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[SCA] newcomers at general meetings
I'm curious how other SCA groups with predictable influxes (this usually means students) handle the introduction. We have demos at the beginning of the school year on our two major college campuses, so the first general meeting in September doubles as the "talk to the people from the demos who were curious enough to come to the meeting" meeting.
What often happens at ours is that each officer and each guild head gets up and gives a spiel about that particular area. There are about 30 such people, which IMO is at least 20 too many to speak at such a meeting. Even if you limit them to two minutes per, that's an hour of just sales pitches. Some people will not be limited, and we're collectively too polite to shut them up. I fear that we drive away people who would otherwise come back. I've seen this scenario happen year after year; some years are better than others, of course, depending on who's running the meeting, but it's a standing problem.
I have yet to meet a college freshman (the bulk of these attendees) who, at the first meeting, will care one whit about heraldic bureaucracy (commenting sessions), children's activities, becoming a first-aid officer (let 'em come to a fighting practice or event first), setting up tournmanet brackets (ditto), awards, or several other things that usually get covered. By definition, if you've gotten them interested, they'll have plenty of other opportunities to hear about such things, once they have context and interest. And there's a newsletter and a web site anyway.
At various times I've suggested to our officers either telling some positions they don't get to make pitches at all at that meeting, or choosing 4-5 offices/guilds a month to highlight and doing 'em all over the course of the academic year. So far it hasn't happened. A couple times I've quietly suggested to specific people that, hey, the meeting's long, and would you consider delaying your spiel? Apparently I have not mastered the right diplomatic skills, as that hasn't tended to work either.
So what do the rest of y'all in big groups do?
Our meeting is tomorrow night. Since that's also Rosh Hashana, I won't be there to see how it plays out this year. And anyway, it's probably too late to try to do anything now; this would best be done as consciousness-raising at the officers' meeting earlier in the month. So, thinking ahead to next year, what might I be able to do to encourage my group's officers to think about this issue differently?
(I am aware that several members of my local group read this journal and this might look like some sort of passive-aggressive BS. It's not. I'm interested in ideas, from anyone.)
What often happens at ours is that each officer and each guild head gets up and gives a spiel about that particular area. There are about 30 such people, which IMO is at least 20 too many to speak at such a meeting. Even if you limit them to two minutes per, that's an hour of just sales pitches. Some people will not be limited, and we're collectively too polite to shut them up. I fear that we drive away people who would otherwise come back. I've seen this scenario happen year after year; some years are better than others, of course, depending on who's running the meeting, but it's a standing problem.
I have yet to meet a college freshman (the bulk of these attendees) who, at the first meeting, will care one whit about heraldic bureaucracy (commenting sessions), children's activities, becoming a first-aid officer (let 'em come to a fighting practice or event first), setting up tournmanet brackets (ditto), awards, or several other things that usually get covered. By definition, if you've gotten them interested, they'll have plenty of other opportunities to hear about such things, once they have context and interest. And there's a newsletter and a web site anyway.
At various times I've suggested to our officers either telling some positions they don't get to make pitches at all at that meeting, or choosing 4-5 offices/guilds a month to highlight and doing 'em all over the course of the academic year. So far it hasn't happened. A couple times I've quietly suggested to specific people that, hey, the meeting's long, and would you consider delaying your spiel? Apparently I have not mastered the right diplomatic skills, as that hasn't tended to work either.
So what do the rest of y'all in big groups do?
Our meeting is tomorrow night. Since that's also Rosh Hashana, I won't be there to see how it plays out this year. And anyway, it's probably too late to try to do anything now; this would best be done as consciousness-raising at the officers' meeting earlier in the month. So, thinking ahead to next year, what might I be able to do to encourage my group's officers to think about this issue differently?
(I am aware that several members of my local group read this journal and this might look like some sort of passive-aggressive BS. It's not. I'm interested in ideas, from anyone.)
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*Cringe*. We've made that particular mistake (indeed, I've made it), but I learned better a good 15 years ago. Introductions should be short, sweet, and strictly focused on what makes the SCA fun. They should provide enough information that the novice knows that there is cool stuff out there to look up, but should *never* get too deeply into details. And yes, two minutes per guild is way, way too much detail. (My rule of thumb is 2 *sentences* per guild, sometimes less.)
In general, a dog and pony show is more than you want at this stage. You want one or two people doing the talking, providing an *outline* of the local activities, but mostly focused on the common stuff that everyone needs to know about and no one bothers to talk about: What is an Event? How do I go about getting dinner? What are Practices and Guilds? (Not which ones do you have -- what *are* they?) What is your time commitment? What do you need to procure for yourself, and what can you borrow? Maybe talk *very* briefly about persona, just to reassure folks that they don't have to come up with a whole LARPish identity to come to their first event. Try to think like a novice, and look at the SCA from the outside, as a club that is kind of cool but rather intimidating: make it friendly, make it *welcoming*, and make clear what they need to know to *survive*.
Honestly, I think the Barony business meeting is a terrible setting for this -- there are way too many people there, and too many want to talk. I generally prefer to have only about as many experienced folks as I expect there to be novices (maybe less), and skew them towards peers of the novices. (Hence, I'm attending fewer college intro sessions myself these days, simply because I'm getting a little old for it.) It should be organized and planned out, and the total speechifying time should be no more than 20 minutes. After that, the healthiest thing is to encourage some roundtable discussion, getting the questions from the novices and answering them honestly. (But not *excessively* honestly.)
In a perfect world, it's best to have an activity or two right there, to break the ice and get across the meme that this is a participatory organization. Having one or two activities show off is fine, but they should be chosen based on what is cool and exciting. Showing off heraldry just isn't exciting to most folks; getting to swing a sword at someone in armor is. And let's be honest: the social ice-breaking is the important part. The most effective ice-breaker I've ever seen had nothing to do with period. It was at my senior-year intro meeting; the incoming Provost (Seneschal-equivalent) spent the first 20 minutes of the meeting quietly blowing up balloons while other talked. And then she started throwing them at people. Totally unperiod, but it killed all the tension in the room.
If you haven't seen it before, you may want to check out The Provost's Handbook, my booklet on how to run a Carolingian Borough. It's a bit college-specific, and a bit Carolingia-specific, but about half of it is general advice on the various stages of recruiting in the college environment. It spends about a page on these first meetings specifically.
Hope this helps; wish I'd noticed it sooner, since I may be too late by now. Feel free to pick my brains further on it...