SCA participation (ramble)

[cellio]

I've been thinking lately about my evolving participation in the SCA.

It's hard to balance SCA events and being a somewhat-observant Jew -- a fact I knew intellectually for a long time, but that's not the same as living it. I now go to very few non-local events, because it usually means taking Friday off from work to arrive at a hotel (with food) before sundown Friday, and I use enough vacation days for holidays and Pennsic that I'm not going to do that unless the event is very special. All events now get evaluated through the "is this worth sacrificing some of Shabbat?" filter, with the schedules of local events being compared to service times. I find that even for "just Shabbat", as opposed to a holiday, I'm reluctant to miss services. (I will still ride in a car on Shabbat if the car was going there anyway, in case you're wondering, but I am hesitant to drive. So a corrollary is that I'm not just going to drive to the event after services; Dani also has to be willing to follow that schedule.)

Shabbat restricts some activities that occur at events. An upcoming event is, essentially, a shopping event -- something I can't do on Shabbat. Since the event otherwise has little of interest for me (it's also a children's event, not my thing at all), I'm going to skip it. That means I'm skipping a choir performance, but it's just not worth $15 or so to show up just for that. It's not the money; it's the cost-benefit analysis.

And then there's the part that has nothing to do with Judaism: the SCA, institutionally, has gotten much less friendly and flexible over the years. We have a burgeoning bureaucracy filled with make-work. We have more and more objectionable rules coming down from On High. And we have fewer people willing to actually think about these issues and question them. We're getting awfully close to "how high?" as the response to "jump!", and that's not the SCA I knew 20 years ago.

I live in the home group of the "three bad peers" (so dubbed by the then-president of the corporation). We were some of the prominent folks who challenged the corporation to open its books during a period of questionable financial dealings. (And yeah, that's a personal "we"; I'm one of the three.) When the corporation made a particularly annoying rule, we were among those who found legal ways to dodge the issue. (We did not simply say "shove off"; we worked within the system.)

About a year ago the corporation reinstituted the same rule. This time, they even provided the workaround. (It's the same workaround we used before.) They have said explicitly that it's ok to structure events to avoid the new rule, using this workaround.

I expected to see lots of events take advantage of that. Instead, prominent people in the SCA argue that it is "dishonorable" to do that, and several autocrats within my own group have declined to consider structuring events this way. So far, only one autocrat has done an event that way, and she had implementation problems that had nothing to do with the policy itself.

I'm not saying all of this to start an argument over this policy. Rather, I'm disappointed by how much my local group has changed in the last ten years. I sometimes think that I'm the only person living here who actually cares about the larger picture. I know that's not true, but that's how it feels sometimes.

I don't work on events much any more. Autocratting poses Shabbat challenges (and I got a little crispy before that), but I would like to cook another feast if anyone were interested in planning a Sunday event (a rare thing, but not unheard-of). But there's another complication, too: I feel that I cannot do anything to actively support an event that follows this new rule, because I think the rule is that wrong, and as I've said, the trend in my group seems to be in favor of the objectionable policy. So while I used to show up at events and help out for part of the day, now I just show up. That should make things easier -- more time to have fun and less time to work -- except that I have a strong-enough work ethic that it's hard to just sit there and not help.

But I like the society part of the SCA, even if the bureaucracy gets annoying. I really enjoy Pennsic. I enjoy most events. I enjoy singing, and dancing, and other activities that are best done in connection with events. A lot of my friends are in the SCA.

I'm not going anywhere, but my participation is definitely changing and I'm not sure where things will end up when everything settles.

Comments

[jducoeur]

So far, only one autocrat has done an event that way, and she had implementation problems that had nothing to do with the policy itself.

Hmm. We're actually doing it a lot locally. As would be expected of Carolingia, we had a big long debate about what to do with the NMS; the final decision was to allow the autocrat discretion of whether to formally charge (and thus pay the NMS) or to do donation-only (and not). About half the events seem to be going donation-only; we're still working out the kinks, but I think we can make it work. We also set up a fund for paying the NMS fee, which is more or less silently invoked if someone chooses not to pay it.

(We seriously considered going collectively ballistic, and doing something like outright refusing to pay. But most folks felt that it was a little too dangerous to the health of the Barony.)

So it's a pain in the ass, but we're managing to mostly shield the locals from the NMS. Of course, that matters more here, with a much younger and newer population on average than most large branches. And many of our events happen on college campuses, which are typically very cheap.

if anyone were interested in planning a Sunday event (a rare thing, but not unheard-of)

Sunday events have been getting, if not routine, at least reasonably normal around here. chaiya has been trying to keep the issue at the back of peoples' minds, and encouraging autocrats to consider Sunday events, with the result that one of our annual events (May Day) is now usually Sunday, and very occasionally others are.

There's some resistance to the idea (it's harder to really do evening activities on a Sunday), but folks seem to have accepted that it's worth considering, which is a good step.

[cellio]

the final decision was to allow the autocrat discretion of whether to formally charge (and thus pay the NMS) or to do donation-only (and not)

We have the same policy here, but there seems to be some amount of unofficial pressure from some parts to not take risks. So we haven't had a good test case yet. When the policy came down we had one event coming up (already published) whose autocrat strongly objected to the policy, so she changed the financing of the event mid-stream. But it was planned as a small event at an expensive site (I think break-even was $10/person for site fee, not counting food), and she wouldn't put a donation jar out at the event (so you had to find her directly), and she announced loudly that the barony would incur no loss and she would cover it herself if needed, which may have discouraged donations. I would still like to see a more normal test case here: general-purpose event, site costs closer to $3-4 per person, announced from the start as donation-funded, jar/hat/whatever at the event for those inclined, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if Carolingia is doing much more to alleviate this than any other group in the SCA. You guys ought to collect some wisdom for autocrats who are thinking about this in other groups but are timid.

Of course, that matters more here, with a much younger and newer population on average than most large branches.

Here too, though we don't have as many students -- either proportionally or absolutely -- as you do yet. We seem to be having a strong year for the college groups this year, though, and I don't want to see those people disappear. (Our college campuses are not so good as event sites, unfortunately, due to funny food rules. We do have many of our meetings and practices on the campuses, though.)