<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Re: ANST Teens in the SCA/ was Amtgard vs. the SCA</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">
Ld. Yohan Bjornsson said<BR>
>We don't really need to be recruiting individual, or groups, of teens<BR>
>without having their parents involved...its a recipe for disaster.<BR>
>Consider all the previous discussions concerning underage drinking<BR>
>at events without legally responsible guardians present. And I know<BR>
>that others along with myself have been asked by teens for rides to<BR>
>events, both local and regional, because they don't have their own <BR>
>transportation.<BR>
<BR>
I joined the SCA when I was 13, without either of my parents. One of the things that drew me and kept me was that the people I met in the group were willing to take me as I was and not judge me simply because I was a teenager. I must say that if I had run into this kind of attitude I might not have been as inclined to stay. I was the tavern misstress at our groups event when I was 14, along with a friend ( same age), I also became the chronicler for our group at 14, I was the co-autocrat for our groups event when I was 15. I was able to do these things because people were willing to look past my age and believed that I could do the job. About a year and a half after I joined I settled into my persona which was Elizabethan, and I began to hand sew all of my garb. I did not really look my age to begin with, and with the addition of the full Elizabethan garb I noticed more and more that peoples attitudes toward me changed. People were much more willing to treat me as!
an equal, although alot of times once they found out my age they would treat me differently. One other thing that I noticed was that although I was doing the as much as others around me with my garb, helping at events and such, they were getting AoA's and I had been flatly told that I was not because of my age. Now it's not that the awards were all that was important to me, but I felt bad that even though I was doing the same exact thing as others, because of my age I wasn't being recognized. I feel strongly about this because of the mixed signals I have recieved. <BR>
<BR>
Ly Elspeth Lancaster<BR>
Stronghold of Falconridge<BR>
kelsij@intellisys.net<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
</BODY>
</HTML>