[Steppes] Event Changes

[Patrick Cuccurello]

I will also bring up another portion of this that I find particularly
frustrating, and a portion that has for all intensive purposes lessened my
involvement.  Where I truly love my Arts--cooking, brewing, woodworking,
etc.... I really enjoy the subtle organization of Events and the teaching of
people how to do that very thing.  Unfortunately Steppes has four events,
and they are all monsters.  12th Night, Steppes A&S, Warlord, Fall Court.
None of them exactly something for a new and aspiring Autocrat to cut their
teeth on.  Each one of them so large and based in their own traditions that
they have a natural inertia that prevents change.  A case in point was
adding the Pas d'Arms to Steppes Artisan.  In some aspects you would think
that we were overthrowing the King and setting up a Parliament (and not "The
Clones of Dr. Funkenstein" type either--if you get the joke you are very old
and have esoteric tastes in music <<grin>>).

Now we are talking about limiting those events even more to compensate for a
Kingdom Calendar that is full, but no one really travels outside their
Region for.   This will only exacerbate our problem of training people to
run our events.  This is a problem not just for Steppes, but compounded for
every group out there.  That only leaves us with the option of planning our
events as a massive "super events" and have sub-autocrats to cover the
various areas in order train them to take over the larger duties.  The only
problem with that is we lose innovation, variety, and a wealth of new ideas
because we are hamstrung within the bondage or our "Traditional Events"
framework.  Granted, I tend to lean less to the traditional side of things,
but it seems to me that we have basically narrowed our choices to nil, and
now seek to narrow them even more.  I am not even certain that limiting
events is the solution to the problem or just the Band-Aid in an attempt to
appease people for a time. That is being done because in order to address
the real problems would require an overhaul of an existing system in place
for 20 years that would most certainly gore many people's yaks.  The
resulting s*** storm would be greater than anyone volunteering their time
would care to deal with, and I cannot fault them for that.  Hence we end up
with stasis and entropy.

I don't know if anyone else even considers this an issue to address or even
a problem.  If not, I'll just consider myself being a malcontent as usual
and move on  <<grin>>.  I don't know what the answer is, or even if there is
a solution given the current circumstances.  I do however believe that we as
a group can accomplish anything we choose to and have the fortitude to stand
behind.

Ride well,
Petruccio

<<<<now where did I put those mint leaves.......hic....excuse me>>>>