[Ansteorra] Participation vs. Recruitment

Bree Flowers evethejust at gmail.com
Tue Jan 24 11:11:09 PST 2012


> In short, and not meaning to be cruel, our time and resources should be
> invested in developing players who can and will go to events. That will be
> more productive in the long run than trying to make the SCA available
> locally for those who can not or will not go to events. For instance I have
> only a limited amount of time to train fighters for war, should i spend it
> working with people who can and will go to Gulf War or should i spend it
> with people who can not or will not go to Gulf War?  The answer is obvious,
> if a little cold hearted.
>
> Cionaodh O'Hosey

To my eyes, the answer you have decided upon is neither obvious nor
correct. I think the one thing everyone is forgetting in this
discussion is that you are trying to categorize people by behavior...
behaviors which can change over the years. And while Ritter Dieterich
has identified the change that comes from ones growth and development
in the club I don't think anyone is acknowledging the ebb and flow
that I have seen over and over from players in the 4 different
kingdoms where I have lived. While this year's local player may be
next year's kingdom player and next decade's ruler, similarly, this
year's kingdom player may have to scale back their participation for
one reason or another and become a local player for a time. Maybe they
will return to kingdom player activity levels and maybe they won't.
Are you saying we should jettison long time members who for whatever
reason can no longer play on a Kingdom level? If your decision of who
is worthy of your time is solely based on their anticipated activity
level in the immediate future, then anyone who is not meeting the
minimum requirement you have set should be treated the same, whether
they are a newcomer in college or a Duke who has lost his job. If you
want to be "obvious and cold hearted" about it.

And with respect to your specific example... I'm not sure what kind of
war you're fighting where the training will benefit from limiting your
numbers to the chosen few who can attend whatever event you consider
to be the brass ring. Seems to me that when you're learning to fight
in units and work in formation that the more bodies you have, the more
realistic and thus more useful your training will be.

~Eve



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