[Ansteorra] How we treat Newbies

[willowdewisp at juno.com]

M''Lady Isabeau DeSchamps was very brave to speak out. 
I know the problem and I will tell you that is also true of new people to an area. I have evaluated the problem and what I see is a sort of tunnel vision. As a group reached Status Que the members find their niches and have the people they need to complete their social unit. Unless they lose someone they do not need new people so they sort of stop seeing them and they subconsciously blocked them out. They are not being mean and they don't notice that they close up conversation circles and don't let new people in. 
This is a natural response to being a community, but it is dangerous to club or a church or any group that needs new people to maintain. The founders of the kingdom laws put some concepts into the system that we thought covered the action that needed to be covered to keep from having this problem.
 The Baron and Baroness were charged with hospitality. A "good" host make sure their "guest" are introduces to people and are taken around until a person or persons were found to take charge of them and show them the ropes. The B&B and the rest of the offices were seen as a linking mechanism that was supposed to be picking up people and putting them in contact with others until just time as that person made their own links and didn' t need the help.
If you were a "good" host you would take your new guest to a group of people, shoulder a way in and since you were host this was OK, bring the person into the conversation,  You should stay a while a make sure the new person is being included and then excuse yourself. You would check back latter to make sure the person was interacting with someone. If they were not you would engage the person and try to find another group for them to interact with. 
In the first 25 years the Crown , which made sure we had people who could do this and stressed the importance of this. the B&Bs, the officers and the peers and nobles all had the job to act as "host". Not only were these people supposed to look out for people who seems lost but they are supposed to help arrange learning and social situations. They would take an overview of the situation and see where the sub groups in a chapter were on the declined and place the resources of the chapter in place to help that sub group. This was done without the people really noticing anything but the fact that thing just seem to happen. Types of Events, awards and classes and public recognition where some of the things used to support and promote a happy populace. 
Little Events that were able to bring together the populace and create a unity were a valuable tool. An Event that sparked excitment was a great way to get people to realign and a wonderful way to put people into situation that was new to all. That way the person wasn't a "newbie" but just someone that is new to you.  In older, more etstahish events people have "their Jobs" and they do not want new people with their new ways. In one time events there are no set patterns so their are no new or old ideas. People who have a skill and an idea that is new and different are welcomed. 
The supposed leaders in our groups , officers , nobles and peers. would be there to keep an time open eye for the people on the out skirts and try to bring them in to interact and work on projects that suited them. The social leaders who where doing this where also noted by the Official leaders and pains where taken to train them and include them and more often they in turn took up the mantle of "official" leader when the old leaders got tired. 
One of basic mistakes people in the U.S. make is to assume that there is only one kind of leader and one kind of follower. This is not the case. A well rounded successful organization has many kinds of "leaders" and many kinds of "followers".  This is a really big subject so I won't go into it now, but to say if our leadership is limited to officers and the B&B many things are not seen or maintained. The creation of Red Tape to advise the Crown and the cessiation of including the peers and other nobles into the system as advisers to the Crown and active partners in the local groups cause us lose many valuable leadership styles. In the "old' days the B&B actively involved the peers and other nobles into helping out the people in the group. 
This involvment resulted in long time maintenance of people. The problem of  being alone often happens again when you are elevated above your group or you out lived your cohort. You are alone. A Good B&B will try to give engage these people activities that help them create new linkages as leaders in their new roles. For example suggesting to a new Laurel to do workshopes or start a guild and funneling people toward them.  If you accept there are many leaders in a group then all you need to accommodate a new leader is have a new activity. If you can have as many event as you need them this means you can group as large as you need. 
By the way this doesn't need to be approved  by anyone. A B&B can do this on their own just by taking to the peers and trying to find what they would like to do and helping them get started. If the B&B or an Officer makes the new peer feel part of the team that is trying to make the SCA better for the people than they are more likey to stay and not fade away. 
Many people do not want to be political and they feel forcing themselves into a group or forcing their idea would be politecal. We the Leadership need to do the politics. We need to talk to people and see what they want and need to feel creative and compete and run interferance and help them get it started. Since this has been stopped as an policy our people who on the most part have no idea on how to force sometime into being have drifted away. 
If we don't start the machine again then we will drift more and more relieing on "tradition" until we don't have enough people to do the things and we will keep "burning out" and triming down until we die or people will join the SCA who are not reclutain to do "polititics" and they will come out swinging to break the entropy and because we have swung so far away politics we will have horrid politics and most of the oldtimers will flee in horror and mismay. 
We still have time to fix the problem if we work together. I call upon all the people who care to start thinking about ways we can work together and make Ansteorra a place with lots of people doing lots of things. I also call upon all the people who do not want to help to stand out of our way. It actions taken should not change you spots in the organization and might add to your enjoyment. 

 
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