KUDOs Ulrica!  Spoken like a true Hospitaler.  I will miss your energy.

Ulrica's right.  I'll go even further (imagine that Modius taking things
a step further).   We choose which foot to put forward; whether it is
the positive or the negative.  We see many doing and moving, always in
motion and always helping.  The way to change things you do not like is
from the inside and through action.  Work to change things with which
you are unhappy.  Nothing every changed just by sitting and complaining.
That leads me to my last point.

Over my tenures as Deputy and then Kingdom Hospitaler I have had the
opportunity to speak to many newcomers and visa-versa.  Every couple of
events I get involved in a conversation with new gentles who ask me
about things they have overheard.  I will not go into specifics but some
of the things overheard went beyond character assassination.  I hate to
say it but this type of feedback was NOT isolated to one or two areas of
the Kingdom.

Please keep in mind that this is the worst type of communication to
expose newcomers to.  It salts the fertile ground of this new blood.  If
you have problems with a group or individuals, keep it to yourselves. 
Talk about it on the phone or by e-mail or in an isolated corner of the
site.

To these newcomers The SCA is about Romance and Chivalry.  Newcomers'
eyes are like childrens', wide and absorbing everything.  I do not
condone hiding truth.  Just mixing common sense in with normal rules of
polite and refined behavior.  

If you see a gentle who seems out of place; ask if you can help.  I will
share a specific.  At an event I attended at the beginning of June I was
packing my belongings up after court and making ready to leave site. 
Feast was well underway and I saw 2 gentles sitting on little makeshift
chairs watching people finish their feasting.  I approached and after
chatting a while asked it they had eaten.  They said no.  I offered to
find them a place to sit at one of the tables and fix them up with feast
gear and dinner.  They were newcomers.  For the most part no one had
spoken with them the entire afternoon.

We are all Stewards of the Society.  Each and every one of us.  From
Lord to Laurel, from First Knight to First Fight.  We are the SCA now to
these new gentles.  We are Heralds, the Fighters, the Artisans, the
Bards, the Troll keepers.  We are the chills evoked from Avatar's music,
the groans of fulfilled pleasure from Marin's feasts, the well timed
slot-shots of Alaric, the elegance of Aubrey's Doublet, the Belly laugh
from Finnegin's Irish Tale, the absence felt by Riccardo's passing.

We are ALL part of this living history known as the SCA in Ansteorra. 
We ARE the SCA to these newcomers.

Modius     


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