[Northkeep] Reveling

[Susan]

Terry wrote:
>Just a comment from a very new newcomer!  I have been unable to attend any
>events...something is always coming up that throws me off and I miss
>things.  Get togethers combined sounds like a wonderful idea for me...As
>Susan can attest to, I am pretty shy.

Yes when it is time to do something new.  Once you are comfortable with who
you are with, you are very outgoing.  This is why I try to encourage our
new people to go to as many of the things going on as they can, as it
expands the number of people with which they feel comfortable with.  As an
interjection, one of our other new people is Tracy and she is also
shy.  She has thrown herself into this and is becoming an incredible
assistant.  She has made it to several Saturday fighter practices when I
was wasn't able to and did a great job of welcoming people and telling them
about our group.  She also found that once you but on garb it helps you
feel more of the group and also takes you outside of yourself.

It seems I sometimes come across as a broken record but often enough it
helps that I will continue to work on my mission.  The job of hospitaller
is a focal point to help organize the greeting of newcomers.  The bringing
in of newcomers (both to the society and to our local group) is the work of
all the populace; this is the getting people involved in guilds and
classes, the offering to let them camp with you at their first event, the
passing along of the history and of your dream of the SCA.  These are tasks
that make us a community and something that we have to remmember extends to
more than just the people we already know if we are to continue to be the
who we claim to be.

I know that many of you are also shy and it really pushes your comfort zone
to step out beyond who you know.  I implore each of us to make this step to
help know more than the circle we usually are with, the more we overlap the
many circles that exist; be they households, guilds, fighting groups,
classes or whatever, the more the circles overlap the stronger we will be
and the more activities will include people that you know and are
comfortable with.

Revels around the drum and dance circle through the summer sound wonderful
and I hope we can get some of the small revels going.  It will give me
imputus to clean the house...

Susan