RECON 03 has come and gone. For those of us working to put it together it was quite an adventure. For the first time in years we were effectively without a web page-and the numerous other services we have come to expect from Bryan Stroup. He seems to have been, we hope temporarily, suppressed by the "Real World." In the hectic countdown tempers became a bit frayed at times over such things as table allocation and fitting in last minute vendors. Much of the pressure eased when Chuck Kennedy took several of us to a Chinese Restaurant Thursday night. Curiously my fortune cookie contained the admonition "You should accept the guidance of others gracefully." Moi? The fortune cookie genie must have been sampling another sort of spirits. I think Rhett has the slip of paper framed somewhere. To catch up we resurrected the REBEL YELL, and made extensive use of telephone and broadcast e-mails. And in the process we attracted more than usual interest from other genre-the sometimes called "Dark Side" of the hobby. The participation of the Lakeland Role Playing gamers, and Russell Grieshop's Board Game Corner proved lively and mutually beneficial. This newsletter includes not only their impressions of RECON, but an article by Robert Freeman about our Tallahassee historical miniature gamers. We are hoping that this will lead to wider involvement in the HMGS SOUTH program as well as assist in recruiting for the local groups. We had a strong turnout as well from our core constituency-historical miniature gamers. Larry and Lori Brom returned, supported by Jay Stribling and Dr. Mark Stevens of Mississippi who presented a series of games based on Larry's classic The Sword and the Flame (TSATF) rules. I was particularly impressed with Dr. Stevens' Sikh Wars. Bill Moreno, perhaps in honor of the recent GODS AND GENERALS movie, presented a rerun of his Fredericksburg which was best of show in 1999. There was a full schedule of games, with unavoidable cancellations being more than offset by late additions. A new tournament based on Phil Barker's De Bellis Antiquitates was conducted by Marty Schmidt alongside the traditional Armati tournament. It did seem that the Napoleonics were proportionately lacking, but this was offset by a rash of tricorn era scenarios. To make a long story somewhat shorter, it worked. We set a record of 413 gross attendance by desk count. This is up almost a hundred from our previous RECON record, and more than that from the best counts at HURRICON. We seem to have broken out of a slump imposed by schedule conflicts and other problems, and resumed growth. Much as we like to be on the move again in terms of numbers of attenders, it is equally important to note that a good time seems to have been had by all. The only serious problem was the lack of hotel rooms, which caused some of us to leave earlier than we would have liked. Looking forward to HURRICON 03, there are a lot of things going on in HMGS SOUTH to improve our overall situation. Chuck Kennedy has put on a major effort, which the BOD supported with additional raffle incentives, to get people to register games and register at the hotel EARLY. Reservations were made for about a third of our room night requirement before we left RECON. Word is going out by e-mail, and Greg Lukomski has agreed to get the web page (a new address) up and running. We expect it to be on line during August if not before. Doug Bohannon has started a Yahoo e-group discussing HMGS SOUTH matters. Unlike the e-groups raging about HMGS EAST, this one seems to be promoting the program. My trip to the north this year will be shorter than in the past. But you may be hearing from me by way of condrayptcc?dmv.com after HISTORICON-assuming that I can overcome some technical bugs arising from computer upgrades. In any case, I will be picking up e-mail correspondence from pcondrayIxtalwind.net regularly if you need to contact me with game registration (see also Chuck and Rhett) or newsletter articles. HMGS SOUTH BOD Rhett Scott, 1416 Forsyth Way, Brandon, FL 33511, (813) 661-0641, rhettscott@aol.com. Chuck Kennedy, P.O. Box 1177, Bowling Green, FL 33834., (863) 245-5286 mots@tnni.net. Bryan Stroup, 681 NE 35' Loop, Ocala, FL 34479, (352) 368-7995, bstroup@garrison-clubs.org Rickey Grice, 3426 Lori Lane S. Lakeland, FL 33801, (941-) 665-1018, daaka1@msn.com Paul Risner, P.O. Box 11, Sarasota, FL 34230, (941) 927-1913, seekrieg@aol.com Ray Phillips, 12108 Longstrap Ln Hudson, FL 34667, ft_sumter_min@yahoo.com Leon Mason, 3425 Spivey Rd., Lakeland, FL 33810-4736. Back to Rebel Yell No. 23 Table of Contents Back to Rebel Yell List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by HMGS South This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com