[Steppes] Radical Idea
Jay Rudin
rudin at ev1.net
Thu Feb 22 15:53:50 PST 2007
Faelan wrote:
>I had an idea yesterday, and I'm trying to see if people would be
>interested
> in helping with this.
<snip description of building permanent structures on somebody else's land>
> Thoughts?
Well, it's a great idea, with one serious concern. Let me tell two stories.
1. Elfsea loved it when they were slowly improving the Diamond B ranch.
Each year their site was better, with a beautiful list field and other
amenities. The shire, and then the barony, of Elfsea worked hard for many
years to improve the land. It was good for the owner, and good for the
barony.
Eventually, the land was worth much more for camping events, and (quite
properly) his price went up because of it. The SCA was priced out of the
market. He raised his rates to something we just couldn't pay (over $10 per
person, I think).
2. When Scarborough Faire first opened, we worked out a deal with them in
which we would work their site (except for Memoral Day weekend), in return
for use of the land a couple of times per year. It worked well -- it was an
excellent site for us. But after a couple of years their lawyers said they
couldn't do it. They couldn't accept the liability of our events on their
land.
So I'm sure that we could get people together for work weekends. We've
certainly done it before. But we would need some way to *guarantee* use of
the land for *many* years in advance before I will commit to work somebody
else's land again.
Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin
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