Barelegged and Exhausted
Another festival celebrating Magnus Barelegs is over! As usual for a number of days after the festival I was exhausted and vowing “we would never do this again!” Tomorrow night we have the ‘lessons learnt’ meeting when we discuss what we could do better and a little bit about what we did right! It seems a bit odd to think of it this way around but as a Knowledge Management practitioner I’ve learned over the years that we learn more from our mistakes than we do our successes. We can usually identify why something went wrong but not always what were the key success factors for something going right!
With this thought in mind I was amazed to hear on the TV this morning that Japan cannot confirm whether their policy of Quantitative Easing adopted in 2001 contributed to the saving of their economy. Here we are in 2009 with the UK adopting the exact same policy to ward off deflation and we don’t know if it works! In August the Governor of the Bank of England wanted to push the level of Quantitative Easing to £200bn. I just hope he knows what he is doing!
The Magnus Barelegs festival cost a lot less than that, in fact it probably only just got into 5 figures this year. We had a lot less money because commercial sponsorship almost dried up, so we just worked harder! I am amazed how a small group of about a dozen of us manage to put on such a big festival! Thousands at Delamont for the re-enactment, 22 rowing teams in the boat racing and thousands more at the harbour is quite an achievement. Not only did we have quantitative success but everyone had a good time as well. Well done to that small group of active workers who made it happen! I’m proud to work with you.
My favourite moments of the festival:
•Visiting the Long House in Delamont on Saturday morning prior to us going to the BBC studio and seeing people actually living there. Amazing how people lived in Viking times.
•The archers coming through the trees, shivers down the spine time!
•The funeral boat being set alight by flaming arrows
•Seeing the enjoyment of those taking part in the education days, both those re-enacting and the children learning about the Vikings in a whole new way
•Watching Paul on stilts dressed as a pirate when he spotted two ladies from Bergen taking money out of the cash dispenser. “The Vikings are raiding the bank” he roared and proceeded to chase them down the street. Scary when you think he was about 8 – 9ft at the time. Even scarier for them as I don’t think they spoke much English and didn’t know Paul!
•Seeing the teams assembled in the Parade ready to move off, led by 50 Harley Davidsons. Amazing and what a sound!
•The delight on the faces of the townspeople as the parade passed through the town and the many hundreds of people who came out to greet us
•The rowing of the Peel Young Vikings as they rowed across the harbour in perfect unison
•The not so perfect rowing of the other teams, many of who had entered for the first time. Did you enjoy it I asked them all, YES was the universal reply, we’ll be back next year!
We may learn more from our mistakes but we should also celebrate our successes. Have a look at the video on Facebook on the Killyleagh Viking Festival page and I challenge you not to be impressed. Will we do it again next year? What do you think?
