SCA's NEXT GENERATION

[Tim McDaniel]

On Mon, 16 Jun 1997, ND Wederstrandt <nweders at mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> I agree.  When Thomas joined he felt a little shy about going up to
> strangers and getting invloved.  He joined to other new people and they
> felt more comfortable doing stuff and they had common ground in that they
> were all new.
> Sometimes semi-new people are good since they have a fresh imprint of
> what's hard about being a new person and can act as a bridge.

To go off on a tangent on a possibly pointless anecdote ... I think
I've been here long enough to pull a "In my old group we", usually the
deadliest of phrases (for sometimes provoking "well, if you like it so
much there, why not go back?  We're doing fine here thank-you-very-
much").

In my previous life, I was in a shire in another Kingdom.  It has been
a shire since the early 80s, and there was a group there from the
early 70s, I think.  (The Dark Horde was founded in Ann Arbor.)
However, over the years there had been a *lot* of factional fighting,
secret decisions, and such.  That was a major reason why they'd never
gone barony.

About 1990, for some reason, a pulse of newish people came in all at
the same time.  I'd had a few years elsewhere as a fringe person, and
maybe one or two others had too.  We got together and formed a group
of players doing comedy and song, and also socialized together.  We
were lucky: the group had an interest in fun *and* authenticity *and*
working at having LOTS of fun.  (Yes, fun and authenticity are NOT
mutually exclusive: there are some remarkably off-color period songs!
You DON'T want to know the words to Sellinger's Round ...)

A couple years went by (and I moved away), and some people in the
subgroup became active as officers, autocrats, and such.  It was a
noticable infusion of new blood and new energy.  Again, we were lucky:
there were energetic and competent people in the subgroup.  Also, the
subgroup wasn't tied to any existing facton: "malice towards none",
friendliness towards all.  Not insular either: if you wanted to join
the players, great!  if not, we'll still dance with you, chat with
you, eat with you after populace meeting.

There was also some external help from the kingdom seneschal (on
issues of consensus).

Things are now *much* smoother.  The shire is now having the final
polling on the top three couples to be founding baron/ess.  Two of the
players are one of the couples.  (My liege lady is the baroness
candidate on the two other tickets.  I figure I win no matter what!)

I guess the moral is that with a bit of luck, work, and character, new
people clustering can work well.  This is NOT a counsel to abandon
newbies to clump like abandoned penguin chicks, though!  People formed
ties with individuals in the player's group (e.g., me, a squire, an
apprentice, an adopted son, ...).  The new people have to learn the
SCA social ropes.

-- 
Daniel de Lincoln
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com
tmcd at tmcd.austin.tx.us is wrong tool.  Never use this.