waning SCA groups?

[cellio]

A member of another large SCA group recently posted about changing patterns of activity and participation. This got me thinking about my own barony, which is one of the older and larger groups around (30+ years, around 250 people).
For several years now I think our group has been in decline

Comments

Re: random musings

[siderea]

- there is a bit of unapproachability now - and a lot of that has to do with the fact that many more people are titled/awarded, from my perspective. it's daunting to hear from people you consider your peers (elsewhere) "oh, just do lots of work in the kitchen and maybe someday you will get an AoA"

Youch. Good point.

Re: random musings

[cellio]

You make some excellent points. I agree with what you say about ramp-up time and couples. (I don't disagree with the others; I just have more to say on them. :-) )

dance practice, in it's look and feel, has changed dramatically. when it was on the drill deck, or in the UC, people could be social and watch the dancers, intermittently participate, etc. now, those being social are banished to a hallway - much less inviting.That's a good point -- one room large enough to support socializing and dancing concurrently would work better. I wonder why my early dance practices worked so well; we held them in one of the large classrooms in Porter Hall (probably 125C), which isn't really large enough to support dance + socializing. Were we that much smaller then? Maybe; I remember a fair number of people sitting on the windowsills and such during dances, so they were probably chatting quietly. I think at times we also reserved an adjacent room for spillover, but I don't remember that working especially well. I think it mostly turned into

Re: random musings

[rani23]

I wonder what stops dance practice from being held in one of the ballrooms in the university center

Space and time. We desperately try to get the ballrooms but they're almost always taken.

[siderea]

So, does your barony have post revels? If so, are they commonly open and advertised?

I bring this up, because the age thing is nagging at me. Back when we had open and advertised (as in, fliers at the event gate, with directions on them) post-revels, that was a great time to kick back and get to know people, and that was how the young people got to know the old people. Once we stopped having open post-revels, the post-revels began to striate along generational lines.

[cellio]

That's a good point. Open post-revels really do help mix people up in a relaxed environment

Post-revels

[dagonell]

My choice would be to talk to those people and say "open doesn't mean you". I would further tell them, that the reason is their children's unacceptable behavior. I realize it's confrontational, but then, I'm supposed to be the *evil* twin. One of two things will happen

[rani23]

I agree with you on most of your points. I definately agree that we need more blood, we need more "mixing" of groups, we need more events....

I just wish I could figure out a way to fix it.

[tangerinpenguin]

I will jump in here with a tangential observation that I strongly believe it's not the Seneschal's job to "make it fun," especially in a group our size. And that it's dangerous to get into that mindset because it lets the rest of the "pillars of the community" off the hook (or leads to people thinking they are somehow not allowed to take initiative unless they have a Barony office, which is the flip side of the same thing.)

The Seneschal's job is to administer the group's resources-in-common and manage other such mundanities so they get in the way of people taking that initiative as little as necessary. If that is not enough, there are deeper problems that an "activist" senseschal is, at best, temporarily masking.

[rani23]

I wasn't suggesting it was my job. :) (Sides, I have enough to do.) I just wish there was a quick and easy fix to this one. Alas, it does not appear to be so.

[cellio]

I wish I could figure out what to do about it, too.

And: what tangerinpenguin said. This is not part of your job description as seneschal. It may, of course, be part of your "job description" as "concerned active member of the barony", but there are many people who share that job.