[Ansteorra] Why people leave, getting things started, just getting involved...

[Marc Carlson]

This is going to be sort of rambling - and for that I am sorry...

As much as I think it would be nice to have an easy answer to pin on this,
I'm not sure it's really all that easy.  Curiously, the SCA shares a lot of
these same problems with one of it's prime competators for time - Churches
(btw, a comparison study of behaviors in small group churches and local SCA
groups is really interesting.  A lot of the same dynamics between people are
in play).

I think we can generally agree that, without pointing fingers or making evil
declarations, people appear to be less willing to commit the time and energy
to doing basic maintenance stuff, much less the truly cool new things that
might make the group as a whole (locally or at a larger level) more fun,
festive and interesting.  This leaves the bulk of the work to be done by the
same few people (although even this core group will alter as some people get
burned, get burned out, get tired of being taken for granted that they will
get the job done -- but some few newer people will move in to replace them).

Now, what I am about to say may sound harsh, and if so, I apologize - it
isn't intended to be.  Stark yes, harsh no.  I submit that we have at any
given moment in any given group, is a core group of rarely more than 20
people (no matter how large the actual group is -- if you have more than 20,
you should look for separate but interacting sub-groups).  Around them are
not more than 10-20 others - some of whom are coming in to the core group
while others are on the way out.
Outside of this is a hazy cloud of people who are just there.  They are not
part of the core group, and have no intention of ever being, nada.  They
take advantage of the good parts of the SCA, they generally do their own
thing, but have no interest in being involved with the actual workings of
the group.  Some are lazy, some just want things spoonfed to them, some are
just following the examples set for them by those around them, and those in
the core [some groups, for example, might discourage people finding their
own ways to participate, who knows...)

The people I think we need to be concerned about first are those just
outside the core goup, and then within the core itself.  These people will
set the tone for a group as a whole.  When as individuals they get tired and
start to fade into the background, don't let them disappear, keep in contact
with them, pet them, nurture them, listen to them bitch, and hopefully you
can bring them back to center again.

Someone asked why do people leave -- people leave because they aren't having
a good time, whatever it was they were getting out of the organization is
gone, has faded.  All too often they leave because they have been hurt, feel
betrayed, feel used or taken for granted.  Linked to that is often a sense
of defensiveness on the part of the people who stayed behind, which can soon
build a wall between those who once loved the group so well that they could
be hurt by it, and those who have not YET been hurt and driven away.

I once suggested that a group I was in might want to actively encourage the
people who had been driven off in the past, but were in fact, basically good
people.  I was informed by the person in charge that this was a stupid idea
and "they couldn't hack it, and they left. Screw them".  Said person in
charge has long since "gotten away from it all"...

If we actually made retention a goal as much as we seem to make recruitment,
it's possible that we might have less burnout in general, and might be able
to teach new people a higher level of commitment to their group and their
community.

Marc/Diarmaid
[Been burned, burned out, driven off, betrayed -- all that stuff.  Wasn't a
pretty picture then - but was a dandy learning experience]

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