[Northkeep] Classes and stuff

[Marc Carlson]

>From: herring at upperspace.net (Jerry & Teresa Herring)
>Marc/Diarmaid
>(and all of those others out there reading along)
>That was a very inspirational rant, not nearly as bad as I expected. You
>really should work on your press : )

Apparently, after having spend the last six years or so trying to be "nice",
I'm out of practice.  Personally, I don't mind that.

>... Now given all that you said what would you recommend we do to rectify
>the
>issues you have pointed out?
>Maybe WE  all can work together to make something very positive out of this
>situation?

To be honest, if I'd had an easy answer, I'd share it.  But let's see...

BTW, as an aside, I was told by someone in my shoe class that she had been
told that I was targeting her with my message.  I wasn't.  I wasn't
targeting anyone specifically, I was pointing out a situation that involves
everyone to a certain extent.  When I took over this job, I passed a few
very specfic rules about what I would tolerate here - no innuendo, if you
are going to slam a person, say who they are, and give your facts.  I hold
myself to that as well.  I wasn't slamming any ONE.  I was slamming -the
situation.

As I mentioned, I know we all (or most of us, I hope) have other things in
our lives besides the SCA, and those are going to get in the way.  To use
Faelan's term, sure, some of us "flake" on things - hell, some of us do so
for years at a time - I know that (from personal experience).  Some of us
have work problems, or time constraints.  For others of us, we've done so
much, or gotten so bitter by one thing or another, or so bitten, that we
have become really reluctant to do things.  Absolutely.  Happens to every
one of us a time or two.  No question.  Heck, -I- don't go to fighter
practices, since I don't fight, and I find very little to do at them most of
the time.  If we want to we can go down the list of everyone in the group
and find reasons why they don't go to such and such, and in virtually all
cases, I daresay, those reasons are absolutely valid.

But this means we get into a habit of not going to stuff locally, we get out
of practice of spending time together.

I referred to Northkeep as a "community".  I recently came upon a definition
that covered that for me quite nicely.  If I (your anyone here) died
tomorrow, who would be those people who would go to our funeral?  For a lot
of us, the SCA people around us would comprise a sizeable percentage of
that.  To me, that means that there IS a community here.  The way I was
raised, we owe certain duties to our community.  Some of you who have known
me for a while know that my focus in the SCA is this group -- even when I
was on the outs with some members of the group, and this hindered my full
participation, that focus didn't change, which was why I became more active
last year when we had our troubles, and the group needed everyone to do
their part.

We might want to try doing things that encouraged that sense of community.
At one time, this group had revels at least once a month, where people could
get together and get to know the people they have around them.  Sure,
there's the after-Populace get together, but it's not really the same,
somehow (and those times I've gone, it's really failed to draw me in).

Another possibilkity is the one that get's made a lot in discussion lists -
if you want to do something, try taking the initiative and DO it.   If you
want to see classes on a topic, talk to whoever's the A&S and arrange it (or
better yet, teach it).  I said that there's not much for me to do at fighter
practices -- that's not the fault of the people at FP, it's mine.  There are
things I _can_ do at fighter practice, if I chose to make the time to go.
Maybe not every week, or twice a week, but a couple of times a month at
least [and yes, I know this is a 'put your money where your mouth is' sort
of thing.  I'll try to back it up].

>What about the rest of you lurking out there do you have any input to this
>situation/issue?
>Please let us hear from you too.

Absolutely.  If you think I'm full of it here, SAY SO.  Speak up. If you
have other ideas, I -want- to hear them.

Marc/Diarmaid

_________________________________________________________________
Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
http://www.hotmail.com