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

[ladypeyton.livejournal.com]

I've thought the same thing for quite a long time.

[the-nita.livejournal.com]

We've recreated class differences, and based them on modern incomes.

Welcome to the middle age of just about any group that started off with a bunch of poor university students. Depressing, but accurate.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

It is a gimme that higher standards are exclusionary. The SCA's success, and its concomitant academic disrespect, come from its low barriers to entry.

While I am nowhere as active as you are, I've still found the SCA to be largely a do-it-yourself group, with tremendous access to resources that don't require money. When I was younger, I noticed that students often had better kit than their elders, since they had more time.

I find the "cash for flash" availability to a form of parity, frankly.

Just another view. I wonder if you are confusing Carolingia's higher standards of excellence with the rest of the world?

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

If the problem were Carolingian only, I'd expect other regions not to be having trouble growing the membership numbers, but anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

Years ago, I was at an event. I was waiting by the edge of a tournament at a Coronation - so that as soon as it ended I could go get my territorial baron and baroness for an obligation of theirs.

I was talking to a new person, describing things, and he asked me "are your baron and baroness rich?"

I replied that it was the case of yes, and no. That my baron and baroness combined earned less money than I did alone. But that in the Society wealth was measured in friends, and those who would "do for another", willingly. And, in that respect, my Baron and Baroness were very rich indeed.

I've watched people try and buy themselves success in the SCA. They do dress well.... and die trying.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Ah.

If this were a membership issue, I'd probably relate it to age, era, and gas prices.

[baronessv.livejournal.com]

I agree, on several levels. I definitely felt put in my place at the Indian high-authenticity dinner at Pennsic this year. Many members of that community have good careers, houses, etc., and can afford pearls and gold (or even gold-esque) jewelry and elaborately woven silk sarees. While I did wear my nicest and most period cotton saree, I felt distinctly under-dressed. I did, incidentally, go out and buy $50 worth of pearls later on so I'll feel a little bit more up to snuff, but that was pretty much the entirety of my Pennsic shopping budget :/

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

"Era" may in fact be the true explanation. The SCA's time may be passing, as other organizations' times have come and gone in their turns. Culturally and collectively, we may have moved on from the hippie DIY days to the yuppie days.

[silme.livejournal.com]

In Drachenwald, there are re-enactment groups that are even more accurate than the SCA and fancier -- far more expensive than the SCA. One big difference, though, is that they don't tend to run as many events per year as the SCA do, and they focus on a very specific time period. Also, they usually are paid for their performances at castles and various period places. (One reason we can't use Hampton Court, for example, is that we're not a group like The Tudors that work with only one time period.)

But I do agree. What used to get by in the SCA tends to be 'shabby' nowadays. It's become a very expensive hobby. Someone in my area bought some amazing armour not too long ago. I heard he ordered it from Eastern Europe, so it probably was cheaper than had he been an American living in the US buying it from someone stateside. But still, when I heard how much he paid, I was shocked. The SCA isn't a cheap hobby, and here in Drachenwald, where even getting to events can be costly (petrol is running over US $7.00 per US gallon right now, and we need to fly a lot to events), it seems particularly high-priced.

[the-nita.livejournal.com]

Fair enough - perhaps we have different experiences. While I agree that those whom have friends they can rely and trust are wealthy indeed, I've seen an awful lot of success stories arrive on expensive garb & gear....

[dreda.livejournal.com]

Thinking about this makes me uncomfortable, and hence I suspect you've hit something pretty squarely. Perhaps along the same lines as the fact that virtuously eating organically, sustainably, and locally remains an extremely income-stratified thing.

So is the answer to not eat sustainably, as it were? Or is the answer to make eating sustainably more accessible? It's not an easy thing to answer or solve.

[tpau]

i'd think the answer is to not stress eating organically as anything other then a personal choice, and to not make the folks not doing it feel unwelcome and bad. which we currently do (dropping out of the metaphor)

[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.)

[marysdress.livejournal.com]

Expand the idea. Is it not just the high level of the cost of the trappings but also the high level of what qualifies as "good" and "period" - at least in some activities.

Admittedly I've seen and sat through some stuff that reminds me the SCA is still a pretty friendly place to perform or make things that will embarrass the heck out of you years down the road but... It strikes me that entry level has been kicked up a notch where before borderline sucking but trying was more fun.

[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]

And I think that it is largely an implicit "making people feel that way." The harshest explicit thing I have ever personally witnessed is people offering to teach someone how to make or find something better, and sometimes using that particular language. Which means that we congratulate ourselves on not being explicit, and forget about how much implicit reactions impact.

[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]

oh i have been told, numerous times, that my 100% cotton tunics are just not acceptable. In those words. Not period, not good, do better. I have been doing this for 10 years i can shrug and tell the person to screw off (even if in my head only) but i have watched people tell a newbie college student that they must buy 7/yard linen and not the 3/yard cotton or 1/yard cotton-poly. And yeah, linen is better, but there are ways to say that and there are ways not to. and sometimes it is better to not say anything at all. and we can't. because as a barony we are very helpful. and we help in a way sometimes that makes students not come back.

[tpau]

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

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Yes, please, continue, elaborate.

I do worry that we set the bar high for all kinds of things - even as simple as what dishes to bring to the Falling Leaves potluck. Which may make us better informed and better scholars, but not more hospitable or attractive.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

because as a barony we are very helpful. and we help in a way sometimes that makes students not come back.


No doubt. And everyone's response will come out of different places in their past - for example, I wished for a long time that someone had given me better advice when I was making my first garb, so that I would have learned that if I made it out of fabric that was a little better it would have lasted longer and I would have spent less money continuing to make stuff that wore out. But then again, I wished that when I was a little older. Sometimes things seem very straightforward when you're 18.

[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.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

And to continue that thought, not only do things seem very straightforward when you're 18, but it is very hard for 35-year-olds not to try and impose the things they wish had been done differently when they were 18. I am surely guilty of it, and why should a current 18-year-old be any more interested in it than I would have been?

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, we would be attractive to a different subset of students, although, granted, probably a smaller subset.

I wonder if this is going on in groups that are 1: not in a large metro area and 2: not one with a lot of colleges and universities?

[baronessv.livejournal.com]

Still thinking about this one. I have to wonder if it wouldn't help (at least locally) to spread Carolingia's activities out a bit more? We do a lot of MIT-area stuff, but that's only going to reach a small number of students.

Random Idea #1: Declare (or hold) a local event "Bring a Newbie Day". Something like Falling Leaves where there's fighting and interesting stuff to look at (as in, I do not think Novice Schola is the best venue for this idea.) Heck, you could even offer a spiffy token (I would donate my home-made pins to this idea) to everyone who manages to bring a new person (handed out at troll or something) or every new person. Or something. And have some sort of totally hands-on activity for newcomers, kind of like a grown-up version of the "draw on your own shield" you sometimes see for kids.