Ramblings on Collegium that make sense to me

[duchessletitia]

Frankly the number of people who attend this Collegium was shockingly low.  The fighters are not the only ones who do not show up.  We are not getting the new Arts people.  We are not getting the new Service people.  We are not getting the experienced Arts and Service people.  We are getting a very small insular group of mostly Peers who have hung

Comments

[kareina]

I can't speak for the West, but I had the budget to attend either Drachenwald Crown, or Drachenwald Kingdom University, and I choose Crown, even though I wasn't entering the lists, and didn't know anyone entering. Why? Because for me I'd rather go to an event to socialize. At a University or Collegium based event there are many hours in the day where I would have to be quiet and pay attention to the teacher, instead of visiting with people. When I was new to the SCA I loved going to classes, but lately I'm pretty happy with my ability to self-teach. I can find pretty much everything I need to know about any project idea on the internet, on my own, at my own pace. I don't need a teacher to look it up for me. I wonder if the information age and the ease of internet research has made in-person classes less appealing to others, as well? Or is it just me?

[duchessletitia]

Honestly, I would have been surprised to see you there. You both have way to much on your plate at this moment.

[gormflaith]

This last Collegium my decision not to attend was strictly timing. Too many events in October, and my mother's birthday.

[duchessletitia]

A lot of people had other things going on. But we normally go. The last few Colligium have had low attendance. What I am asking is what can we do to get new people to show up. What can we do to advertise and make it sexy.

1 out of the 4 above is not as hard as it might seem.

[gormflaith]

The class conflict can be dealt with by scheduling the times *after* the students sign up for them, but it does require the complete class list with descriptions to be available and at least 95% of the students to sign up well before the event.
Having done this as a day job when I worked for LHC, I know it can be done, but scheduling adults who only get 4 of the 5 classes they want is not as easy as scheduling school children you only see once a year if ever again ;-)

[mamapduck]

Boycotting Collegium-cons.

Pretending that it is perfectly affordable for people to truck out and day trip these events is disingenuous. (I got snapped at by a royal when I mentioned that cost was a factor last time.) I cannot afford to spend the money on gas, bridge, parking, hotel room, food, site fee... No. I spend that sort of money on one hotel event a year (12th Night) and as long as the people running Collegium keep doing this, I will be absent.

I don't fight. I do some A and S. I might be what you think of as the target audience, but I've been blown off when I've spoken, so to hell with it. Maat and Harmony and Jehanne are all available at regular events to teach stuff I'm interested in and I'll just do that.