[SCA-cooks] I quit

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Morgan Cain (Ansteorra):
>  > > When offers to help identify solutions are made, they are too often
>plain
>>  > ignored.  That is, when I'm not simply told to my face "there are not
>>  > enough of 'you' [read people in wheelchair], we don't have to be
>>  > accessible".
>
>As I said, you don't get that attitude here, and I have seen events other
>places where people go out of their way to ensure that EVERYBODY has access.
>I don't know if you are talking about people in your local group, or people
>in a region, but I think instead of blasting everybody and blowing off the
>entire Society, you need to get a dose of reality and start working a
>different tactic.  I've seen people in wheelchairs at Pennsic; we have
>Silent Heraldry for the hearing-impaired; I cannot believe that the problem
>you are whining about is so pervasive.

I didn't see it as whining. Possibly a little defeatist.  We have at
least two wheelchair-wearing gentles in my immediate home group, and
one or two others around the region; we see them quite frequently. I
couldn't say how many such people we have around the Kingdom (East),
but it's a big enough number to warrant having an officer in charge
of accessibility, whose efforts are noticable, if of somewhat mixed
success.

>  > >  That being said, the SCA is NOT
>>  > excempt from complying with Title II of the ADA, ....
>
>Unfortunately for your argument, yes, it is.  Section II covers only "any
>State or local government; any department, agency, special purpose district,
>or other instrumentality of a State or States or local government; and the
>National Railroad Passenger Corporation."  If you're going to argue laws, at
>least argue the RIGHT law.  And no, Title III doesn't cover either because
>that applies only to places of "public accommodation" - which the SCA is
>not.  Go look at the definitions (and yes, I did happen to have the statute
>literally at hand - I helped write a book about it and one of my honour
>copies is in the bookshelf next to my desk).  They are talking about the
>halls and physical locations, which the SCA does not own and (because I have
>to look at this type of contract for my business) has no obligation to
>ensure is accessible.  That is the obligation of the site owner.  And
>"accessible" has a whole bunch of meanings.

True. Unfortunate, but true. This somewhat parallels (although in a
very different way and extent) the case of a lady I know who makes
wine, teaches vintning, etc. We've been having trouble finding sites
for events at which brewing and vintning classes can be done. A lot
of the sites we use are schools and churches, and they often object
to what they see as the production and encouragement of alcohol use
(I don't see this for several reasons, but I don't own the sites). As
a result, this lady has felt, at times, victimized by our inability
to find any but dry sites, for the most part. Finally, I asked her
outright, "What do you want us to do, cancel the event because we
can't find a wet site????" She said, "Yes." At first I thought this
was insanely selfish, but now I'm not so sure. I think perhaps
because it has been so difficult to find a good damp site, some
people have given up trying.

Could this be what is happening in the case of wheelchair-accessible
sites? Note that in the East, most of our larger Kingdom events seem
to be wheelchair-accessible, due both to the efforts of the Kingdom's
Accessibility Porter and the demands we've placed on some rather
expensive sites to even consider them as possible event sites. In the
case of a two or three-thousand-dollar a day site we may use once or
twice, or more, a year, it's probably a reasonably good business
decision to spend a couple of hundred bucks on ramps, at least.

Adamantius