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

[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.

[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]

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?

[tpau]

I think that is the big problem. we lost a lot of the borough members, and now that all we are are "older" folks, we cant' get borough members because well, we try to give advice rather then be cool dudes to hang with. it is a bit circular...

[jducoeur]

Oh, definitely. I've always suspected that this problem was going to hit us (as it does so many clubs). It's why I've always stressed recruitment at the colleges, because once you have a hiccup, it's very hard to recover...

[jducoeur]

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.

If you see this happen when I'm around, please tell me so that I can gently apply the 300-pound hammer, okay? (Not a conversation I enjoy or am especially great at, but that can't really be tolerated.)