[Loch-soilleir] Populous Meetings

[Kathy Elliott]

 <snip>
does anyone know if there are perhaps some stargate fighters out there who
would go for a combined loch/stargate sunday practice?  i think that if we
have people out there doing rapier combat (in a public place, in the
daytime) we might actually draw some new people in and build up the loch
rapier community again.
 
Why limit it to rapier combat?
 
To me, a group's fighter practice should serve many purposes.  It should be
an opportunity for all of the local fighters to spar and learn from one
another, an opportunity for those who are more experienced to master the art
of teaching, an opportunity for new marshals to learn to care for those on
the field, a chance for the non-combatants to work on their crafts and chat,
and also an opportunity to "show off" for the public.  Let's face it - the
thing that initially draws most (not all) people to the SCA is the fighting
and pageantry.  Once they're curious, they get interested in the arts, the
service, and the fellowship.  (Which is why having a picnic/mini-revel after
the Sunday practices is such a great combination!)
 
I remember many weekends rushing home from an event on Sunday morning so I
could make it to fighter practice on time.  (And at every fighter practice,
you could count on at least 2-3 new people asking about the SCA.)
 
Many people joined because they saw us at the Ren Faire, but that's not an
option anymore.  I found the SCA through a local fighter practice in the
park.  I had done some fencing in college, and then one day saw all these
people in funny clothes acting like the Three Musketeers (as opposed to
fencing in a straight line while judges watched and raised their hands if
they thought they saw a point!)  I wanted to play, too!  If the Loch had
been practicing only at UH at night, I never would have joined.
 
There will never be a day/night that is good for everybody - for populous or
fighter practice.  And it may be that the current schedule of every Tuesday
night fighter practice plus one Sunday a month is the best compromise - I
don't know.  It just seems that doing something simply because that's the
way it's always been done is not a good enough reason.
 
Is this something to be discussed at populous?
 
(I told you this was a can of worms!) :-)
 
Kat
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/loch-soilleir-ansteorra.org/attachments/20041018/b54d1285/attachment.html