ANST - pay to play .... was: Kingdom membership

[j'lynn yeates]

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ansteorra at ansteorra.org
> [mailto:owner-ansteorra at ansteorra.org]On Behalf Of Keith Hood
>
> >A couple of weeks ago, I asked for ideas about how to 
> increase Kingdom membership.
> 
> Do you mean total number of people playing, or do you mean 
> membership as in paid for and got an official membership card?
> 
> If the latter, why?  If it's important in some way, please 
> explain.  I honestly don't see the point.

ahh, the great "pay to play" debate appears yet again ... always a
healthy discussion topic

one recurrent point commen on this thread from the archives i have
collected from my BBS during it's long run, my rialto archives, the
current elist archives, etc .... (" filed away in the
..\catagory\scadian\issue\political\pay_play" storage hierarchy):

when you you start mandating membership (pay-to-play) and/or creating
tiered systems where you further stratify the SCA and create yet more
ways to make one established class feel "superior" to another
"lesser" one (the entry level folk tend to be the primary ones
targeted here as "scadian scofflaws"), you are shooting yourself in
the proverbial foot ... all you will accomplish is alienate and drive
away yet more people and create more barriers for gathering in the
new blood that is required for the organization to remain healthy.  

as an exercise, at your next event note who is setting up things,
helping run events, working in the kitchens, serving the food .. now
do a poll of who has their "card". do you really want to alienate so
many and perhaps drive them away ????

the pay-play scenario is a yet another feel-good, easy fix,
politically inspired solution to a much bigger and more difficult
problem ...  

> As a general thing, I believe it would be a bad idea and 
> counterproductive in the long run to use punitive measures to
> increase  membership.  Ideas meant to give people incentive are OK.
>  But measures that  force people to buy memberships are bound to
> cause resentment which could  lead to real interpersonal
> difficulties later.

i big amen brother!.  in a field of choices, when people are mandated
to, they usually pick up camp and move away from the source.  most
people i know don't deal well with such in-face force-to-comply
tactics.

the real health of the SCA is not tied to the number of paid
memberships ... never has been.  the day that it stoops to using the
tactics coercion and extortion (as laid out in previous posts) to
support it's existance at any level is the day to start planning the
wake

'wolf

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