Just going by what we have going on in our area on paper we've been holding study for the past 10 years or so. Certainly down from the heyday and down from the 150th cycle but still holding on. The problem I have as a company captain is getting everyone to show up on the same day. Seems like everyone's budget is tight and seems like everyone is busy all the time, life seems alot busier to me these days for whatever reasons. We've been study with about 25 guys, and a couple gals, who pay their dues and insurance every year but of them if I get 8 or 9 to show on a given weekend we're doing good. Our local battalion currently has 5 active infantry companies, a cavalry company, 2 artillery batteries, and battalion staff. Altogether at events we're pretty much company size, maybe 2 small infantry companies if we have a decent turnout. One thing we do though is for the most part is work together well. Every officer brings a rifle and private's jacket and only field what officers are needed, so it's not horribly too top heavy on the field. We are an ANV battalion so we go to Cedar Creek every year to keep in good standing and the numbers seem to have been pretty study in recent years from what I can tell anyway, but about every ANV "battalion" is really company size. I forget how many active battalions are currently active in the ANV, maybe 8 infantry battalions but don't hold me to that. That's not including cavalry and artillery, not even going to guess at that. Myself and some of the guys in my company also do a few campaigner events every year. Those seem to be doing well. I know 5 or 6 guys in my area that will only do those type of events, I've been trying to get them to come out to some of our local events and they won't have anything to do with it. Our company are campaigners but the local events are certainly mostly mainstream. One thing that hurts a bit is there's a lot more reenacting options these days. When I stared it was Civil War and Rev War, that was about it. Now the WWI and WWII events are popular, I've lost a few young guys to WWII. There's even some guys starting Vietnam War. Covid didn't help either. With everything cancelled for 2 years it's been hard to get many of those events back, we have alot fewer events to choose from. It really hit the Florida scene hard. I reenacted down there for a long time. From late October to early April pre Covid there was something going on almost every weekend. I think there was only 4 or 5 events down there the past couple seasons. My old company down there fell apart, the captain passed away unexpectedly and nobody wanted to take the reigns. Anyway that my observations in recent years for whatever it's worth.
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