[Steppes] Is SCA membership declining overall?

[Esther]

Due to various circumstances, I don't get to a lot of things. Darn few, in fact, and usually, they are local, like populace.
   
  It is pretty quelling to walk into a business meeting, which we already have one, and have to wait to do things like socialize, share projects, research, meet new people. 
   
  I joined the SCA when I was 16. I'm 41 now. When I joined, we went out to Play, the goal being to Play to the best of our means and abilities, and to Play in a world our own, where the Middle Ages (And Antiquity and the Renaisance, etc.) were re-CREATED, not re-enacted, the Way They Should Have Been.
   
  Of course, back then, you could register a name in Quenya or Sindarin, and even be from Rohan, and possibly Narnia, though that was fading, even back then. To each their own to decide if that's good or bad.
   
  Now we Live to Serve A Dream no one can define, or really understands, since the SCA is made up of dreamers, Playing their own personal dream. It seems to me this Dream is a pretty grim business -- perhaps we need to Play more. Of course, for some of us, that means leching after belly dancers, and for others, studying Old English -- and I would say, for most of us, both of these general types of activities.
   
  Maybe we need to play more, and maybe we need smaller scale things. Yeah, tournaments used to be infrequent, but weren't were over at each other;s houses doing things more back then, too? Taverns and revels used to be the order of the day or the weekend. When was the last time you went to one, or hosted one?
   
  Lastly, the SCA is fun because people brought fun to it. Sometimes it seems like those same fun people aren't being allowed to bring fun like they used to, and in some ways, that's probably true. After all -- we live in a world where we MUST have insurance, where laws and common use strictures have changed, where there are fewer sites, and more needs from sites than we used to have. The Real World has, of necessity, impacted how we CAN Play.
   
  Just a few thoughts, possibly jaundiced.
   
  Emma

       
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