[Northkeep] Recruitment ideas

Jennifer Carlson talana1 at hotmail.com
Wed Feb 6 15:06:36 PST 2013


I agree with Diarmaid that, while recruitment is vital, retention is moreso; and not just for keeping the old-timers, but also to keep from losing the new members.  This is a challenge for all social groups these days, from the Masons and Elks to the Boy Scouts and bowling leagues.
  
The social world today is a different plane of existence than it was when I joined the SCA over thirty years ago.  Back then, the internet was an obscure thing for academic and military uber-geeks only.  Long distance phone calls were paid for by the minute, no matter what provider you used.  Facebook and on-line gaming were the stuff of science fiction.  Today, we are instantaneously and quite inexpensively connected, and don’t need to get in a car and drive somewhere to be so.  In short: there are so many more opportunities to interact with others these days that groups like ours have to compete not only for a person’s attention, but for their time and dedication.  
 
For some years I worked in a “big-steeple” church here in Tulsa, and found that the people dynamics of the SCA are like those of a small-to-medium congregation.  Big churches, like where I worked, have large professional staffs to run their many programs, but smaller churches live and thrive almost solely on volunteers, and the challenges such congregations have in attracting and keeping new members are those that the SCA faces.  
 
We want to get people in the door, to see how wonderful we are and what a good time we’re having, and what the SCA means to us and what we get out of it.  Think of our tournaments and courts as the equivalent of Easter and Christmas Eve services.  But what about the rest of the year?  What keeps a person going to church every Sunday?  More than that, what motivates a person to make Wednesday night services?  Lead the youth choir?  Head up the Thursday morning men’s prayer group? 
 
What gets a person to do those things is that they have found a community.  That is what gives you a sense of compulsion to go, and a feeling that your world is somehow lacking if you don’t.  Yes, the SCA can be just a place to occasionally wear funny clothes and get together with other people who do likewise and maybe whack each other with sticks or camp out or pick up a new craft, which is fun and a pleasant way to spend time, but that’s probably not enough to keep you coming back for years, much less playing on any deeper level.
 
It’s having found a home in the SCA that makes you want to save your pennies for to go to an event just to buck up a nervous friend who is entering her first Eisteddfodd, or to push past the rotten day you had at work that left you exhausted and wanting nothing more than to go home and crack open a cold one,  because you promised you’d help a new fighter with his footwork.  And because you do those things for others, they find their home here, too.  And if they don’t find a home, there is nothing to keep them, and they are likely to wander away when something else catches their eye.  It’s not that they are fickle, it’s that we lured them in with “shiny” and fell down on showing them “substance.”
 
The SCA gave this socially awkward high-schooler an accepting place to be, a comfort zone when I was away from home for the first time at college, handkerchiefs and hot tea to help mend my first heartbreak, a cadre of mutual friends with my fiancée, and acceptance in spite of all my faults.  Above all, this community made me feel special, and let me make my own place and respected that it was my place.
 
Do you know what a military recruiter’s most vital pool of opportunity is?  Those who are already in uniform whose hitches are almost up. The reason why big churches eventually find themselves struggling is that while being big and shiny and charismatic makes it easy to pull new people in, they have difficulty helping the new individuals find a home in their big congregation.
 
To summarize the sermon: figure out what it is that makes people want to stay, and make sure there is plenty of it available for them.  
 
Sorry if it this is too mushy or rambling, but them’s my thoughts.
 
In servicio,
 
Talana
Your community is the people who come to your funeral – Master Diarmaid Ui Dhuinn

  		 	   		  


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