[Ansteorra] Participation vs. Recruitment (long)

[Franchesca Bush]

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 1:42 PM, Cionaodh O'Hosey <
CionaodhOHosey at verizon.net> wrote:

>
> But our "paintings" are the rest of us, and if our paintings don't show up
> we all lose. It does me no good in recruiting to say "I know a guy who is
> great at historical "something" in our group in Austin may be one day he
> will come to a calendar event or you could drive to see him", but to be
> able to say "there will be a guy at our next event who is great at that"
> does wonders .........
> If you only come to local events then you can only share with those who
> are also local and will only attract those with the same interests as the
> local group, this is why some groups are good at one thing and other groups
> are good at something else, local groups only attract what is happening
> locally. It is only when we ALL get together at calendar events that we can
> offer ALL the SCA has to offer, my local group my not have a fighter
> practice but at fighting events i can always get to fight.
> Cionaodh O'Hosey
>
>
So again I'll begin by saying that I am new to the SCA.  Heck, I'm new to
Texas.  My husband's high school friend who happened to also live here
needed a place to stay when we moved out here.  So we let her stay with
us.  She dragged us to one of the weekly Populace in the Park (Bryn Gwlad)
one day.  It happened to be a mini-event so everyone was dressed up and
having a great time.   He was hooked and I figured I would give it a shot.

Jump forward to now.  There are a lot of things I want to try.  My husband
is working very hard to be a good fighter.  Because one practice a week
seemed not to be enough for some of the new fighters, we started practicing
at our house.  Before crowning, we even were blessed with HRM presence for
some guidance.  Lately, I have been recruiting Knights and Centurions to
our house to train these guys.  Yes, they are mostly local.  But I've had
people drive an hour to come teach and participate.  But honestly, I
struggle to know who to invite because I don't always know who is a good
teacher in these areas.  I'm always taking down names though.  :)

On the other end, I will likely start running a local guild.  I am no
expert in this field but I want to learn things and I want to share what I
do know.  Our plan is to meet regularly and find people locally and
potentially not so locally to help teach skills we don't have.  And if I
have to, I will arrange to learn from someone at an event to bring it back
to our meetings.

I figure I will be annoying a little bit.  Either people will help me or I
will be ignored.  But it is so much more helpful when other people who know
more help hook me up with those other guys who is great at that.  I think
THAT is more the key.  I would rather someone help me use the network that
the SCA is rather than knowing there is someone who does it.  I am shy
enough that if I don't know you, or don't see what you can do, I won't seek
you out.  I am very glad when someone says this is the person YOU need to
meet.  Let me introduce you.

Francisca Sastre de Arellano