[Ansteorra] An answer to the population problem
Hugh & Belinda Niewoehner via Ansteorra
ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org
Tue Aug 19 15:54:02 PDT 2014
All the posts on this subject in my opinion have carried valuable
points. I believe, as I have said before, that it is 'life in the
modern world' that contributes most to the lack of attendance,
membership growth, and general participation. Whether that is due to
employment, finances, family obligations, health, or other non-SCA
commitments, it is something the Society has no control over.
The cost of membership (not implying that it was or was not necessary to
increase it due to rising legal costs, etc.) has made it more difficult
for many. As Arthur pointed out, we have also considered whether paying
the non-member surcharge would not be more economical considering the
few events we can attend. We keep our memberships more in the spirit of
supporting the organization then in avoiding the non-member fees. Many
can not afford that luxury. The high cost of membership can also deter
willing 'volunteers' from holding office since /I believe/ many of the
offices require it.
As Lady Maria pointed out some are not going to events because of
economical issues. This may, indeed, be causing a rippling affect in
that less active or relatively new people aren't going because their
friends won't be there. Perhaps a solution in the case of gas prices
could be in car pooling and sharing of expenses. But with car space at
a premium (camping gear--especially SCA style takes a lot of room) and
schedules not always in agreement, this may not be a feasible solution
either.
Alma Danks has presented an excellent observation about the scheduling
of events. Don't remember that coming up before on this topic. I
thought we used to try and not schedule events close by in clusters
because of hurting attendance. It may be that our schedule is just so
full now that this happens. Everyone wants those prime dates because of
weather, wars, holiday, etc. Perhaps money could be set aside during
the course of the year so that more of these could be attended, but that
does address the issue of 'real world' schedule commitments conflicting.
As to leadership vs. management, I am not sure I understand all of Her
Graces' points. I do believe that under good leadership, people can be
inspired and desire to contribute and participate more. If a particular
peer is well liked, respected, etc. they can cause others to want to
emulate them, serve or work with them and so forth. And unfortunately,
where humans are involved it can also be warped into cults of
personalities becoming divisive and problematic. Officers are like
management as they handle the business end of the game. They are
usually the ones held legally responsible for actions so it is my
opinion that they should have final say on certain rulings. For
example, a Baroness may wish to use funds of a group for something that
SCA corpora doesn't allow. The Sensechal may have to over rule
her--hopefully, tactfully. The dissolving of guilds by anyone is
unpleasant. I'm not sure whose jurisdiction it does/should fall under.
But just because a guild or household has been dissolved, I can not
understand how it would be possible to forbid people gathering and
enjoying a particular hobby or activity. It might not be listed as an
'official' guild, but what is to prevent someone from saying, "Come by
my house/camp. We're having a middle eastern dance session/party. If
it's successful we'll be doing it again on Tuesday night/at such and
such event."
H.E. Ian mentions civility. There will always be disagreements and
misunderstandings. It's present in any group. But these can be handled
with civility, respect, and, yes, kindness. I was encouraged by the
article written about Pensic by the newspaper woman. More than once she
quoted someone saying, "Everyone is so polite." Even if we grumble at
each other at least to the newbies and press we still appeared 'shining'
at Pensic. Compared to so much of what's out there, SCA folk,/in
general/, are exceptionally nice, civil, kind, generous, etc. We're all
human, we all make mistakes, do stupid things. It's easy to find fault
with others. And it's easy to be offended when no offense was
intended. But perhaps it would be good to take the advice of someone
much wiser than I'll ever be and consider that before we try to help
take the splinter out of our friend's eye, we first take the rafter out
of our own. After all we can't really control any one but ourselves.
Ismet
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