waning SCA groups?
May. 11th, 2004 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioFor several years now I think our group has been in decline, and that the slope has increased in the last couple years. There is always a danger, of course, that the "glorious early years" I remember were nothing of the sort and that my brain has become adled after (pause to count) 23 years, but I don't think that accounts for all of it. Or, at least, if that's it then such factors are affecting several of my friends, including some who are not dinosaurs.
This is not a whine. I don't expect anyone else to "fix" whatever problems are there. I don't make any promises about my own efforts to fix problems I perceive, either. I'm just trying to analyze it from a sociological/anthropological point of view, because I'm curious about how such things happen, what can be done to reverse trends, and -- most importantly -- what can be done by groups that aren't yet there to improve their odds of not getting there.
What do I mean by decline? Several things:
Events: We don't have nearly as many as we used to. When I began in the SCA there was a local event almost every month; now we have three or four a year. It's gotten harder to run events over the years (more rules, sites less available, changing expectations of what must be provided, etc), and we aren't replenishing event stewards as quickly as we're using them up. Also, a greater proportion of our events are special-interest in some way, so people are more likely to skip an event due to (lack of) interest.
Activity center: It used to be that there was some regular (weekly or monthly) activity that most people showed up at. What that activity is has varied; it has been fighting practice, dance practice, and the monthly business meeting. However, that doesn't happen any more. The fighters go to fighting practice (which is no longer in a visible central location), the dancers go to dance practice, and very few people go to the monthly business meeting. Nothing else has arisen to fill the niche. More people go longer without encountering people from outside their immediate activity groups than did a decade ago.
Energy: Simply put, there doesn't seem to be as much as there used to be. With the decline in energy comes more of a resistance to new ideas and new ways of doing things, because change requires work. More people are more firmly set in their ways and are not interested in different perspectives. While this may be my "pet issue", I note that a decade ago when the corporation made an unwise rule the members of our barony were enthusiastic about finding ways to minimize the impact; when the corporation made a very similar rule two years ago, most people either shrugged or embraced the rule, to the point of being actively hostile to people who wanted to explore other (legal) procedures. That's not the only example; it's just the one that comes immediately to mind.
Cross-fertilization: Partly, but not entirely, because of that missing central activity, people don't interact as much outside their immediate groups. People hang out with their friends and with the other people who attend the same activities, but people from different groups are less likely to undertake projects together than they once were. This also makes it hard for newcomers to break into the (larger) group; they see a bunch of little groups and aren't sure if they're welcome in any of them. (This is my read on it, anyway. Some newcomers have certainly told me they feel unwelcome, but they haven't articulated it.)
In summary, then, I think we're seeing a decline in activity, a decline in new blood, and a decline in new ideas.
The decline in new blood has two components: recruiting and retention. It's true that when our fighting practice was central and visible we picked up some new people that way, but I'm not sure how much of a factor that is now. Most of our new members are college students, and we still do some organized visible activities on those campuses. I think the college students know about us, though having a weekly fighting practice on the lawn is likely more valuable than a twice-yearly gathering on the lawn and a weekly dance session in a classroom.
I don't have a good handle on how many people are showing up, checking us out once, and going away, now versus years ago. I suspect that more of the people who check us out go away than used to, because we don't come across as very welcoming, but that's just a hunch. And remember, being welcoming is only part of the answer: we have to have things for them to do, events for them to go to, if we expect them to stick around.
I think an additional issue is our demographics. Our barony has aged and produced families, and we haven't brought in a like number of younger members. A 19-year-old college kid typically doesn't want to hang out with a bunch of 40-somethings with kids; we need to close the gap so there are more 20-somethings and 30-somethings (including many who are single and sans kids) so the students will see people "sort of" like them. I'm not sure how we get there, though; we didn't catch the change early enough. And unfortunately, it can be a hot-button issue if not handled very delicately; some hyper parents will see "we need more young people" as "they don't want us and our kids around, those unfriendly bastards!", and that's not it at all. It's about providing an environment that is hospitable to the people we hope to recruit, and the people we hope to recruit are college students -- because they're young and energetic and willing to try new things, and are just the sorts of people who can breathe new life into a group. Besides, mundane 40-somethings with kids aren't good recruiting candidates. Consider: how many of us would join the SCA if we were encountering it for the first time now, rather than when in college like most of us did? I'm not sure I would unless a lot of my friends were already involved.
The SCA, like many organizations, is not just a group for people who share a common interest; it's also a mini-society, a social network and source of interesting people. I think that as we age and get more established in life, we need such groups less -- absent extraordinary circumstances like moving to a new city or facing a disruption in an existing group. (This may be part of why some of my Methodist friends feel so betrayed by recent events -- not only are they potentially being pushed out of their churches, but are also being pushed out of their social groups. This has happened in many religious and fraternal groups over the years, of course.)
There may be factors at work in the larger SCA community,
too. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
herooftheage pointed out that organizations
that survive ten years or more and don't become connected
to a particular city tend to die out around the death of
everyone who ever met a founder (generally lasting 50-75
years). The SCA is now 38 years old. Is this a factor?
I don't know.
No answers here -- just possibly-flawed observations and speculation.
random musings
Date: 2004-05-11 07:21 pm (UTC)- dance practice, in it's look and feel, has changed dramatically. when it was on the drill deck, or in the UC, people could be social and watch the dancers, intermittently participate, etc. now, those being social are banished to a hallway - much less inviting.
- there is a bit of unapproachability now - and a lot of that has to do with the fact that many more people are titled/awarded, from my perspective. it's daunting to hear from people you consider your peers (elsewhere) "oh, just do lots of work in the kitchen and maybe someday you will get an AoA"
- there is a lot of ramp-up for newbies, and people in college have more free/adaptable time than most working adults.
- if both members of a couple are not interested, it becomes a matter of time invested in a hobby spent without your partner; it's not really something your SO can really be 'peripherally' involved in. if he or she has little interest, events are (shock!) boring.
just my $.02, thought I'd offer some fodder for rumination. :)
Re: random musings
Date: 2004-05-11 11:21 pm (UTC)Youch. Good point.
Re: random musings
Date: 2004-05-12 06:56 am (UTC)dance practice, in it's look and feel, has changed dramatically. when it was on the drill deck, or in the UC, people could be social and watch the dancers, intermittently participate, etc. now, those being social are banished to a hallway - much less inviting.
That's a good point -- one room large enough to support socializing and dancing concurrently would work better. I wonder why my early dance practices worked so well; we held them in one of the large classrooms in Porter Hall (probably 125C), which isn't really large enough to support dance + socializing. Were we that much smaller then? Maybe; I remember a fair number of people sitting on the windowsills and such during dances, so they were probably chatting quietly. I think at times we also reserved an adjacent room for spillover, but I don't remember that working especially well. I think it mostly turned into a place to dump coats and instrument cases.
I wonder what stops dance practice from being held in one of the ballrooms in the university center. CMU policy, I presume; we've had dance practice in the building before (smaller rooms), so maybe they just won't let groups use the ballrooms under ordinary circumstances?
there is a bit of unapproachability now - and a lot of that has to do with the fact that many more people are titled/awarded, from my perspective.
Ouch. Yeah, when I was getting started we weren't really on the kingdom's radar much; we were the backwater that they visited once a year for Pennsic, but that was pretty much it. We had few peers and not many people even with kingdom awards. This produced an interesting effect for me: I was sompletely surprised by my AoA, which I received after three years of steady participation. It just didn't occur to me that the royalty who were coming to our event would do that. Now, of course, the barony and many of its people are more prominent in the kingdom, and new people have expectations set (sometimes inappropriately) about awards so there's room to get upset when they don't happen, and the award system was never fair and balanced to begin with. Sigh. Don't know how to fix that either.
Re: random musings
Date: 2004-05-12 11:09 am (UTC)Space and time. We desperately try to get the ballrooms but they're almost always taken.
Re: random musings
Date: 2004-05-12 11:05 am (UTC)now, those being social are banished to a hallway - much less inviting.
This is a constant tension for us. We carefully try to keep dance practice as both a social occasion and a practical class. It's been known to unbalance in both directions: in particular, sometimes the chatter can get overwhelming, which can cause exile to the hallway. But we generally prefer to keep the discussion in the same room, but keep it quiet and try to drag the chatterers into the dancing as much as possible.
there is a bit of unapproachability now - and a lot of that has to do with the fact that many more people are titled/awarded, from my perspective.
This is why I downplay the award thing at pretty much every opportunity when hanging out with the newer members -- I probably go a bit overboard there, but I'm far more concerned about the effect you describe. It helps a lot that the "young social crowd" has a pretty smooth spectrum of experience, from first-year newbies to a couple of Laurels...
Re: random musings
Date: 2004-05-19 12:22 pm (UTC)Part of the problem is the varying requirements that each kingdom/group puts on the level of an award. In the East, an AoA is usually a fair bit of work, and takes several years. In the West it can take a far shorter time and many are awarded in less than a year.
One friend who moved west, experienced this with a vengence. He was just doing his basic level of contributions, cooking in the kitchen, co-autocrating the events, etc. when the crown found out that he did not have an AoA yet. Two hours later... they dragged him out of the kitchen and into court. :)
I do think that the East is a bit on the long side though, and Carolingia simply due to its size and the difficulty in recognizing new people and their contributions, amongst the crowd , tends to be on the long side for the East.
John
Re: random musings
Date: 2004-05-20 06:17 am (UTC)Only thing for it is to write letters. Most recommendation letters do wind up turning into AoAs...
-- Justin, 5+ years
Re: random musings
Date: 2004-05-20 06:48 am (UTC)In the East it tends to mean that you have been around and you have contributed enough to get noticed.