ES - The Middle Ages as They Were, or As They Should Have Been?

[willow l herbert]

   Folks time to time sad things happen to us all. One of the saddest is
when a friend leaves the SCA for the wrong reasons. It is especially hard
if you are a peer and that person is an associate. 
Last night I had two friend, I don't want to tell who, come to me and
tell me that they are leaving the SCA. They had two reasons. First
everyone seems to be dead and not  having a good time. The other reason
was people were rude.
   I have noticed that the energy level in the kingdom is going down.
Many of us are getting older and many of us no longer drink therefore
many of us are going to bed earlier or just sitting in our chairs. I
noticed something at Namron. We had a coffee house going with gratis
coffee and goodies. The cooks in Namron had made them and they were
great.  We didn't have a lot of people hanging out at the Coffee shop but
lots of coffee and sugar got drunk and eaten. I noticed a lot of people
bouncing around and being cheerful. Activities went on way into the
night.  One lady thanked us for the coffee. She said that she usually
drinks at SCA events but at this event she replaced alcohol with coffee
and didn't miss it at all. The historical middle east has for centuries
replaced liqueur with coffee and they have a good time. I have been
replacing liqueur with sugar at my event for about five years now. The
dessert table isn't quite as good as a keg for getting a party started
but it does a OK job. The strong coffee we served at Warlord got a few
people doing things in the middle of the night.  Having a good time is
what the SCA is about and if a few goodies and some free coffee make the
events more fun I said we should think about doing it at our events.
  The rudeness is another matter. Both of these people are performers and
suspect that the problems occurred in the performance area. We had
similar problems at Defender. There seems some confusion over private
campsites. It is not rudeness if someone creates a dance area or a
performing area for themselves and then controls what is done there.
Sometime someone like myself or Clan Firefall or one of the groups doing
the culture camps will set up a place intended for the populace to use.
This is a wonderful service to group but we can't count on it. People get
tired and since we are not going to culture camps anymore we can't count
on them. What we need is some neutral places, belonging to the barony not
a person, that are set up for dancing and performing. Now, I know you say
we have completions but completion are not parties and many performers
and dancers do not like completions. I think we need to arrange spots for
a performing circle/ party and a middle eastern dance circle at our major
events.  The people involved in these activities should host them. For
example the dancers guild of Elfsea should take responsibly for the dance
circle. I don't mean to be harsh but if the groups who care won't take
over these areas then we don't do them. Having these neutral places would
allow new people a place to go and be with others and allow everyone at
the event a place to interact. By having places that are public vs.
private we will stop a lot of confusion.  It would allow people to have
private activities without being thought of as rude. 
 Things to think about.
 Willow de Wisp


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