[Ansteorra] Level of participation and recognition

[Susan O'Neal]

Philip White wrote:
>Sometimes real lives come first.  And people should not feel embittered or 
>discouraged because they have to accept that their jobs, families, health, 
>or bills can interfere with their hobby.
>
>These people should feel encouraged to play at the level that their lives 
>can support, and not feel pressured or left behind because they are limited.
>
>To receive certain awards, you need to be able to make an impact on the 
>Kingdom.  And it is extremely difficult to do that if you never travel 
>beyond your immediate boundaries, although it is not impossible.


         Praise and recognition are good, but not as good as the
camaraderie of a team.


In Joyful 
Service,
Iain MacCrimmon


Lorainne's likening the society to a community was a good start.  In 
retrospect, the word used in the group's name, Society, gives a much richer 
analogy.  It is a society-of interconnecting communities.  People come in 
for different reasons and stay for others.  There is such a plethlora of 
things available, it can never be adaquatly described in short terms.  It 
often brings up hard feelings, as to simplify too much creates 
misunderstandings.  The joy and magic of the society is that through all of 
these things coming together, it supports the activities of all.

One of the biggest challenges is when people first enter the society, 
helping them find what is available so they can find what they are 
interested in-without overwhelming them in the process.  Over time people, 
hopefully, find the things that they enjoy and their participation in those 
things meet their needs.  This covers a broad range of activities and 
rewards, back again to the breadth of the society creating an environment 
that supports all the various activities.

Level of participation, activity level and rewards are very individual and 
vary from person to person and often throughout a person's involvement in 
the SCA.  Below are some of these that I can think of, it would be a neat 
list to add to (althought impossible to be exhaustive) and hopefully keep 
somewhere-maybe on Stephan's Files.

Local activities, Regional activities, Kingdom activities, Society wide 
activites, Households, Wars, Online interest groups for specific arts and 
interests, etc are all places in which a person can be involved.

Their days may involve multipe SCA activities, doing something daily in the 
shire, going to war yearly, only making it to the local groups event once a 
year, publishing articles and webpages that are used by people all over the 
world, going to dance activities from local guild meetings to Known World 
Dance Symposium, etc are all ways one can be involved.

The payback for time and energy comes in many ways; just being away for the 
weekend with friends, awards, titles, being part of a team, the fun of 
participation, others who do the same thing you do, creating change you see 
a need for, sharing something you enjoy, teaching, learning, being 
immortalized in verse, being King, washing dishes, waiting tables and 
people making wonderful things for you.

Personally I love being involved in a group in which their is such a 
diversity of interests and that people have such a passion for teaching and 
learning.  I love the generosity of spirit and the willingness to work 
together.

Lady Susan the Curious