[Ansteorra] Regions and thier population base

[Jay Rudin]

Alix wrote:


> Well I have been watching the descusions on the size of the area
> formerly known as the Western Region, all the comments have been
> on the acutal land of the area combaried to the other Regions, so I
> thought I would look at the population bases of the Regions and
> the number of SCA memberships in each Region.

That may be a fun game, but it won't change the actual rules.  Branch 
requirements are not based on a per-capita basis.  Only the SCA people 
count.  The hundreds of thousands of people who aren't in the SCA have no 
effect on branch status, for obvious reasons.

> For the population base I used the numbers on a web site called
> city-data.com.the SCA member # are from the Ansteorran web site
> the # from Aug 07.
> Here is what I found.
> Central has 452 SCA members and a population base of 4,159,371 this is a 
> per capita of 11 members per 100k
> Coastal has 430 SCA members and a population base of  2,699,390 this is a 
> per capita of  16 members per 100k
> Northern has 466 SCA members and a population base of  1,440,981 this is 
> a per capita of 32  members per 100k
> Southern has 409 SCA members and a population base of  2,429,883 this is 
> a per capita of 17  members per 100k
> Western has 106 SCA members and a population base of  835,511 this is a 
> per capita of 13 members per 100k
> Now some of you are going to say that Western does not have viable # 's 
> well acording to Capora a Knigdom need 400 members a principality needs 
> 100 a Barony 25, shires and cantons need 5.
> Now just because I thought it would be intersesting I took the numbers 
> one step further, and took the membership #'s and pop base #'s for 
> Crossroadkeep and took that per capita to see what other groups should 
> have as memberships if they had the same per capita memberships ,here are 
> just a few,
> Elfsea 358 they have 141
> Stepps 893 they have 117
> Staregate 708 they have 115
> Northkeep 138 they have 115
> Bjornsborg 428 they have 105
>>From the numbers is appears that the Western Region is being held to a 
>>higher standard of memberships.

Not at all.  You can't change the requirements and then draw any 
conclusions from that.

You have documented that the Western region has roughly 1/4 as many members 
as any other region, and fewer people than several baronies.  Look at the 
actual count, not the "per-capita" figures.  You have also documented that 
the other region in a similar situation, the North, has more than met the 
challenge, maintaining more than twice as many members per capita than the 
rest of us.  With no major metropolitan areas, they nonetheless maintain 
four baronies and a province.  Nobody else is even close.  Vivat 
Nordsteorra!

If you wish to maintain that the requirements are harder to meet in less 
populous areas, well, of course -- nobody ever suggested otherwise.  Yes, 
it's harder to maintain numbers in a smaller population.  Bordermarch has 
struggled with this problem for decades.  But that doesn't mean they are 
held to a "higher standard"; it means the standard won't be lowered. 
There's no branch in Quinlan, Texas for exactly this reason.  Elfsea was a 
shire for years while Steppes was a barony because it takes longer to build 
in a smaller population pool.  Now they've passed us in membership.  They 
didn't need lowered standards; they met the challenge and surpassed their 
elder sister.

The minimum remains 5 sustaining members for a shire and 25 sustaining 
members for a barony, and the standard remains sufficient qualified officer 
pools and meeting the reporting requirements.

Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin