SCA-trans-msg - 1/4/96 How to handle the move from one group to another. For the people in the group too. NOTE: See also the files: newcomers-msg, callig-beg-msg, placenames-msg, SCA-hist1-msg, SCA-stories1-msg, 4-newcomers-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: mittle at watson.ibm.com (Arvall of Northpass) Subject: Re: starting over Date: Sat, 1 May 1993 18:45:02 GMT Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Greetings from Arvall! Cahan Kyle asked: > I have a question to ask. Is it a normal occurrence in the SCA that when > one changes Kingdoms, they must prove themselves all over again even > after several years of experience? Bertram replied: > Alas, the syndrome you describe is all too common. I've lived in three > kingdoms and a number of groups and have had it happen to me and watched > it happen to others... It's sad that one of the features of the Middle > Ages we're so good at re-creating is a xenophobic clannishness and > cliquishness... Bertram, I think you are being unnecessarily melodramatic. The phenomenon that Cahan described exists everywhere, and I don't think it is in the least bit surprising that it does exist or that it is reasonable to expect to eliminate it. The SCA is a largely decentralized organization; most of the real activity happens on a very local scale. Every branch has its own style, dynamics, and customs. No matter how many years' experience the new arrival may have with the SCA in other places, he cannot know the way people like to play to game in every shire. Just because he knows how to help run things where he came from does not mean that he knows enough to help out in his new home. A general familiarity with the Society and specific experience will help the new arrival learn his way around more quickly, but until then he is like a newcomer to the SCA who has done work in other volunteer organizations: He has useful skills but has to learn how to apply them to the local situation. Most of the transplant problems that I've seen are a result of the new arrival assuming (unconsciously as often as not) that everyone in the SCA will enjoy the game best if they play play it the way it was played back home. When he encounters something unfamiliar, his natural reaction is to correct it: "Back where I came from, we did it this way." The intent is friendly and helpful; the result is condescending and off-putting. In a similar vein, it is unreasonable to expect a branch to put its confidence in a new arrival immediately, no matter how much experience he has elsewhere. Most branches have limited resources - offices, autocratships, regular meetings, money, etc. The members of the branch want to get the most out of those resources, and they don't know a new arrival well enough to be sure that they can entrust their resources to him. It is more than a little presumptuous for a new arrival to sweep in and expect to have a major role in alloacting resources until the rest of the group gets to know him. It might help to think of arriving in a new group much like starting a new job: You are stepping into a functioning company, whose members know each others' strengths and weaknesses. They don't know you at all. Your awards and past accomplishments will carry some weight if you make gentle suggestions, but it is self-deluding to expect to take up here exactly as you left off in your old group. Part of the problem is simply a change of vocabulary. Take the word "persona": In the East it is a harmless word that everyone applies to everything from complete immersion in a single time and place to a vaguely defined set of SCA interests. In the West it's a dirty word, even though the things people actually do in the West fall well within the word's meaning in the East. For another example, consider "household". In some places a household is a routine part of SCA life, understood to mean nothing more than "a group of people who choose to play together." In other places, history has tied the word so closely to vicious personal politics that any newcomer who innocently mentions a household incites instant anger. The center of the problem is that the SCA really is different everywhere you go. It's easy to be fooled by the surface similarities, but even when people use the same words in your new home, they may not have the same meanings. =========================================================================== Arvall of Northpass mittle at watson.ibm.com From: haslock at rust.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: starting over Date: 4 May 1993 01:04:23 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - DECwest Engineering Greetings from Fiacha, If you move beyond range of your reputation, you will have to work to reestablish your reputation. If you have credentials from someone whose reputation runs as far as your new home it will be easier. If you haven't received an AoA yet expect to start from square one. Strategy and tactics can reduce the time it takes to become integrated. Remember that your goal on moving to a new group is to become an integral part of the group. Step 1. Look for something that was done 'back home' that is missing in your new home. That is MISSING, not merely done in a different and seemingly less effective manner. Supply that missing activity/service. This is helping your new group to grow and demonstrating your committment to it. Step 2. Look for something this is being done poorly (in your opinion) and volunteer to assist. Make sure that everyone involved has seen you doing it their way before you suggest any changes. Step 3. Look for something that your new home does that you never tried in your previous home and start at the beginning, just like any other newcomer. It hurts to discover that your hard earned skills are ignored or undervalued but it hurts more and longer to win a reputation as a trouble maker or as an undesireable alien. Also remember that Rialto fame does not map to reknown in ones branch. Finally, don't expect it to be easy. Moving house and home is traumatic enough, without trying to win a new collection of friends at the same time. Fiacha, trouble maker Aquaterra, AnTir From: Suze.Hammond at f56.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Suze Hammond) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Newcomers Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 23:25:00 -0800 SC> From: sclark at epas.utoronto.ca (Susan Clark) SC> Newsgroups: rec.org.sca SC> Organization: EPAS Computing Facility, University of Toronto SC> 1. For transplants,the main problem will probably be the one of SC> fitting into a new group after being well-established in SC> another one. These folks will probably not need all the info a SC> rank newcomer will, but they should be made to feel welcome SC> and become acquainted with your group (size, barons n' stuff, who SC> does what, etc.) Whatever "inter-kingdom anthropology" you are aware of, be sure to tell people who came up in other kingdoms, so they won't stumble into some social gaffes that upset their enjoyment of their new home. For instance, nothing can make people think you're just another nut-case as fast as quoting some tenet of kingdom policy that you were brought up to think was SCA-wide law, if that happens to be something your new compatriots never heard of! (I recently had to take a herald from one of the central kingdoms aside as he was telling some real newbies all about how you had to be a member and a holder of an AoA to register a device. Not in An tir you don't! I also once had to rescue a fellow from a bunch of my light friends who were about to have it out with him in the tavern because he was certain it was against SCA law to have mixed war combat, and was "going to write the Earl Marshal" about us miscreants! And we lost a very promising person who came from a more authenticity-oriented kingdom, because he was constantly critical of anything he hadn't seen documentation of in his home kingdom, even if we had it... sadly, he made many enemies. Could have been avoided...) Be sure to ask about any of the subjects you've run into here on the Rialto that you know are widely discussed. ... This is just my personal opinion; Moreach NicMhaolain Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: ddfr at quads.uchicago.edu (david director friedman) Subject: Re: Peers as Members (was Re: Obligations of Peerage?) Organization: University of Chicago Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 02:54:14 GMT Andrixos, in arguing (correctly) that uniformity is a matter of degree, writes: "Likewise, I expect that Cariadoc would be a bit miffed it when he had sojourned to Meridies he found his ducal rights were ignored and even abrogated because they "weren't earned here, and nothing that happens outside our kingdom matters." 1. You are mistaken. It would be fun. The nearest I have managed so far was visiting for some months in Caid, not telling anyone any of my ranks, and successfully maintaining anonymity for a month or so. 2. What is more important than whether they recognize my rank is whether they are willing to listen to my ideas. When I did move to Meridies, a good many years back, they were very polite to me on account of my rank--the people in that group took rank very seriously, perhaps too seriously. On the other hand, they did not have much interest in my views of how things should be done--in large part, I think, because I was a foreigner. In order to have any actual influence on the group--and I am not certain if I ever did--it was necessary to proceed very much as if I had not come in as a duke. 3. Or in other words, the important issues in how you are treated when you move to a new group are the ones that are not regulated by the rules. David/Cariadoc From: queta.stetser at mercopus.com (QUETA STETSER) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: "In the West we..." Date: Sun, 03 Dec 95 13:23:00 -0400 Organization: Mercury Opus BBS - Dunedin, Florida - 1 813 734 2799 An interesting little exchange between Brian Mahoney (bjm10 at cornell.edu) and Elina (becks2 at aol.com) provokes my small comments below. They were discussing attitudes when a newcomer to a Kingdom references how some- thing is done in their *former* K'dom residence. Elina made the point that "...What is said is not always what is heard, and vis [sic] versa. They may hear you say "This is the one true way", when you are only saying "This is A way". BJM>ahoney quoted her in his response: "It may be the most common way to hear "this is the One True Way", I ask you to be exceptional." [meaning he should possibly allow: "This is A way".] ^ And Brian added in his reply to her: BJM> Cute, so you twist everything around like that, Ms. Dumpty? [Brian, that sounds really rude; you *were* joking, weren't you?] [If you weren't, then you need to apologize, don't you?] BJM> The most common way I've seen it used is to expound upon a "one BJM> true way". Why must the burden suddenly come upon those spoken BJM> to rather than upon the speaker? Neutrally speaking, I add: Being native to, and resident of Trimaris for about 19 years, I've seen many fine folks move into our Kingdom from myriad other K'doms. Most are anxious to settle into their new SCA land, meet their new neighbors, and are often generous in their sharing of ideas. Their only `mistake' is, I think, that they preface their ideas/suggestions with a statement of, "in X Kingdom, we did that thus-n-so". No matter what the tone of voice from the newcomer, the oldtimers always bristle, and vocally depreciate the suggestion's, *and* the newcomer's, merit. This oldtimer suggests: When moving to another Kingdom, folks, *don't* reference your former homeland when offering an idea - let 'em think the brilliant idea is exclusively *yours* ! ;-} -='Queta=- Edited by Mark S. Harris SCA-trans-msg Page 5 of 5