It has oft been put forth that the SCA is a target rich recruiting ground for Living History; that the SCA is the springboard 'most' people need to undertake LH, and that many people would do living history rather than the SCA if they only knew LH existed.

So here's the question- has anyone actually tested this theory and actively recruited in the ranks of the SCA? Run an advert in the local newsletter, distributed leaflets at the local A&S night or fighter practice? Recruited by some other means?

Jeff and I (gluttons for punishment that we are) thought we'd test the theory here in SoCal. and run a 1/2 page ad in the local Kingdom newsletter to see what sort of response we'd get. Has anyone tried this approach? If so, what was your experience? Has direct recruitment to any other group proved successful? If so, what group was it and what was the response?

Comments welcome!

Recently we've been approached by re-enactors from other "eras" which we find to be very exciting. Perhaps the Middle Ages is starting to be accepted as a legitimate re-enactment era.

Good luck and let us know how the theory tests out.

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i don't know. maybe it's because south FL is full of freaks. but in all honesty i have only found a very small number of folks that are really interested in LH down here. many people like the idea and drool over our stuff and want to join. they do and then do nothing towards completing a kit or working with the group. thier great enthusiasm is misdirected, resulting in either: a. they get bored and leave, or b. we ask them to leave.

the folks that have actually worked out best for us have been former LH folks from other periods or folks in education.

believe me i can go on about my woes and i have.

Db

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Db

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"The Myth Of the SCA Seeker - Being the True Story of Those Who Grope in the Dark, yet Seek Enlightenment and Truth™"

In the Red Company we would talk about recruitment periodically, and talk *always* came back to what a fertile recruitment ground the SCA was. How these folks were just dying for an alternative to the SCA, if we could only reach them. We'd try outreach and get nothing and the idea would go away for a while. A year later we'd get around to recruitment again, and again the SCA was mentioned. Again we'd try attending events or whatever, nothing would come of it and the idea would subside. This went on for probably 8 years or more. Anytime the lack of success was brought up it always came back to us not trying hard enough, or not the right way, or not long enough, etc. The basic premise was never questioned, only our failure.

Now I see that the members of what used to be The Red Company want to try recruiting in the SCA again. Some of the people have been through as many as 5 or 6 of the trying cycles, yet they still think there's something out there we're missing. I feel like there's something *I'm* missing...

Jeff and I are going to try a print ad and an announcement on the AA. It will be interesting to see what, if anything comes of it. I'll be sure to check in here with periodic updates.

I moved back to the states with an interest in traditional archery—go to organized shoots and keep score kind—but really, just shooting with anyone would do. The only group near me that seemed to have a similar interest was the SCA. The only people around shooting wood bows. They had practice shoots once a month, an annual shoot, and occasionally travel to other events. I went to some monthly shoots, and participated in the annual “dress-up” shoot (with the help of some of your products, and the one and only time I used them, except for last Halloween). During this time, I started asking around, trying to see if anyone was interested in participating in some other organized traditional shoots, but got rather cold responses. Not to bore with details, but the traditional shoots are more varied and fun, and only a few times a year, and I just couldn’t figure out why there was such a lack of interest.

Also, during this time period, just exploring other “history stuff” I got interested in the old fighting manuals, how to use swords and all that. Well, since I just discovered the SCA and the fact that the main thing they do is hit each other with sword-like sticks, I drew what logically would be the conclusion that they would be interested in the historic application of weapons. I went to an event (as an observer, just passing by) and to the local weekly fighter practice, armed with copies of historic manuals and things, to get a feel of the interest. Figure that they must know about these things, or if not, would have an interest in trying it out (such as what the Association of Renaissance Martial Arts does). Again, not to bore with details, they were really not interested in participating in my “game” but really just their “game” (their term for it), and good luck starting your club. Not my intent to “start a club”, just looking for a few folks with similar interests. Thought they may want to do something in addition to what they already do.

What I realized, after hanging out with these folks a bit, was—and this was never explicitly stated, everybody was always nice and polite—that I believe they saw this as competing with their club/game. That if people got involved with another archery organization or another “fighting” organization, they would be less involved in the SCA. This was not a big group, I think I only saw about ten folks at most, and may not be indicative of any other SCA groups.

I haven’t had any contact with them in months. Then again, maybe they just though I was a prat.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Woodcrafter:
I would think that you would have to speak with people individually. There are so many in the SCA that are terrified of LH as being evil cults. While in the SCA, I was warned off many times from my interest in LH, because 'they' use real steel and people die 'for real' all the time...

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I have actually run into that one a few times - namely the idea that if you use a 'real' sword, the people will die. And what is more suprising is that the people who say this actually believe it...

Has anyone ever examined the underlying reason for the SCA vs. LH 'us vs. them' dichotomy? We all know it exists, but *why*? Maybe the mirror only looks one way and I only see it from my side of the fence, but LH appears to be pretty benign, with the attitude, 'do it if you want, don't do it if you don't want'; on the other hand SCA seems to be pretty uptight about it. Any ideas why that is? If we had a better idea, maybe we could figure out why the Great Rift exists. I have to admit to being pretty clueless about what fuels it.

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I think you understand that these are rhetorical questions which are not aimed at you. I question whether it is the cost of the hobby which causes such divisiveness, or something else. Flying, parachuting, scuba diving, skiing, sailing- these are all expensive hobbies, yet noone is railing against or getting bent out of shape over any of these hobbies. I can honestly say I've never seen an 'us vs. them' fight over any of these other hobbies paired together or in conjunction with either the SCA or LH pursuits.

Whether people see LH as a 'rich man's hobby' or not, I think it has to be something else. Let's see if anyone else has any thoughts to offer.

I think woodcrafter hit one nail on the head that recruiting individuals who you come in contact with seems to work to some extent.

The fear that Tim mentioned also seems to exist just look at the thread Charlotte started about SCAers leaving.

If you want to see successfull recruiting of SCA by a re-enactment group look at Vikings-NA and talk to them. In my area and I know in some other areas they have been very successfull but the one thing they have to offer that 15th century hasn't produced yet is an organization with real events for people to focus on with a combat system. I think that until either 15th century in the US as a whole or even a region can do that then you won't get many recruits.

Something else to think about that I picked up in a conversation about recruiting with an Ausie about 6 months ago as he was talking about their newest batch is that they only get 1 real future member out of about every 5 recruits.

Due to the nature of doing Cavalry based stuff ya'll need to get the word out to a specific group of people and an advertisement might help there or might turn up nothing. I might suggest another place to put an add if you are looking for horse people is a regional horse publication.

Brent

quote:

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Originally posted by Brent E Hanner:
...but the one thing they have to offer that 15th century hasn't produced yet is an organization with real events for people to focus on with a combat system. I think that until either 15th century in the US as a whole or even a region can do that then you won't get many recruits.
[ 07-09-2005: Message edited by: Brent E Hanner ]

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Why does it always take combat to get people interested? Or does it take combat to get SCA people interested? Aren't there plenty of SCA people who don't do combat? Chevalier is not a combat group, and military is only a small part of the overall picture for us from now on. Even when we ran the Red Company, our impression only minimally involved combat. There was plenty of opportunity for non-combat activities.

Is it all about the violence??

Or are you saying that the only people who want to do reenactment are those who want to do combat?

Admittedly, Brent hit it right on the head, i'll bow out now as i really don't have the experience to place a constructive comment.

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I also think the combat aspect may attract people to/keep people in the SCA, combat doesn't explain the hostility between LH/SCA. The underlying hostility is what I'm trying to get at, so that it can be addressed.

Gwen

quote:

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Originally posted by Chevalier:
Why does it always take combat to get people interested? Or does it take combat to get SCA people interested? Aren't there plenty of SCA people who don't do combat?

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Actually, having played on both sides (and there shouldn't be a "side"), the majority of the interest is usually combat. It's usually where the partying is, the extreme sport play is, where the hang out is, and where the politics is.

HOWEVER, there are many many great people who do other things such as archery, A&S, etc. But even a good % of these people looked at combat and either decided it wasn't for them, or were not invited/encouraged to participate.

What would likely be an obstacle or intimidation to you? A place where starter gear is offered and cheap armour (cringe plastic...) is readily offered. Or... you need to drop $10K to properly get a historically reasonable harness, all the clothing and weapons, etc....

I think that the SCA can be a good recruiting ground, but I don't this that we (on the "LH side") have done nearly enough to help encourage, to help with starter gear, to find ways for interested people to come in, experience what LH'rs do, and see if they are willing to financially commit to being part of LH. Let's be honest, if to start attending SCA events you can either make most of it yourself or go spend $300 maybe? Or to attend LH events and meet a recognized guideline, you have to go spend $1000 to $1500. What materials, website introductions, or publications (handouts) have any of us done to really and properly do an outreach recruitment program successfully? And are we ready to accept and help new people wanting to join or are the recruits going to flounder not sure of what they need or what should they do?

The other area is that we don't do enough weekly or monthly learning/exploration activities. Doing a once a month presentation is great consistency, but conceptually, we should be doing stuff every other week or something to include new people and just offer some group social activities. (dinner, refreshements, learning)

I'm faily confident in stating that every group in the US offers tremendous recruit support, much more than I ever experienced in the SCA. I've clothed, housed and fed any number of recruits so they could try what we do with no investment whatsoever. Heck, I've shipped loaner clothes and supplies out to your side of the country at my expense so recruits could try out WA/Greys/MoW events at no cost.

You're on the LH side of the fence, so I chide you for your statements regarding recruit support because I know you know better. Still, if you know better and will still make that observation, we're doing something wrong because even you believe there's no support infrastructure. Can you suggest a mechanism for getting the word out that there is a lot of help in the LH community for recruits?

All good points so far but I'm going to bring us around to the hostility issue again, as I've come to believe we'll never get past it until we understand what drives it.

never heard of any deaths due to live steel in what I concider LH. however there are many groups at least in south FL that bill themselves as LH but are. they primarily fight with steel and they are not safe, i.e. weapons breaking and flying into audiance, etc. maybe this is where the nasty rumor came from?

our group has allways encourage new recruits and has offerred loaner gear, etc. i know the same has applied to other groups. we have encouraged our members to slowly improve thier kits. if they have the capital to buy all at once, OK. but if not they are welcomme to use our stuff until they can. initial cost to join $0. plus NOT everryone has to be in armor.

why the us vs. them hostility? i don't know. ignorance? human nature? being afraid of the unknown? jealousy? when we first started to attend renfairs etc. down here for recruitment purposes, we were met with hostility by the SCA and other "LH" groups. over the years though these other groups have softened up to us. we never scoffed at thier attemps at what they do or put it down. since then we have formed a "working friendship" with some of their leaders. and they figured out that we are just trying to do something that we enjoy.

I don't think that we are the right people to ask, but we should rather ask them why. from what i've spoken with them about SCA vs. LH they like the idea but either just don't have the time or resourse or patience to bring everyone and everything up to it. plus it is also easy to believe that wool is hot or that steel kills or that space pirates really existed.

i don't know... my two bits.

daniel

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Db

One of the reasons for continuing to ask here is because I note who the new members are, and I know for a fact that we have more than a handful of SCA lurkers on this board. I'm hoping one of them will be brave enough to give me some perspective, or will examine their own hearts and say what it is about non-SCA medieval dress up that incites such discord.

I thought I'd wait until Monday and then ask the same question on the AA. There have been some brutal flamewars over there lately, so maybe someone will be able to help me sort it out.

So I guess at this point it looks like noone has tried the recruiting through BBs or SCA newsletter approach, eh?

I feel your pain. Having gone through this sort of thing for a number of years, one thing has finally hit home: using loaner gear is, I feel, a mistake. I realize that many folks don't want to make the investment in something as expensive as a decent kit just to see if they like it or not, but frankly, most of the times that I've gone out of my way to help someone get their kit together, they only last for a few events at best. Those who say "WOW! How do I do THAT!?" and then run out and put something serviceable together (though they of course have to replace it later) are the ones who stick. I really feel that "No Investment, No Commitment" is the case. Pretty much putting their money where their mouth is. If they're poor, it's not really an excuse. I was a poor starving college student once, and I put together good (for the time) kits together because it was important to me. And I've seen it in others, too, so it can be done.

Now I WILL say that to some extent I've gone out of my way to help someone do an event and they've gone on to be a real asset, BUT that person had already put a LOT of effort into other ancillary things, such as getting their horse gear together and such as that (and trailering their horse to the event, too). But for the most part, if folks are actually interested in doing something, they will do it. Those who have to be coaxed and persuaded and bought off to joing a group and become contributing members seldom, if ever, actually do, I'm afraid.

That being said, I too am looking to the SCA groups in the West Coast to try to build a historically oriented Equestrian group. Most (though far from all) of the equestrian folks I've met in the SCA seem to have a significantly different attitude than those who are just there for either the combat or the party. But we'll see. At least I've so far had a good response from folks who are willing to learn historical cavalry techniques. Now getting them properly outfitted and to a living history event is another story... at least I'm getting a positive response from some of them!

Good luck, and Cheers!

Gordon

[ 07-09-2005: Message edited by: Gordon ]

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I have to be brief - a pounding headache after a trip back from the MET today will cut my tolerance for typing short.

I don't think the SCA is a very fertile ground for recruitment into reenactment or LH for multiple reasons I will outline below - almost none having to do with any hostility or tension between groups.

1. Many of not most active SCA members are very much involved in the social orginization of the Society, Kingdom, it's progress of rewards, and such like. It is a very active game, highly demaninding of peoples social time. The SCA schedules events, practisces, and workshops nearly every weekend. If people are actively involved in their local orginization, the odds are they will have little time to commit to another orginization. The ones inclined to be active have their activity time soaked up by these myriad events - any LH group, being small individual orginizations, cannot compete with the Kingdom-wide SCA schedules. Being small groups counted by the twos and half-dozens, people in LH groups cannot compete with the devoted SCA officials that thrive on actively organising their kingdoms events, and we just don't have the manpower to put together a competing schedule.

Most reenactors have involved real lives, and those that are willing to sacrifice free-time tend to be multi-era reenactors, who would rather put on a diffferent uniform seasonally, and socialize thusly rather than create an artificial social structure and award system to compete with the Societies schedule.

2. The narrow focus of LH groups is a puzzlement to most SCAdians of any length of time in the Society. The idea of participating in a group where what they can portray is restricted is a foriegn and repulsive concept to most of them

3. It is less work to be able to participate in the SCA at an acceptable level of equipment than it is a LH group. LH groups do not have reward structures to reward the efforts of participants and acknowledge their 'service' - outside of the self-satisfaction offered by doing a portrayal well, and researching and making necessary items

These obsticals alone make recruitment from active SCA members highly unlikely.

Several notes to various posters.

Gwen, Reenactment has been driven by (and was created primarily by) military portrayals. 90+ % of reenactments worrld-wide have a battle or military encounter at the core of the event. Even the jousting that has surfaced in the last few years as a reenactment proper - reenactments of tournaments are reenactments - are military events. Jousting is a preperation for war. It is undertaken by (mostly) men, in armour, on trained horses for the purpose, and with weapons. In many ways, it is even more realisticaly a reenactment of a military activity than most traditional reenactments, and in the circles Jeff and you travel in, with fewer compromises than most reenactment combats. You can't get away from the lances and swords, and conflict/competition being the core of the jousting event.

The knights in shining armour on big horses are what draw people to participate in the events, and to watch them. Any attention paid to other aspects of Medieval life is usually incidental on the part of the crowd, to the main event - it is the time that historic interpretors die for, to explain about the pointy shoes, the way things were made, show off their latest creation or gadget - but the crowd comes to see the joust - not to talk about silk or wool manufacture, or how chairs were built and what people wore (outside of armour) as the main attraction. It is a sad, but reasonable truisim.

Fredrich, you are right, I haven't striven very hard to recruit SCAdians locally. The members of our company who are involved in the SCA, or came to us from it are almost to a man interested in a few of the aspects of the society - mostly not heavily involved in the artificial structure of awards, and who have a larger intereest in aspects of history. Adam only fights and does what he likes in the SSociety -Craig has been to more Wolfe Argent events in the last Calender year than he has been to SCA ones, ect.

Now consider this - they have gone to the bother of getting and making the kit to participate with us (no small investment in time, labour, or cash), and on average, they can make it to one or two events a year - even with their minimal Society involvement, it easts up and competes with our events.

This, and the reasons I list above is why I don't activly go to SCA events to recruit for Wolfe Argent (I think it would be sort of rude, like poaching, to a degree, as well). There is no point in hammering our heads against a wall to try cajole people into trying something new, when half of them would resent and fear our efforts at doing so, and of the remainder, perhaps 5% might have a passing interest. On the other hand, I think it is important that we as groups be aware of each other, and work on friendly relations with each other - that, in my opinion, is the only way we will thee the occasional SCA local recruit into our ranks.

Every time we have an event, and at least annually I ping the archive, looking for interested SCAdians in any capacity, and offer loaner equipment to attend an event. We have yet to have a single person show up for our group with such an offer - it invariably gets loaned out to fellow reenactors working on kit.

Gordon,

In my seeing things in other eras of reenactment, I have to largely agree with you. I myself (and for myself, largely) have been sporadically putting together loaner kit for a couple of people, but loaner kit while useful rarely snags recruits. I have been actively warned by other-era reenactment groups from investig funds into loaner equipment, which they think a waste of resources, and a point of contention possibly amongst active members (if company funds are used for such things). Almost every group (though never ours), has experienced a 'recruit' walking away with kit.

I would say for every prospect, 10 people at least fall by the wayside. I never consider a recruit serious until they have actually invested the money in buying basic kit - Jenn never considers them really serious until they buy something big and expensive, like a helmet or the like - how serious can you be about a hobby if you won't even invest the time or money in getting the bare minimum to participate? I've actually seen one recruit get ALL of his basic kit, plus some very expensive items, only to vanish like a ghost after one event (although in this case, it was a job related problem, and nobody has seen him stateside for literally a year or more).

Still, on principle, as a group we maintain loaner kit - I never want to be said we ever turned anyone away, and often older members end up using the kit if they are still kitting out to a degree, or they leave something at home accidentally, or they fill in a role we need they don;t have the kit for

As for the fighting thing - we are never going to be able to compete with what the SCA offers in regards to competative fitghting. In most forms of reenactment, the competative aspect is limited (even in places where fighting is large scale and regular in occurance, it's not like they have competative tournaments usually), and secondly, we don't offer a reward/award syystem for the combat. The one area where such a thing exists - historical jousting, is restrictive in the requirements of equipment (armour/horse), training, and monetary outlay, so only a fraction of people with a potential interest in the SCA could participate. Even then, winning a tournament at leads isn't comperable in tangible reward like becoming a 'king' for six months, and being refered to for the rest of your like as a count or a duke., with all the social perks inherent in the position in that game. I wouldn't worry about the 'fighting' aspect, I think that we have a good beginning in 2004, and that through this Fall and Winter that aspect will be thoroughly sorted out in the North-East and Canada, to the point where skirmishes and fighting are a regular activity, with steel blunts and the works, just like in the UK and elsewhere.

I see the future of reenactment/living history in the US firstly in lying with complete novices to the type of activity - in this aspect, we are seen as threatening by some members of the SCA, I think, because we are seen as competing for the same resources. Secondly, I think our biggest pool of potential recruits with a background in the hobby is other-era reenactors, who are beginning to see Medival Reenactment proper as having occured or actually going on in the US, wheras we all tended to be lumped together for the past half-decade or so with the SCA and the Renfaire crowd.

If we pin our hopes to the Society, then we are surely doomed, because there is no way we can compete with such an entity - the very things that make the SCA so compelling to the very active SCAdian are absent in reenactment, and truely cannot be a part of the reenactment 'game', because the rules of our game cannot allow for such a structure, and still be the game of reenactment.

Well, My head is splitting, so I am off to bed. I hope my writing provokes some useful thought and ideas.

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The SCA and RenFaire are so active out here that I don't think there's any chance of us attracting recruits, as they suck up all the possibilities.

Oh well, maybe I won't bother advertising after all, it seems rather pointless.

As an aside, it might be fun to debate Chef's statement that jousting is a military activity. I'm just guessing but I think Jeff and Toby would say that by the mid-late 15th C. it had evolved from war training to a competetive sporting event. I wonder how many of the guys Jeff jousts with see it as a military excercise or a competetive sporting event. I know Jeff views it as a competetive sporting event, I'll have to ask around and see how the others view it. I'm guessing but I think most of them will say competetive sporting event. Not that it really matters, just an interesting point Chef made.

You have some good points, but jeez if that's what you consider brief, I wouldn't want to see one of your "long" posts.

All your points are valid, of course, and I especially like Gordon's points on providing loaner kit. We probably won't do it in future, for the very reasons Gordon mentions.

I do disagree with you, Bob, to a point anyway, about jousting being "military". The jousting I do mostly as a recreation of 15th century jousting, emphasizes the sport of the activity. You must admit, while jousting was originally intended as training for war during peacetime, by the late 15th century jousting was really more a sport than it was a military excercise. In many cases at the French and Burgundian courts, it was very much theater in the form of a pas d'arms, rather than military exercise. I hold that the seeds for this were firmly taking root in the late 14th century as well. My point being that while the "knight" may get the majority of the attention at a tournament reenactment, there are still plenty of opportunities for non-military participation as part of an household "staff" of the men participating in the tournament, certainly more than would be appropriate on campaign in a true military setting.

Also such events attract folks who are just "looking", and are good to talk to as well. Gwen, I am given to understand that you and Jeff have a presence there? If so, I think it's got more possibilities than the SCA as a whole does.

Chef is right in that the SCA is interested in the SCA, it's perks, society and events, rather than in doing something actually historical. Not that it's a problem, just different from LH, or from Experimental Archaeology, for that matter. It's it's own thing.

As far as Renaissance Faires go, though, I think that there actually ARE some decent prospective folks there, but as always, you have to know where to find them. The military guilds will have SOMEONE interested in doing more than simply 6 weekends of Faire every year, and they already have some sort of kit (well, for my period at least!) But I think the prospects there are only somewhat better than at the SCA, rather than lots better.

However, Jeff and Gwen, I think that you may find some interest from some of the SCA EQ folks in your area. Hopefully you will make it up to the Sonora Joust (if they ever publish the rules, LOL!) and you'll have a chance to at least talk to a few of them, since some at least are planning on coming up from LA for it. Good luck if so!

Anyway, THAT is a long post, so off my soap-box and to bed!

Cheers,

Gordon

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Some of the group formerly known as the Red Company are scheduled to be at Ft. Mac this weekend; Jeff and I are frantically preparing to send him to Scotland for jousting for the next 3 weekends, so we've opted to stay home. We do intend to have a camp at MTH.

We did go to an SCA Equestrian event last year to see what that was about and it was HORRIBLE!!! Everything was built of PVC pipe and ducttape , ; Jeff wore his full harness and we kitted the horses out in their medieval tack and people either ignored us completely or gave us a wide berth. It was pretty clear they didn't know what to do with us any more than we knew how to deal with them. We felt really out of place, specially when someone complained that Jeff's armour made her horse nervous.

I would love to believe that someone there was interested in history, but observing the activities it was clear it was as Bob describes- not horses in history, but horses in the SCA.

It's really much less of a heartache just to send Jeff off to England to do his thing- let's face it, he'll be jousting 4 of the next 7 weekends- but he so desperately wants to have an event where he can ride our horses. There's no way we can send Petrus and Leopold to England, and little prospect for anything like what he's doing there happening here, so it's a very frustrating situation.

Gordon, Jeff keeps waiting for the rules for Sonora but nothing is ever forthcoming (another frustration)- do you have any news on that front?

Sorry to hear that your experience with the local SCA EQ group was so negative. It's pretty sad indeed! My own experience with the one in the Bay Area was much better, but I'm not sure why. I do admit that they are addicted to PVC and duct-tape though, yuck! And yes, it's about "Horses in the SCA" rather than "Horses in History", sad to say.

I haven't gotten ANYTHING about Sonora, unfortunately, that hasn't been on the same list you folks got. It is indeed frustrating as heck to be asking for something as necessary and straightforward as the rules and not have them forthcoming! One would think that would be fairly close to the top of their list of things needing to be dealt with!

I love Clif to death, but he isn't exactly one to light a fire under Bill's backside to get the job done...

I am definitely jealous of Jeff's trip to Scotland though! Wow.... well, after such heady fare, hopefully he can stand playing with us mere mortals next Spring, if your schedule allows for it!

Cheers,

Gordon

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