[Ansteorra] Why I Came Back--REALLY LONG!

[HerrDetlef]

Please forgive the ungodly bandwidth, but I have been mulling over the
questions of decreasing membership and decreasing activity, and my musings
on the subject have gotten rather lengthy. I posted this as a note to my
Facebook profile, but I wanted to post it here as well, just in case a word
or two might inspire someone to do great things. I will ask that, if you
respond to this message, PLEASE take my original post off of your response!
I don't want to kill anybody's inbox with unwieldy posts, and we must
remember to be kind to digest subscribers.

Yours in these Current Middle Ages,
Detlef von Marburg, CSM

Over the last few weeks, I have been reading many posts in my e-mail inbox
about retention. Specifically, people have been struggling with the
questions “Why do people leave the SCA?” and “How can we keep people in the
SCA?” Ansteorra—and the Society as a whole—have been experiencing a trend
of decreasing paid memberships and decreasing activity. I have seen
hand-wringing, some name-calling, and some finger-pointing. I have also
seen stories that are at times heartbreaking, at others inspirational. This
ongoing discussion has gotten me to thinking about my own history with the
SCA—why I left, why I came back, and why I’ve stayed. Wondering if any of
my own experience will enlighten myself or others about the state of the
union regarding membership and activity within the SCA, I’ve decided to do
some exploring of my own. In truth, I don’t think there is any one simple
answer to either question. Our Society has grown and developed over more
than forty years, and there are no easy answers when we ask questions about
any group that has developed the way ours has.


I began playing SCA in 1987. I had a relatively sheltered childhood—more my
own decision than my parents’. I didn’t spend time with high school
friends, and I didn’t know anybody outside of my own school. I got up in
the morning, went to band practice, went to classes, an occasional German
club meeting, and I went home. Once the door was shut, I would listen to
records and read. I knew certain things about myself that I had trouble
accepting, and I was so afraid that nobody else would accept me that I
didn’t say anything about my troubles. I was an introvert—a recluse. I
imagined that, when I graduated, I would join a monastery and spend my days
in seclusion.


During my senior year in high school, I auditioned for music scholarships
and was offered two—one at Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, TX,
and the other at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX. Outside of
my parents and my brother, I had no reason to stay in San Antonio, and I
suspected some distance between me and home would leave me free to be
myself—whoever that was. When I started school in Huntsville, however, I
was so terrified of being alone in a place where I didn’t know anybody
that, only two weeks into the first semester, I packed everything I had
with me into my car and drove towards San Antonio, with the intention of
never returning to Huntsville or SHSU. My mother and my grandmother
convinced me to give school another try, and they promised that I had no
reason to feel as alone as I was feeling. I managed to survive the first
semester with three A’s and one B, having dropped out of my music classes
and turning down my scholarship.


I first came in contact with the SCA in the spring semester of my freshman
year. My roommate in college was a member, and I was overjoyed to find a
group of people who were into the same things I had fantasized about for
years (I even joined a Lutheran church in my senior year in high school
because their style of services seemed much more medieval than what I was
used in the Baptist church where I had been baptized). Through my
roommate’s friends, I learned about the Shire of Raven’s Fort and the
Kingdom of Ansteorra, and I went to my first SCA event three months after
having first encountered the group. My second event took place later that
year in July, and my third event was the Crown Tournament that was hosted
in Raven’s Fort in 1987. In 1988, I went to five events, and only two of
those were in Raven’s Fort. I also took my first office in1988—Chronicler
for the Shire of Raven’s Fort. Those experiences brought me into contact
with SCA’ers from outside my home shire, and by then I no longer felt like
a newcomer. In 1990, I made a point to attend at least one event every
month, and I co-stewarded my first event that year, as well. I was awarded
the right and dignity of arms in March 1990, and I was awarded the Sable
Crane of Ansteorra in September 1991. From 1990 to 1992, I was court herald
to Baron and Baroness Raven’s Fort, and ceremony and protocol were my
primary interests in the SCA at that time.


When I graduated from Sam Houston State University in 1992, I began
applying for graduate programs in German in a number of places across the
country. I had trouble making the verbal score I needed on the GRE to
qualify for many of these programs, but I was able to surpass that
requirement by 100 points on my third attempt. That time, I spent the night
before the test with SCA friends in Huntsville. I was accepted into a
number of programs, but my stay-close-to-home nature led me to accept the
offer I received from the University of Texas in Austin. I enrolled in
August 1993, and I was surprised to be offered a teaching assistantship one
week before the semester’s beginning! Everything was looking up: I was
going to continue my studies of German, I was on track to get a master’s
degree and a doctorate, and I was going to move to Austin. After six years
of living in Huntsville with its conservative politics, conservative
nightlife, and conservative religious climate, I was excited to be moving
to a much larger city where I could immerse myself in political action,
alternative music, and new age spirituality. I was also going to have
access to the Perry-Castañeda Library, home to what is probably the most
impressive collection of texts on medieval studies in the state of Texas.


Much to my surprise, strangest thing happened. Within a year or so of
moving to Austin, I learned how to country-western dance, and I began
attending an Episcopal church. I engaged in political action at first, but
my studies limited my ability to participate in that—and the SCA—in ways
that I found distressing. When I had time, I continued to read books on
medieval studies, but I was only able to go to one SCA meeting the whole
time I attended UT. I learned more about heraldry, kingship, Germanic
migrations, and medieval art than I’d ever imagined—I’d even found a
programme for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation from 1953!—but I had no
outlet to put that information to use anymore. At the same time, I was
being drawn deeper into the Episcopal Church and reading more about
religion and spirituality than I’d anticipated. Outside reading, church
activities, and my studies squeezed out any opportunity to participate in
the SCA, and my involvement almost ceased. I still went to two events a
year—Quest for the Clover and Defender of the Fort in Raven’s Fort—but I
didn’t participate in those events. I just went to visit with old friends.
As time went by, those friends became peers and nobility, and I felt more
and more alienated from the SCA I’d remembered as an undergraduate. The
energy I’d earlier devoted to the SCA I now devoted to my church
activities, ultimately becoming involved with an independent catholic
(little “c”) community and being ordained to the priesthood. I was still
friends with the people I’d known in the SCA, but I had all but ceased to
be active.


After I left UT in 1994—before I finished the master’s program—I had a few
opportunities to attend some SCA meetings in the Barony of Bryn Gwlad. The
times I went, I felt out of place because I didn’t know anybody there, and
I was still too unsure of myself to walk up to strangers and introduce
myself. So, while time prevented me from playing SCA while I was still at
UT, my own introversion prevented me from playing after I’d left the
university. At the time, I blamed it on cliquish insularity and not on my
own shyness. So, I turned my attention to religion. I was confirmed in the
Episcopal Church in 1995, joined the choir at St. Philip’s in Palestine and
later at St. James’ in Austin, and I began the process that eventually led
to my ordination in 1997. At the same time, I was taking classes at SWTSU
in San Marcos for a secondary education teaching certificate, and I
finished that program in 1997. By that time, I was working full-time in the
maintenance office at the Austin State Hospital, and so I was in no hurry
to find myself a teaching position. By the time I decided to apply for
positions, I applied in the Houston area as well as the Austin area—knowing
that Austin was very popular with former students, and jobs were not easy
to find in my profession of choice. In addition to certifying to teach
German, I also certified to teach English, and I did exactly that for three
years—two years teaching seventh grade reading and language arts for Waller
ISD, and one year teaching sophomore English for Spring ISD. While in
Houston, I attended Trinity Church—where the former rector of St. James’ in
Austin was now rector—and I attended a couple events in the Barony of the
Stargate, but I had no desire to get involved in the SCA again beyond
hanging out at a handful of events a year.


In 2002, my interest in medieval studies found another outlet. Thanks to an
accident which totaled a vehicle I couldn’t afford, I was able to save
enough money to go back to school. My reasoning was that, if I was going to
teach English, I might as well get a degree in English—and if I’m going to
get a degree, I might as well try again for a master’s degree. Out of all
the different specializations the graduate program at SHSU offered, I was
most drawn to Early and Middle English literature. I took the medieval
literature course twice under two different professors, and I wrote my
thesis on an Old English translation of the Life of Saint Agnes. My thesis
director encouraged me to continue studying medieval literature after I
graduated, and I eventually presented two papers to the International
Congress of Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI. My undergraduate hobby had
inadvertently set me on course to become a professional medievalist. I
taught a course in Civilization of the Western World at SHSU in 2006, and I
was finally able to teach the Nibelungenlied in my classroom.


Later that year, not three months after my first conference in Kalamazoo, I
was in a serious car accident. A drunk driver rear-ended and then t-boned
me on the northbound feeder road on Interstate 45 in The Woodlands, TX. I
was knocked unconscious on impact, and so I have no knowledge and no memory
of the accident or of anything else that happened that day. Paramedics
life-flighted me to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, where I spent two
weeks undergoing treatment for a broken right arm and a traumatic brain
injury. My parents were with me the entire time I was at Memorial Hermann
and later at TIRR. Several people came to visit me while I was in the
hospital—my brother and sister-in-law, my mother’s younger brother and his
wife, some friends of mine from Temple, and my friend from college who had
gotten me involved in the SCA so many years before. He told me that several
people from Raven’s Fort had sent messages to me through the hospital’s
website, and I was really touched to read all of their well wishes. People
I no longer felt close to and maybe saw once or twice a year were sending
me wishes for recovery as if we were still the best of friends. I was
overwhelmed at how strong the bond had remained, no matter how far afield I
traveled and how rarely I attended any events.


When I was released from TIRR, I was still unable to live by myself, so I
lived with my parents while I continued my rehabilitation as an outpatient
at Palestine Regional Medical Center. Soon after setting up all the details
of my treatment, my mother drove me to Huntsville for an SCA event. Whereas
everywhere I went in Oakwood and Palestine I heard “I’ve been praying for
you!” until I wanted to scream, people at the SCA event asked me how I was
doing and if there was anything they could do to help me. Their concern
seemed genuine to me. A few people offered unhelpful advice, but I got that
everywhere I turned. Mom and I were very well taken care of at that event,
and people were glad to see me there. It felt real. I got a lot of support
from other places as well—places where I’d worked, the university where I
had gotten both my degrees, my friends in Temple and Austin—but these were
people I was still seeing on a daily basis and spending most of my time
with. The support I got from friends in the SCA eventually encouraged me to
reconsider my existing level of involvement. While I recovered from my
accident, I couldn’t very well start participating again on the level I had
in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, but I caught myself thinking about it
more than I had in recent years.


My September 2006 experience got me back in touch with friends I’d known
for years, and that connection deepened over time as I maintained contact
through instant messaging services and networking sites. In 2007, I moved
to Temple, TX, where the traffic was much easier to navigate than it was in
Houston (I still had double vision and some anxieties about driving in the
very traffic that almost killed me). Before I got back in to teaching five
classes a semester, I had time on my hands and not much to do with it, so I
spent much of it online chatting with old friends. During that time, an
Ansteorran duke fought Crown Tourney and won with a countess as consort who
had been the first Queen I actually met. I missed their coronation, but I
went to at least four events during that reign—as opposed to the two a year
I had been attending since 1993! I went to say hi to Her Majesty at every
event I attended that reign, and through her I met several peers and
nobles. By this time, many of my friends from the old days were now peers
and nobility, as well. Having been inactive for so long, I felt like a
newcomer again, and I imagined it strange to see someone who hadn’t been
playing just walking up to the peers and nobles of the realm as if we were
close personal friends. But those peers and nobles got me involved again,
and they introduced me to other peers and nobles who I hadn’t known before.


As a newcomer in the late 1980’s, I was terrified of peers. The first peer
in my local group wasn’t created until I had been playing for a few years,
and I was unused to introducing myself to prominent SCA’ers. I may not have
been encouraged to interact with peers when I first started playing, but I
think that was more my problem than theirs. I didn’t realize at the time
that we were all playing the same game, and that the different levels of
achievement were not barriers to interaction. Not that I’m not impressed
with what the peers of the realm have achieved, but I’m more comfortable in
their company now, and I realize that I, too, have a part to play in this
game. I still have a lot of work to do, but now I know at least that the
gate is open, and all I have to do is have the courage to walk through it.
We are all aristocrats in the Society—unless we deliberately choose to
develop a non-aristocratic persona—and we are all descended from Diana
Listmaker, Siegfried von Höflichskeit, Fulk de Wyvern, and all the legends
of the mists (Mists?) from which our game emerged. I love playing SCA again
because I feel very much a part of that history. I feel included in ways I
didn’t before. I feel appreciated, valued. Knowing that people know my
name—hearing my name called from across a tourney field by a duke or the
Queen—makes me feel like I belong. This is my family. I have a place here.
I am home.


My experience has shown me that people continue in the SCA because we feel
like a part of the group. We feel like we have a reason to be here. This
phenomenon occurs in every social situation. People don’t seek out social
situations so that they can sit off by themselves and content themselves
with being ignored. We need something to do; we need to take part.
Newcomers should not be written off as noobs but should be treasured as the
future of our Society. We may get a little impatient when someone walks on
site in jeans and a t-shirt, but the answer is not to act as if that person
does not exist so that we can continue to play our game. Whoever that is
could one day be our king. Or we may never see him again, if he comes in
and feels like a ghost that nobody sees. We really need to treat our
newcomers like royalty. Show them the best that the SCA has to offer, and
show them ways that they can take part in it. Teach simple dances (not the
complicated maneuvers that experienced dancers can perform), pass around
song books, have games for visitors to learn, give guided tours of the
event and give them an opportunity to ask questions about what they see
(and be prepared to answer those questions, or at least find someone who
can). I’m not saying that we need to be overbearing and make our newcomers
uncomfortable, but we need to show them that they are a very valuable part
of the culture we’ve created.


We also need to admit that we—all people—like shiny things. Everybody loves
color—not just in what we see, but also in what we hear. Renaissance
festivals are as popular as they are because they give visitors something
to see, something to hear, and something to do. I know the temptation is
great to let a fighting event be just about the fighting, but in period—in
contemporary chronicles and poetry—there’s much more to being a knight than
just swinging a sword. The knight-poets of late 12th century Germany
inspired much of my early interest in medieval culture. The characters in
their poems also demonstrate a creativity and flair that goes far beyond
the clashing of swords. Knights put on a show for the spectators at
tournaments, they fall in love with the ladies who inspire them to do great
deeds, and they celebrate that love in works of beauty. We in the SCA are
encouraged to register a coat of arms long before we are awarded the right
and dignity of arms for the first time. The reason that the College of
Heralds encourages us to do that is that registered arms can become
banners, and banners add color and movement to a tournament field or a
feast hall. Chivalry is not only found in beating the snot out of people
with swords or sticks, but also in putting on a great show while you’re
beating the snot out of them. It’s found in heraldic display, in song and
poetry, in appreciation of the love and beauty that inspires us to great
things. The pageantry is one of many reasons that I love attending Crown
tournaments—how the entrants interact with their consorts and their
opponents during the day, the persona play, the poetry, the bright colors
in their costuming and armor. I would not have had the courage to sing the
song I did at the last Crown tournament if it had not been for all the
pageantry on display (the encouragement from a few well-placed peers and
nobles didn’t hurt, either).


None of this, however, accounts for my drop in activity after I graduated
from college the first time. The primary reason I quit playing to the
extent I had been in previous was that mundane life was encroaching on the
time and resources I had to pursue the hobby. The demands of mundane life
are something we really cannot control. People get married, have children,
get jobs, change jobs, lose jobs. Life, as we say, has a way of happening.
But something else happened, too. I have as little time to play now as I
did when I was in graduate school in Austin. But I make the time. Why was I
so unmotivated to make the time when I was in Austin? I think part of it is
the cliquishness that creeps into local groups. I felt like too much of a
Raven’s Forter to feel comfortable playing locally in Bryn Gwlad. I knew a
few of the people in Bryn Gwlad, but most of them were peers, and I wasn’t
comfortable interacting with peers in those days. Other locals were too
busy doing whatever they were doing for the event to notice that I was in
the room—in garb. Naturally, I gravitated towards the Raven’s Forters in
attendance, and I reinforced the insularity that was holding me at arm’s
length. There was also cliquishness in Raven’s Fort itself that made me
distrusting of others outside of my own group, and that got in the way of
my playing locally with any other group. The same thing happened when I
moved to Houston; I interacted almost exclusively with people I’d known
from Raven’s Fort, and the rest of the time I was a wallflower.


Since then, a peer in Raven’s Fort made a suggestion that I believe really
set me on the course to the level of involvement I’m at today. On that
suggestion, I submitted a proposal to teach a class in reading Old English
at King’s College. Even though the class was not as well attended as I had
anticipated (it WAS well-attended, though; my expectations were
unrealistic), that class brought me together with peers and nobles from
beyond the borders of Raven’s Fort. Through that class—and another class on
court protocol that I began teaching a few years after—I was led into the
experience of playing on the kingdom level. Hey! Someone recognized a
talent that I had, and she found a way for me to translate that talent into
deeper involvement in the SCA! I was talking with another friend of mine
recently, and he pointed out that not everybody wants to be pigeonholed
into doing something that they do mundanely and would rather not do as part
of a hobby. But a parallel situation is going on in the church I belong to.
One of the members St. Alban’s asked me if I’d be interested in attending
diocesan council as a delegate alternative. I attended as an alternate for
two years, and this year was the second year that I attended diocesan
council as a voting delegate. Last year, I was involved in the voting
process to determine the new Bishop Suffragan for the Diocese of Texas. I
was also asked by one of the ushers if I would help one Sunday when they
didn’t have a full team of four—and I’m now one of the regular ushers at
Saint Alban’s. Involvement draws us in and keeps us in. We’re going to stay
if we feel a sense of ownership. Just like St. Alban’s is my church,
Ansteorra is my kingdom, and the SCA is my group.


Newcomers need to feel that same sense of ownership if they are going to
continue playing. Being a non-profit organization, we’re not driven by the
need to make money like Renaissance faires and Medieval Times are, so we’re
going to have to put out a more conscious effort to sell our Society to the
people who will eventually succeed us. Whenever someone in the SCA is
elevated to peerage, that person usually sits in vigil before the elevation
ceremony while other peers and well-wishers visit to offer words of
congratulation and words of wisdom. A rather stock phrase that I’ve
recently adopted as the core of the words of wisdom I like to offer is this
advice: in everything you do in the SCA, ask yourself, “Am I encouraging
people to play more, or am I encouraging people to play less?” The key to
increased participation in the SCA is encouraging people—not just
newcomers, but everybody—to play more and not to play less. One suggestion
that I would offer is that we should work to create more hands-on
activities for newcomers at events so that they can feel like they’re
actually doing something rather than just observing other people having
fun. No, not in the kitchen! Things like games, dances, sing-alongs, and
guided tours. We need to treat our newcomers like royalty. And then we need
to turn around and treat each other like royalty, and find ways to turn
each other’s talents into contributions we can make to the Society. People
who feel like they have a reason for being at an SCA event will come back.
I came back because I had a reason for being here, and I would imagine the
same goes for every veteran SCA’er who continues to play.

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Was nicht umbringt stärkt.