ANST - Newcomers
Peachy Keen Barbara Jean
peachykeen at moose-mail.com
Sat Apr 1 09:12:04 PST 2000
Greetings,
I am sooo new to the SCA that I haven't even been to an event
yet...nor am I signed up anywhere. I have heard of the SCA before
but, I never really became interested in it until I ran into someone
here at work who goes. I must say my first impression of the
newcomers spot (website)is a little on the overwhelming side. There
is a LOT to read!!! But, it would seem that there is much to the SCA
to know. After all, it is a society much different than what most
people live from day to day. So, I must appologize, I became a bit
crafty and decided to join the mailing list in order to learn the
ropes a little better before going to my first event. I have learned
quite a bit by just reading these emails but, I can tell there is
much more for me to learn!!!
I like the idea of the business cards because it is something I
can stick in my wallet and not loose! (Lord knows I loose as much as
I can!) So, take my two cents worth or leave it.
A Newbie!!!!
Barbara
---- Begin Original Message ----
From: "Jennifer Smith" <jds-emma at operamail.com>
Sent: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 11:53:37 -0600
To: ansteorra at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: ANST - Newcomers
Isobel wrote:
> Is our problem that there is too MUCH information on the main
Hospitaler's Web
> page?
Speaking as a relative newcomer (been in the SCA for just a
smidge over a year now), I did read the entire
newcomers/hospitaler's web area when I first started. I didn't find
it
hard to find, but then I pretty much read EVERYTHING on the
website, so...
Too much information? Well... yes and no. See below.
> * Michael De La Mare's Guiding Hand is filled with lots of good
information,
> both about the SCA in general and about Ansteorra. I updated it a
year or so
> ago, but there still are slight problems (doesn't have several of
the newer
> non-armigerous awards on it). The laws are probably also out of
date.
This is pretty good in general, but you're right about it needing to
be updated. My biggest "too much info" area has to do with the
kingdom laws and details about awards!
Your standard newcomer probably needs/wants to know that there
are awards, that convey various ranks (thus explaining the
hierarchy), but the DETAILS of the awards probably can go in a
separate document (referenced by the first), instead of being in the
main newcomer document.
Your standard newcomer may be interested to know that there are
Kingdom (and Society) laws, but good grief, who wants to read that
stuff for fun? When you move to a new town, you aren't met by the
welcoming committee and handed a stack of city laws, are you?
Talk about dry reading. :)
Yes, the kingdom laws should be on the website. I question
whether they should be listed in the hospitaler's area instead of,
say, the seneschal's area. (A link to them could always be made,
of course, wherever.)
> * I've added "Forward into the Past", though it does not yet have
images
> (anybody want to do some scanning???). It's good enough to stand
without them,
> and does have all of the very basic SCA information in it. Who,
what, where,
> why, when, how, etc.
>
> *Most of the articles that are normally passed out by local
hospitalers are
> online in digital format. They are primarily from TI. Again, no
alteration
> allowed.
Again, most of these are fairly good. The problem is that no single
one covers *everything* a newcomer needs to know *well*, and you
have to read all of them to get a good well-rounded picture of just
what exactly is going on. Quite frankly, that's a lot of reading,
and
most of it just repeats what another one said.
I'm not sure of the perfect solution here, unfortunately (of
course).
I guess I would have liked to have seen (enough verbs there?) ONE
document that explained in very basic terms what the SCA is, who
plays in the SCA ('all kinds of people'), that there are kingdoms to
regionalize things, who/what Ansteorra is, and then go into a bit
about how local groups are organized, what an event is like etc.
And then have a fair number of links, well organized. For example,
"to read more about the SCA from different viewpoints:", "to learn
more about organizational details: (awards, nobility, maybe laws)".
I've been meaning to redo (or actually, do) a section of our shire's
website to have a very basic "who the heck are we and what are we
doing" section.
I seem to dimly recall that the main www.sca.org site was largely
useless, but it's been over a year since I looked at it.
> Finally, one thing that we are doing in Bjornsborg is passing out a
small 3-fold
> flyer with basic SCA info, local contact info, links to the web
sites, etc, to
> those who show up at the park where we hold our fighter practices.
We have a
> great local deputy hospitaler who sets up a small table with the
words, "Free
> Information" on a small sign, for those who are more shy. Any
group who wants a
This is a really good idea, I believe, but I'm thinking of actually
shrinking it down to business-card sized (maybe a two fold card if I
need the extra space, but we'll see), on the theory that it's easier
to hold onto a business card than even a 3-fold flyer, particularly
by
people out jogging at a park.
At our last rapier practice, I talked to several people wandered up
to watch, and the questions I got asked were 1) who are they, 2)
what are they doing, and 3) do they go to faires. These are the
questions I intend to answer on a small card or flyer. :)
> copy of this flyer (artwork by Ragnar), can download it from the
hospitaler
> site, in either pdf format (with a space to write in local phone
numbers, etc)
> or as a MS Word document, for editing and personalization. See if
you can find
> it on the hospitaler site. Let me know if it's too deeply buried.
Which reminds me, there's actually TWO sets of information in the
hospitaler area which may need to be more obviously segregated.
There's information FOR newcomers FROM hospitalers, and then
there's information for other hospitalers. Working for two different
audiences is never easy.
I'm not sure how much this helped, if at all! If I actually DO get
around to doing a newcomers/intro section on our shire's site, then
hopefully I'll have more concrete feedback.
-Emma de Fetherstan
Shire of Mooneschadowe
--
Jennifer Smith
jds-emma at operamail.com
======================================================================
======
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list
tasks.
---- End Original Message ----
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and so very Peachy Keen!!!
http://www.care2.com - Homebase for people who care about the Environment!
============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.
More information about the Ansteorra
mailing list