[Ansteorra] Which brings us to...

Wed Apr 24 13:42:46 PDT 2002

* ... Recruiting and retention of new members.
* ...
* ... As a result, the Society is falling into a spiral of decay.
New blood is harder to come by, and many of the folks who've kept the
wheels turning for so long are long past worn-out.  Our best hope is
in bringing in new folks, but (to my eyes) it's slow going.

...
problem being is that todays world is different from the world of the
past that the older generation came from ... those still in remember
and see through the eye's that see it as simple to replace the
numbers.  reality is that the core concepts that made the SCA
attractive to us (speaking as "old blood") are not necessarily
relevent to the younger generation ....

you spoke of a generation coming in, playing, getting "trained"
(???), - then moving on to better jobs, families, and leaving.  that
younger generation everyone targets as "the replacements" no longer
has the luxury we did of "blowing off a few years" and are more
likely to skip the "play after graduation" phase and go directly into
the quest for well paying jobs, home ownership, families.  in todays
economy, you pretty much have to do so to survive (counts my
blessings that i grew up in a less demanding time).

perhaps the "society for creative anachronism" has become just that.
organizations, like people age.  based on the reality of the times,
instead of seeking to replace the numbers lost as the participants
age and always seeking to push the growth curve upwards, i would
suggest a better tactic would be to accept that times change and the
society is on the other side of the natural bell curve, and start
looking at the future in the practical terms of "making do" and
scaling back.

rules from history for a historical society .... "golden ages" and
empires are never forever, they grow, they peak, they decline.

'wolf
... In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of
principle, stand like a rock. (thomas jefferson)

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