This reminds me quite a lot of church life-- which leads to my first question with your situation. Is recruiting new members a conscious goal? That has to be the first step.
At some level. It's not the most important thing, but it's an important thing, particularly when the target is younger folks (college students et al; I don't mean schoolkids).
In practice, it varies a lot from local group to local group and from person to person. But even when active recruiting isn't the goal, I've generally understood it to be a shared value that when new people seek us out, we try to help them out. Not at the expense of what we're here to do more generally -- some events or meetings are really bad ideas for newcomers and we aren't likely to try to change those to accommodate -- but otherwise, most folks try to give a newcomer a hand.
(Hmm. That's been my long-held impression, but now I wonder if "most" is accurate.)
So, I've brought several mundane friends to local practices and they've always had a good time, said they enjoyed it and that they would come back -- and then never showed up again.
I've asked them why, including the "was it too weird for you?" option and the answer's been the same, "Kinda cool, just don't have time. Not really for me."
I think the SCA, and any weird subculture, requires that the participants have... let's call it the "weird gene" - that thing that makes you go, "COOL" when you instantly see it.
It might be something of a disservice to "ease" people into the SCA -- we're a weird subculture after all and I think we should be upfront about it -- it will allow people to make that "COOL" vs "Not Interested" decisions fairly quickly.
Seconded. And while I know that new folks are important to the game, I really hate spending the effort to get them started, both physically and emotionally, only to have them fall off the face of the earth.
Err.... but somebody had to spend the effort getting you started, physically and emotionally, right? Doesn't it make sense to pass that on?
I've got a colleague at work who is in the SCA and she was surprised to learn that despite my decent knowledge of major events I'm not a member and never have been interested in same. Much more important for me to have passing knowledge of it... BUT I have to admit that a mention of a choir just made my ears go "perk!" ...
Latching on to one tiny piece ...dglennFebruary 3 2008, 11:00:35 UTC
"when sending out announcements about practices, is it so hard to send it both to the group list and the small set of people who want to be directly notified?"No, not really
( ... )
Re: Latching on to one tiny piece ...cellioFebruary 3 2008, 18:46:33 UTC
Our kingdom (AEthelmearc) has the two-list system as you've described it. The reply-to rewriting keeps most of the chit-chat off the announcement list, and people are generally good about not posting non-announcements to it. However, I'd guess that only about 50% of the announcements are directed to the announcement list; people post them to the discussion list instead sometimes. I'm on the discussion list [1], and I sometimes wonder whether people on the announcement list are getting enough information to be useful.
[1] Actually, I'm "sort of" on the discussion list; I run a moderated feed of that list for interested subscribers, because the discussion list gets a lot of noise sometimes. So I have to see all the noise to do this job, but my subscribers don't. In case you're wondering, I rewrite the reply-to line to force discussion back to the discussion list, so there's no fragmentation.
Back when I was an active participant in the SCA (I've long since decided that an activity requiring a persona is just Not My Thing) people would commonly send email signed "SCA name (mundane name)." I think knowing that many people choose names and personas is an important thing to know about the SCA right off the bat. Certainly at demos, people are more likely to introduce themselves by SCA names to the new folks.
Once you're solidly in an SCA context then, yes, you should use SCA names. I guess to me email or phone contact is solidly in the realm of "not the SCA", so it seems like we should follow the norms of that context. (Perhaps relatedly, I have never been comfortable wearing garb outside of events. Even for local events I prefer to change clothes at the site. Maybe I have a differently-weird gene. :-) )
I'm going to side with Monica on this one (Hah! Now you're in trouble because I /didn't/ use her SCA name! So there!)
I mean I agree with Illadore. The best way to decide whether the group is going to be your thang is to show up to some events (be they small-subgroup events or major get-togethers).
My first SCA experience was a Barony meeting, when we were swarmed by well-wishers, which was a great intro. The first full event was boring because we didn't know what was going on (and it was a low-key event without major activities). But when we went to fighter practices, we /knew/ we were going to be sticking with this.
The point: the only way to see whether it's fun is to try it out. When newcomers arrive at a practice, they are generally treated with enthusiasm. Getting them there for that first try is what's most important.
I think that using SCA names with newcomers is actually more appropriate -- if most people in this group are going to call me Byron, that's what I want the newcomer to expect. It's /less/ confusing.
The point: the only way to see whether it's fun is to try it out. When newcomers arrive at a practice, they are generally treated with enthusiasm. Getting them there for that first try is what's most important.
*ding ding ding* :-)
Once he shows up to a meeting, he can decide for himself. If he would have thought we were cool but the email deterred him, we'll never find out. (Generic "he".)
Names: once at the practice, yes, use SCA names. In that initial contact, use the name by which you'll answer the phone (which for some people is the SCA name, true). I actually tend to sign both names, but I make sure that "Monica" is in there, and not just because most people are intimidated trying to pronounce my SCA name (sigh).
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At some level. It's not the most important thing, but it's an important thing, particularly when the target is younger folks (college students et al; I don't mean schoolkids).
In practice, it varies a lot from local group to local group and from person to person. But even when active recruiting isn't the goal, I've generally understood it to be a shared value that when new people seek us out, we try to help them out. Not at the expense of what we're here to do more generally -- some events or meetings are really bad ideas for newcomers and we aren't likely to try to change those to accommodate -- but otherwise, most folks try to give a newcomer a hand.
(Hmm. That's been my long-held impression, but now I wonder if "most" is accurate.)
Reply
I've asked them why, including the "was it too weird for you?" option and the answer's been the same, "Kinda cool, just don't have time. Not really for me."
I think the SCA, and any weird subculture, requires that the participants have... let's call it the "weird gene" - that thing that makes you go, "COOL" when you instantly see it.
It might be something of a disservice to "ease" people into the SCA -- we're a weird subculture after all and I think we should be upfront about it -- it will allow people to make that "COOL" vs "Not Interested" decisions fairly quickly.
Reply
Reply
I've got a colleague at work who is in the SCA and she was surprised to learn that despite my decent knowledge of major events I'm not a member and never have been interested in same. Much more important for me to have passing knowledge of it... BUT I have to admit that a mention of a choir just made my ears go "perk!" ...
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[1] Actually, I'm "sort of" on the discussion list; I run a moderated feed of that list for interested subscribers, because the discussion list gets a lot of noise sometimes. So I have to see all the noise to do this job, but my subscribers don't. In case you're wondering, I rewrite the reply-to line to force discussion back to the discussion list, so there's no fragmentation.
Reply
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I mean I agree with Illadore. The best way to decide whether the group is going to be your thang is to show up to some events (be they small-subgroup events or major get-togethers).
My first SCA experience was a Barony meeting, when we were swarmed by well-wishers, which was a great intro. The first full event was boring because we didn't know what was going on (and it was a low-key event without major activities). But when we went to fighter practices, we /knew/ we were going to be sticking with this.
The point: the only way to see whether it's fun is to try it out. When newcomers arrive at a practice, they are generally treated with enthusiasm. Getting them there for that first try is what's most important.
I think that using SCA names with newcomers is actually more appropriate -- if most people in this group are going to call me Byron, that's what I want the newcomer to expect. It's /less/ confusing.
Reply
*ding ding ding* :-)
Once he shows up to a meeting, he can decide for himself. If he would have thought we were cool but the email deterred him, we'll never find out. (Generic "he".)
Names: once at the practice, yes, use SCA names. In that initial contact, use the name by which you'll answer the phone (which for some people is the SCA name, true). I actually tend to sign both names, but I make sure that "Monica" is in there, and not just because most people are intimidated trying to pronounce my SCA name (sigh).
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