[Ansteorra] Fee Increase and other Business...

[Doug Copley]

hmmmm, there has actually been THREE different discussions going on here 
at the same time in the same thread.

ONE - What does the NMS $5 pay for and exactly who has to pay it and who 
does not?

TWO - can the hosting group of an event waive fees, waive charges, buy 
memberships, or give free admission. And, in the process of these 
actions what happens to the $5 NMS charge?

THREE - The SCA NEEDS more active participants and more members. The SCA 
gauges baronies, kingdoms, etc based on number of paid memberships. So 
how do we as individuals, groups, and kingdom explain to potential 
members what the charge is, who has to pay it and what the benefits are 
to becoming a member. And NO, we cannot sit and tell them all of the 
above, unless our goal is to drive them away and make sure we get as few 
new members as possible because we have made it so complex and devoid of 
FUN as we could. I don't believe that anyone on here is advocating that 
we lie to them or intentionally deceive them. The SCA is a large complex 
group with lots of traditions, history, and some rules and it is not 
possible to teach someone all of this in 15 minutes before you lose 
their attention and they go to look at something else FUN to do. We have 
demos and stuff and the fighting normally brings in more people than 
anything else but it is not what keeps everyone here, it is the entire 
atmosphere. So this part of the thread was concerned with what are 
things that we can do to help the group / kingdom / SCA grow and prosper?

I would suggest that the subject line be changed to focus on the area 
that is actually being discussed so as to avoid confusion, reduce 
interpretation errors, and keep things a little easier to follow.

Just my 3 cents (sorry, I spent one of the pennies getting pre-reg for GW)

Vincenti