I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving last Thursday.
And if you’re not in the U.S., I hope you had a wonderful Thursday.
FYI, I normally send the Email Marketing Ecosystem newsletter to my regular subscribers on Thursdays, so this newsletter is Thanksgiving focused. If you want to be one of the lucky people who get this newsletter delivered to your inbox every Thursday, please sign up at the bottom of this post.
I spent the day rushing around my kitchen, roasting a turkey, baking a pie, and prepping for guests.
I was in my happy place, taking care of my community.
And that’s what I want to talk about today, community.
My Former Life as a Road Rennie
You may or may not know that I spent many years traveling around the country performing at Renaissance Festivals.
Over those many years I:
- Played the harp and sang
- Performed in stage shows
- Was speaker for the Great Cats of the World show
- Performed as a street character
- And made costumes for many of my fellow performers, crafters, and other folks who worked at or came to these Festivals.
People always ask me whether we’re like the circus, always picking up and moving together. The answer is “sort of.”
You can find a Renaissance Festival open somewhere in the country almost year-round. Traveling “Rennies,” as we refer to ourselves, usually have a “circuit” meaning a series of shows we’d work at throughout the year.
You can have a circuit of 5 to 10 shows a year, depending on how long each show runs (how many weekends it’s open). Smaller shows have fewer weekends, larger shows run 6-8 weekends.
I started at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and ended up working as a performer at:
- Arizona Renaissance Festival
- Georgia Renaissance Festival
- Colorado Renaissance Festival
- King Richard’s Faire (Carver, MA)
- Carolina Renaissance Festival
This schedule would vary from year to year, but if you recognize the woman in the picture below (me), then I performed at a Renaissance Festival near you.
That kept me busy for most of the year. After my last show, I’d go home, play Christmas carols for holiday parties and events, celebrate the holidays with my family, and take January off.
Then I’d start the whole thing over again.
I made a good living doing this and, despite lots of trials and tribulations, loved it while I did it.
Why?
The community.
What I Miss Most About My Traveling Days
As I said, it’s not like the circus, where everyone moves together.
Instead, we’d be together on a Renaissance Festival site for about 2 months, then each go off to the next show on our schedules. For some of us, those shows were the same. For others, they were elsewhere. But we all saw each other at least once a year for long blocks of time.
During that time, there were always lots of after-show potlucks and group dinners, talent shows, collaborations, general hang-outs, birthday parties, wedding showers, wakes, memorials, all the “normal” community gatherings crowded into a 6-week to 2 month period, at each show.
We were, and still are, very much a community. We support each other. We hang out together. And we’re there for each other when we each need help.
There’s a Facebook group where crafters can find workers for their booths at different shows, people can find rides from one show to another, or find out who will be at which show.
There’s a different Facebook group to let people know when one of our number has passed on, so we can all mourn and celebrate their memory together.
There are 2 nonprofit organizations for Rennies, created by Rennies.
- RESCU, which is specifically for health-related emergencies and expenses.
- RCEAF, which is for other catastrophic emergencies and assistance.
Regular fundraising events are hosted by the community at each Renaissance Festival to fund both of these organizations, so they have funds available when community members need them.
As a community, we’re just there for each other.
My Personal Experiences as a Community Member
I love being part of this community. And I still consider myself a community member, even though I haven’t been on the road for 20 years.
Many of my dearest friends are still out on the road, doing what they love to do. Whenever the local Renaissance Festival is running here in Southern California, or if I’m traveling and there’s a Festival happening nearby, I go visit.
I always run into someone I know from my time on the road. We spend some time catching up, exchanging stories, and reminiscing about “the good old days.”
To this day, I even run into people who attend Renaissance Festivals for fun, or “playtrons” as we call them, who remember me and still have my albums in their regular listening rotations.
For many years, I appreciated the many local friends (people who lived in an area but also worked at or attended their local Renaissance Festival) who would let me come to their homes and do laundry, share a meal with them, or just hang out and enjoy time together.
Now that I have a home of my own, I get to do that for my friends who still travel. It’s always a pleasure to be “the local” and pay forward the kindness I was given many years ago.
I had many mishaps when I was traveling, usually involving vehicle accidents or breakdowns. Inevitably, it was one of my community members helping me.
Sometimes we were traveling together and we had to figure out what was going on and how to deal with it.
Other times I could call on someone nearby to help. Once a friend drove 2 hours to bring me and my traveling companion back to his family’s home after my truck and trailer rolled. (We were both fine, just very rattled.)
I spent many years making beautiful costumes for my fellow performers. A few of which are still in action, or were recently. I still get the occasional “Are you still sewing” question from friends who are on the road or working other shows.
And I have so many wonderful pieces of art, practical and decorative, all over my house. I bought and bartered for these over my traveling years and every one of them reminds me of the artist and brings back fond memories.
When I perform locally, my Rennie friends who are in the area come to hear me. When they have art shows or performances, I go to those.
I have many friends who I have known for over 30 years and still see and stay in touch with regularly, because we grew up together working at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.
I recently attended a TimeLeft dinner (where 6 random strangers get together for dinner, as assigned by an app, I’ve written about this in past emails) where one of the other participants had also been a Road Rennie for a year.
She and I immediately started comparing experiences, finding friends in common, and talking about how we missed this community. We even said to each other, “Oh, of course. Yes, you’re family.”
Because that’s what this community is like. One giant, ever-moving, loving, kind, sometimes dysfunctional, family.
This Community Reflects How I Run My Business
I think that my time as a traveling performer and Road Rennie has shaped my current business in good ways.
First, I am very much about supporting other businesses as they grow. This comes from so many people supporting me, as a musician, performer and costumer, for many years.
I am always happy to offer advice and support for free, when I can. I also tend to barter with other businesses, when appropriate. I like doing that, because I feel like we both get something we need out of it and it feels a little easier on our respective budgets.
Along with the Email Marketing Ecosystem newsletter, my original blog is full of helpful posts with awesome content upgrades that help small business owners grow their email lists and write to their subscribers.
My clients know they’ll get excellent support, quality strategy, and fantastic copy, written for their business, in their voice, and showing how their product or service is the best option for their audience.
And inevitably, I end up giving more time than I expect to, so the project is done well and works beautifully for them.
My Email Writing Accountability Group members all know they’ll get great copy and editing advice, as well as funnel building and general marketing strategy during our weekly sessions.
Whether you’re on my email list, have been or are currently a client, are an EWAG member or follow me on social media, I consider you part of my community. You’re out there, doing your thing, just like I’m here doing mine. I want to support you in what you do, so you can be successful. That, in turn, helps me be successful in my business. It’s one great big ongoing supportive spiral.
Perhaps most important of all, I recognize that competition isn’t damaging to my business. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s fine. Someone out there is.
I’d rather attract the people who are best suited to me and what I do, so they’re getting the support they need to make their businesses thrive.
This also means I want everyone who isn’t suited to me to find the “right person” for them, so they can thrive. And if I’m not the right person, I’ll try to help someone find the person who is.
Many people did these things for me, and I did the same for them, when I was on the road.
To quote the late, great Senator Paul Wellstone, of my home state of Minnesota, “We all do better when we all do better.”
That’s how I run my business. And my Rennie community is a major part of why I do that.
Giving Thanks for My Community, Which Includes You
You’re reading this issue of the Email Marketing Ecosystem newsletter. That makes you part of my community.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for following along and supporting me on my journey, whether you’ve been with me for years, or you’re just joining us.
I am grateful for you. I am grateful for every single member of this community.
I am grateful that you choose to take time out of your week, every week, to read these newsletters.
I appreciate hearing from you, knowing that what I write gives you inspiration. That my free downloads, products, services, and advice help you grow your business.
And I am grateful for you choosing me as your “right person” and accepting my help, whether you’re a subscriber, an EWAG member, or a client.
I hope you get some time to appreciate your community today, this weekend, and throughout the year.
Our communities make us who and what we are. We support them, they support us, and everyone is better for it.
May we all have and recognize the wonderful, supportive communities who help make us who we are.
BTW, you may remember that I stamped my foot and said I refuse to do any sort of Black Friday offer this year. That’s still true. And you can still download my How to Start Your Own Email List From Scratch guide for free, right here.
Also, thanks so much to my friends El Rose, Terry Foy, Kae Caston, Eric Clark, Aimée Finley, Guido Martin, and many others who took or shared the pictures I used in this post and who have shared pictures of me over the years.
Finally, I took today’s landscape photo at the Santa Clara River estuary outlet, where it broke through to the ocean a week or so ago after the heavy rain here in Southern California. I love seeing the pelicans flying like this. It’s so pretty! Yet another community, supporting each other.
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