to the left items box and moving projects that have been left lying around to the table or shelf reserved for them. In 2026, the textile workshop coordinator will not have to pack up the workshop, as Johanna will be at the event for the last weekend and can take care of packing her things herself if necessary. Help is of course welcome even then!