Recruitment vs high standards

[msmemory_archive]

This is a half-developed notion. I have this theory percolating around my brain that the SCA's recent higher standards in many areas are in fact a barrier to recruiting new members.

Thinking back, when I joined the SCA, it was very much a do-it-yourself group. Nobody minded if you made a polyester velour tunic, or made a surcoat out of brocade curtains from a yard sale. We all politely ignored the pickle bucket armor, webbing folding chairs, and nylon tents, instead collectively imagining ourselves lords and ladies in samite and fur, living in bright pavilions, sitting on thrones. College students, young adults, and the poor could feel welcome, for their fantasy was just as good as anyone else's.

These days, all the trappings are available to anyone with enough money. You want turnshoes, sheepskin bedding, snowy linen robes, shiny armour? Just plunk down enough dollars and Poof! instant status. That random 19-year-old scholarship student, who would have been a shabby but respected herald in 1982? Well, now he's just shabby.

We've recreated class differences, and based them on modern incomes. No wonder we aren't bringing in or retaining the peripheral, young, or poor members who historically have been the SCA's lifeblood.

ETA: I'm not claiming innocence here either: I am at least as guilty as most of spending my "look! no kids!" income on finery while that early garb molders in the attic.

Comments

[dreda.livejournal.com]

the peripheral, young, or poor members who historically have been the SCA's lifeblood.


To digress, however, I want to poke at this a little. Admittedly I have not been doing this as long as many of my esteemed elders, but I have been at it for fifteen years, and I confess that in two kingdoms and three groups I have not ever really seen this to be the case, at least not so centrally as to be called "lifeblood."

(That, and the whole topic of recruitment and retention is complicated for me. For all that the rhetorical meme of "finding a home" and the "welcoming SCA for newcomers" is so common, I never in my newcomer life experienced it. I just muddled along and figured it out myself. It makes me a little impatient sometimes, I fear.)

[tpau]

I think that may be a Carolingia thing. borough members have been predominantly where our new members come from i think, and college students are young and poor on average.

I know when i joined, i was made feel incredibly welcome, but more importantly there was someone around who told me how to do this. I had no clue. they said "Here all yo newbies, come this way we will do this together!" And it was good.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

I think, frankly, that the part about borough members is kind of a durable myth. During the year we were chatelaines, the overwhelming majority of new folks were suburbanites.

I think the having someone to tell people how things work is very cool.

[tpau]

I think the college student thing stopped right aroudnthe time we started hemorrhaging members.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Dunno - that was really the first time I was in a position to have an explicit idea of exactly who was coming and going.

I wonder how college branches are doing elsewhere, and how it correlates to the individual colleges' socioeconomic brackets.

[jducoeur]

No offense intended, but you simply weren't around for the heyday. Admittedly, when I *started* the Boroughs were in a downslide, but by the time I was a junior, we had at least 40 heavily-active members in the boroughs. And I do mean heavily-active, just the people who were doing SCA a couple of times a week: the total borough population, including the fringies, was closer to a hundred. Duncharloch alone was fielding 20 people at events. It was never *quite* that strong again, but we really did have (on average) seven active boroughs with around 10 members each until about a dozen years ago, with something like 20-30 serious novices each year.

Carolingia has changed a *lot* over the years. When I started, the average age was probably around 25, and the founding members were still only 30ish. Now, with the average age up in the mid-thirties (or so), and lots of people over 50, it's a very, very different group, and the boroughs aren't nearly as central. I mourn that -- I think we've lost an enormous amount of energy and vitality as a result -- but it isn't clear to me that it can be changed...

[(Anonymous)]

I think perhaps I was not clear. I fully believe everything you just said - the reason I said "durable" is that I perceive a continued belief that active boroughs are not only central to but essential to the continued life of the Barony. I do not believe that to be true, and I believe that its persistence hampers our thinking.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was me before the coffee.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

The boroughs were *huge* back when I joined (1987), both in number of members, and in importance. And by the time I left (about ten years later), that was no longer true. It saddens me to learn that the boroughs never resurged after I was gone.