In perfect frankness, if it was my young single daughter, I'd keep them away from the royal circle given what I've seen.
My experience with trying to recruit early 20 year old folk is that they are pack animals and travel in a group. "Lame factor" can be pretty high in the SCA, so I think you're right in trying to find a hook for them - but what that is in the facebook/video gaming rich environment is a challenge to discover. A more robust on-line interactive experience may help.
Those that grew up in the SCA may stay or move on to other adventures, but I think this is the case where tables and young ladies in waiting would be most useful. In this case the young that are new to the society can join the established bunch and learn something about the culture. In our kingdom the retinue job can be pretty tough, and adding the herding of 20 somethings single women can just add stress.
I find young couples are the best sources for new members because they may be looking for a community that suits their need for involvement in some sort of village. We'll always have young pirates/vampires/steampunks or latest movie fandom hangers-on looking for hookups at the drunken drumming circle "singles bar". Sometimes they stay in, but often they find a community more in sync and welcoming to their tastes. Or they get a job.
As an aging disco era momma with her new age philosophy not usually particularly well hidden, I'm the first to admit I can be outright weird - especially to my Utah-based family. I'm sure I'm not the only weird one but I think most so called normal people view sci-fi/fantasy fandom as suspect fringe behavior - right or wrong. But it's diversity that makes us interesting, right?
*shrug* It is fringe-y. And it attracts a fringe-y sort of crowd. Unfortunately, it's sometimes a group with some of the worst social skills on the planet.
I'm just sayin': Current evidence indicates an aging of the organization as a whole. You can let that continue, or you can put some effort into reversing it.
Yep, 20 somethings can be a pain. And, for the record, I'm not suggesting letting the "Ladies" in the Royalty Room, etc. But a dedicated wrangler and some set-aside space along with a little cache to the position will be attractive.
And, as John points out: If you want the younger set, attract the girls. The boys will follow. Create a more useful learning environment for the boys (especially where heavy weapons are concerned) and the girls will stick around to watch.
In other words - make use of the pack mentality and need for "display" that is present in that age group. It will improve the health of the organization overall.
From my (limited) experience, I think many colleges and universities have, since the 1970s, made it significantly harder for off-campus organizations to establish student chapters. A lot of the rules and regulations were probably put into place to keep out the Moonies and cults and whatnot. But, basically, students have to instigate organizations from within the university, and if they've never even heard of the SCA, well, it's a catch-22....
A couple of years ago my barony looked into setting up a table at the student activities fair at the large flagship state university near our fighter practice location, but for all the hoops we would have had to jump through just to get a card table at the fringe of the event, on a weekday when most of us (of any age) had to go to work ... it wasn't worth it.
Finally, universities make it a real PITA for outsiders to rent space ... and their stupid restrictions banning the serving of ANY food that isn't catered by the university makes it impossible to serve a medieval feast. Oh, and their food is REALLY expensive, too.
Oh, trust me, I'm familiar with the red tape. They impose those restrictions even on meetings - we had to buy pop and cookies from University Housing, rather than order out of pizza if we were using a room in the student union or some such. And that was even for dorm meetings. Yes on the expensive!
The situation varies from Uni to Uni - Sometimes having enough of a student presence to be a registered student organization is worth it in access to or discounts on certain spaces. Sometimes it isn't.
However, the crux of the matter is that nurturing a student population will probably never be that "worth it" to the permanent residents of the local group in a college town. And yet, it is "worth it" to the SCA as a whole. But that worth is so nebulous and so "far away" that it's hard for the local group to justify all that effort that never pays off on their radar screen.
Hence, my suggestions on expanding the ability to hook and keep the age group on more of a Kingdom-wide level.
The issue (at least over here) is that universities have a tendency to set themselves up as little cities, so you have no need to get off campus. One of our bigger problems, when I was silly enough to start up a college, was that most of the students didn't want to go off-campus to do wider SCA things. They would happily show up to the in-college stuff, but were less inclined to attend the big stuff because it was a different social group.
The interesting thing is that I left that college about 5 years ago, and people who had known about the SCA through that, but never joined, have started popping up in their geographically local group. So it seems to work as a form of passive advertising.
if it was my young single daughter, I'd keep them away from the royal circle given what I've seen.
I'd add in, in general (not just in the nobby circle), that even if your daughter was young but had a partner that didn't play SCA, the behaviour is just as bad. Strangely enough, acquiring a consort (who has a wife who doesn't play) has changed more in terms of the flirting (going from 'weird' to 'more harmless than weird) than wearing an engagement ring has for me!
My experience with trying to recruit early 20 year old folk is that they are pack animals and travel in a group. "Lame factor" can be pretty high in the SCA, so I think you're right in trying to find a hook for them - but what that is in the facebook/video gaming rich environment is a challenge to discover. A more robust on-line interactive experience may help.
Those that grew up in the SCA may stay or move on to other adventures, but I think this is the case where tables and young ladies in waiting would be most useful. In this case the young that are new to the society can join the established bunch and learn something about the culture. In our kingdom the retinue job can be pretty tough, and adding the herding of 20 somethings single women can just add stress.
I find young couples are the best sources for new members because they may be looking for a community that suits their need for involvement in some sort of village. We'll always have young pirates/vampires/steampunks or latest movie fandom hangers-on looking for hookups at the drunken drumming circle "singles bar". Sometimes they stay in, but often they find a community more in sync and welcoming to their tastes. Or they get a job.
As an aging disco era momma with her new age philosophy not usually particularly well hidden, I'm the first to admit I can be outright weird - especially to my Utah-based family. I'm sure I'm not the only weird one but I think most so called normal people view sci-fi/fantasy fandom as suspect fringe behavior - right or wrong. But it's diversity that makes us interesting, right?
Reply
It is fringe-y. And it attracts a fringe-y sort of crowd. Unfortunately, it's sometimes a group with some of the worst social skills on the planet.
I'm just sayin': Current evidence indicates an aging of the organization as a whole. You can let that continue, or you can put some effort into reversing it.
Yep, 20 somethings can be a pain. And, for the record, I'm not suggesting letting the "Ladies" in the Royalty Room, etc. But a dedicated wrangler and some set-aside space along with a little cache to the position will be attractive.
And, as John points out: If you want the younger set, attract the girls. The boys will follow. Create a more useful learning environment for the boys (especially where heavy weapons are concerned) and the girls will stick around to watch.
In other words - make use of the pack mentality and need for "display" that is present in that age group. It will improve the health of the organization overall.
Reply
A couple of years ago my barony looked into setting up a table at the student activities fair at the large flagship state university near our fighter practice location, but for all the hoops we would have had to jump through just to get a card table at the fringe of the event, on a weekday when most of us (of any age) had to go to work ... it wasn't worth it.
Finally, universities make it a real PITA for outsiders to rent space ... and their stupid restrictions banning the serving of ANY food that isn't catered by the university makes it impossible to serve a medieval feast. Oh, and their food is REALLY expensive, too.
Reply
The situation varies from Uni to Uni - Sometimes having enough of a student presence to be a registered student organization is worth it in access to or discounts on certain spaces. Sometimes it isn't.
However, the crux of the matter is that nurturing a student population will probably never be that "worth it" to the permanent residents of the local group in a college town. And yet, it is "worth it" to the SCA as a whole. But that worth is so nebulous and so "far away" that it's hard for the local group to justify all that effort that never pays off on their radar screen.
Hence, my suggestions on expanding the ability to hook and keep the age group on more of a Kingdom-wide level.
Reply
The interesting thing is that I left that college about 5 years ago, and people who had known about the SCA through that, but never joined, have started popping up in their geographically local group. So it seems to work as a form of passive advertising.
Reply
I'd add in, in general (not just in the nobby circle), that even if your daughter was young but had a partner that didn't play SCA, the behaviour is just as bad. Strangely enough, acquiring a consort (who has a wife who doesn't play) has changed more in terms of the flirting (going from 'weird' to 'more harmless than weird) than wearing an engagement ring has for me!
Reply
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