SCA-a-t-Comun-msg

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SCA-a-t-Comun-msg - 5/1/01

SCA and the Community. How the SCA can affect the community. Toys-for-Tots, Make -Wish-Foundation, food banks.

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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

seperate 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 orignator(s).

Thank you,

Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous

mark.s.harris at motorola.com stefan at florilegium.org

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Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 10:41:11 -0700

From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at efn.org>

Subject: Re: SC - Iron Chef advice

Jenne Heise wrote:

> > > While I think bringing modern themes like the Iron Chef or, for that

> > matter, Toys for Tots,

> > Toys for Tots?? Rediculous to the extreme?? Come on, Ras... we are a

> > service oriented society, are we not? Besides, don't you drive your very

> > modern car to events?? :)

> Apparently, Ras only approves of doing benefits for medieval

> organizations. Must make it hard to do demos in his area. ;)

I'm going to give Ras the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he might

not have meant it quite as is seems onscreen. It _is_ difficult to link

our purpose as an educational organization that celebrates and

researches the Middle Ages to various other non-profit endeavors. But in

that case I think stepping out of the research mode and saying to

ourselves "We have a very unique group of people here who, by our very

nature as a group of honor, courtesy, and chivalry, could do something

to benefit the greater society outside of our own"- and behaving in our

non-profit mode- we could do great things.

Just as an example, a group in the West- the Shire of Crosston (and

there are Crosstonians on the list- Anahita and His Grace Cariadoc to

start) held a war, in honor of the birthdays of a couple their members,

as a benefit for... I believe it was the Heart Association. They raised

a couple of thousand dollars out there bashing heads. And frankly, I

thought it was one of the most magnificent things that I've heard of the

SCA doing. I know other groups have done similar things.

Heck- the SLUG Queens have been raising money for the new public library

(and this is part of the reason I'm glad I'm stepping down on the 18th-

I'm TIRED!) and Slugs have *NOTHING* to do with libraries. But we are

citizens of our larger community, and we have made a real contribution

(almost $3k) to it. And they're going to name the bathrooms after us-

they will be called the Throne Rooms. (Tacky, I know- but we're slugs?

What do you expect?)

My point? It is a good thing for us as individuals and for us as a group

to interact in the world around us in a positive manner. Whether we bash

heads for the Heart Association, or like some Hospitaller friends of

mine- walk in the local March of Dimes walk-a-thon thing in full armour,

carrying shields and singing in latin the whole way- it is good for the

SCA to been seen not as an exclusive, weird group, but as a group of

people with interesting hobbies who use those hobbies to help the world

around them.

Who put this box under my feet? It seems to say 'Ivory Snow' on the

side! Ack! I'd better shut up and sit down before they put me on-stage

at the convention! (Say what you will about the Republicans- gotta admit

that Gen. Powell is an excellent speaker!)

Back to my job-hunting and sewing,

'Lainie

Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:26:39 -0700 (PDT)

From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Iron Chef advice.

Caid is listed with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Once

a year, if there is a terminally ill child who wants

to be a prince or princess for a day, we put on a

tournament for the child. They get a costume

especially made for them and get to keep it. They get

a "coronation" with all the panoply and presents

involved. Jesters amuse them, singers, dancers and

actors perform for them and everyone bows to them.

They have a knight fight for their honor. From what I

have heard, each child has been thrilled with their

wish and their families have been also.

While some might say that we are merely being

entertainment for the dying child, I personally think

that this shows the kind-heartedness and the

generosity of the SCA members as a whole.

Huette

Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 18:02:34 -0400

From: Ann & Les Shelton <sheltons at conterra.com>

Subject: SC - Re: Make-a-Wish

There were 2 Make-a-Wish tournaments held in Southern Atlantia, in 1993

& 1995. The first had 5-6 children in attendance, the second had 3-4.

Each child was adopted by a household, who put them and their families

up in a pavillion, provided entertainment and attention, and fought in

their honor. They all had a great time. One of the highlights of the

first tourney was each of the children being ridden around the tourney

field on a horse with Queen Muirgen.

John

Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 22:07:40 EDT

From: LrdRas at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - Iron Chef advice

BalthazarBlack at aol.com writes:

<< Toys for Tots?? Ridiculous to the extreme??>>

In the context of the SCA....yes. A far better 'charity' function would be

one aimed at collecting funds for leper colonies which still exist. Other

period 'charities' included hospitals, feeding and clothing the poor,

donations to convents and shools/universities and donations to libraries.

Children do very well with sticks, stones and mudpies.

<<Come on, Ras... we are a service oriented society, are we not? >>

Service to the Society, yes. We are a nonprofit educational organization. I

am unaware of any mention of service to the community at large outside the

context of education as being one of the SCA official missions according to

it's corporate documents.

Ras

Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 23:52:01 -0400

From: "VonGraph" <vongraph at earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: SC - Toys for Tots and other comments

I missed the beginning of this thread so I am not sure who said what but I

would like to make a point for which ever side it falls on.

Every year for the last five years the people of Harper's Raid (householde)

and before that the now defunct Shire of Glymmerholde have put in a

tremendeous amount of work and effort with the Kiwanis Club of Riverdale

Florida (yup, mundane, very straight laced and conservative organization) to

put on a Medieval Faire here to raise money to help Kids. Scholarships,

Shots for Tots program (free imunizations for children), Christmas presents

for those who are not on the dole but just working folks who are just not

quite making it (155 kids last year), Thanksgiving baskets for Thanksgiving

dinner etc. Now we try to educate folks about the SCA and the Medieval

Period of our history, but the big thing is to help Kids. WE don't get paid

for this, but it sure makes you feel good. And if helping out some mundane

organization to help people is somehow not the concept of the SCA who ever

said it is full of BS. This Society of ours is to promote honor and goodwill

to ALL me meet, not just other Scadians. We have always felt that it the SCA

showed mundanes how WE thnk people should treat (and help) each other it

might rub off a bit. I beleive we should help in any way we can, either in

Scadian group or in the comunity at large, thats the kind of folks Scadians

are.

YIS, Lord Elric

(membership number 009846 if that tells you anything :)

Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 08:49:18 EDT

From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - Iron Chef advice

jenne at tulgey.browser.net writes:

Balthazar said:

<< > Toys for Tots?? Rediculous to the extreme?? Come on, Ras... we are a

> service oriented society, are we not? Besides, don't you drive your very

> modern car to events?? :)

Jadwiga responded:

Apparently, Ras only approves of doing benefits for medieval

organizations. Must make it hard to do demos in his area. ;) >>

Come on, guys. It's not that he doesn't believe in benefitting the rest of

the world, or only benefitting other medieval groups. He's talking about

keeping a medieval atmosphere at events. Iron Chef and Toys for Tots didn't

exist in our time period; heck, the concept of them didn't exist. If you are

in this organization to try to recreate medieval life, it's really hard to do

so when there are banners for Toys for Tots everywhere, or when the main

event is a recreation of a television show! You can do the same kinds of

things without making a big noise about the modern stuff - for instance, how

is one of our siege challenges different from Iron Chef? Sure, have people

bring a toy to donate to enter the tourney - but don't make a big noise about

it during the event, or simply announce that alms for the poor should be

given to the almoner at this location. People will know what you are talking

about, but it's not as blatantly modernly intrusive.

For the record - I agree with Ras.

Brangwayna Morgan

Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:15:55 EDT

From: LrdRas at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - Toys for Tots and other comments

kattratt at home.com writes:

<< Do me a favor and don't correct me if I am wrong.

Nicholas of Falcon Cree. >>

You certainly are not wrong. I just think that in keeping with the 'medieval'

theme charities that have are much broader and have more potential for

actually 'helping' could be utilized. For instance, I think the Make a Wish

Foundation is a good cause (Queen, king, prince/cess for a day thing. I see

various causes dedicated to relieving the cares of the poor, various

organizations dedicated to the eradication human suffering and religious

foundations far more worthy that Toys for Tots. Community activity in

charitable causes is not a bad thing. I do think we could be more specific to

choosing charities that are a) dedicated to ending human suffering and be b)

not 'cutsey' (that is not oriented to emotional response or currently popular

with the yuppie mentality).

I see nothing wrong with choosing appropriate charities. Distributing Star

Wars dolls and monopoly games or plastic cars is not appropriate, IMO.

Animals, children's toys and planting trees in the park are not my idea of

wise use of charity monies. Relieving physical, mental and financial problems

are. I suppose it depends on your perspective but I would rather immunize a

child than give it a plastic truck and watch it die of disease 6 months down

the road.

Ras

Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 10:54:34 -0500

From: "Michael F. Gunter" <michael.gunter at fnc.fujitsu.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Toys for Tots and other comments

> You certainly are not wrong. I just think that in keeping with the 'medieval'

> theme charities that have are much broader and have more potential for

> actually 'helping' could be utilized.

> I see nothing wrong with choosing appropriate charities.

> Ras

I actually agree with Ras on many aspects. I like the thought of doing

charity fundraising for causes that our Medieval counterparts would have

have supported.

I also agree about his feelings on things like "Toys for Tots" or other

non-critical New Age type charities. But one thing to remember is that

often the SCA has a hard enough time with the local communities and

if a group helps out with some functions then it raises awareness and

acceptance within the community. As an example, our barony once

supplied the Dallas Police Department with scores of handmade teddy

bears for the officers to keep in their patrol cars. These were used to

comfort children who would be in the extremely stressful situations

caused when the police had to be involved. Not period or even

practical. But we gained a lot of ground with the police.

But having tournaments or feasts and making them an "Alms for

the Poor" theme where the proceeds go to the local food banks or

hospice would be a period act as well as giving to the community.

Helping a community who asks for our presence for a "Medieval

Faire" to help the poor I also feel would be a noble endeavor no

matter what the end gift is.

I'm glad Ras likes the "Make A Wish" tournament because if he

opposed that I would have to send the brute squad to convince him

otherwise.

I have no problem with "Toys for Tots" or help for the animal shelter

or park restoration programs (especially if it is the park the local group

uses) but many of these could be individual contributions.

Taking Ras' advice to start looking to period charities and/or ways

to present charity activities in a Medieval light is a good idea.

Gunthar

Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 13:27:56 -0400

From: "Philippa Alderton" <phlip at morganco.net>

Subject: SC - Ras uncharitable? No Way!!!!!

Many of us question the propriety of mixing mundane charities with our

Medieval activities. I have no problem if it's mentioned up front, whether

it's Toys for Tots, or anything else, but I strongly resent things like what

happened a few months ago at a local event.

Some folk advocating the charity of their choice (can't remember which one)

pulled off a kidnapping of the Baroness, in order to raise money for their

charity. That would have been fine, as far as it went, but they then held

forth for half an hour during Feast about how worthy their charity was, etc.

I found this extremely distasteful and rude, and told the Baron as much.

Now, I have no problem with this or any other charity, but my resentment

stems from the fact that there was no announcement anywhere that this Feast

and event were held partially in support of this charity. If I had known,

then I could have chosen whether or not to attend and support the effort,

but as it was, it was sprung on me when I was in an SCA state of mind, not

in a mundane state of mind, and it ruined the Feast for me and several

others.

So, please, folks, do what you feel you must or want to for whatever

charity, but at least do the rest of us the honor of letting us know ahead

of time.

Phlip

Philippa Farrour

Caer Frig

Southeastern Ohio

Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:25:47 -0700 (PDT)

From: ashbrooke at excite.com

Subject: Re: SC - Toys for Tots and other comments

A possible alternative, especially for a bear-pit: fighters bring a number

of cans of food, get one token per can donated. Each combat sees the loser

gift the winner with a token, the overall winner is the fighter with the

most tokens when nobody else wants another round. The food goes to the

nearest local food bank. Local benefit, no overhead, and food banks, at

least around here, are perpetually in need of donations.

Ragnar Ketilsson,

BMDL, Aethelmearc

Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 14:34:03 -0400

From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler at chesapeake.net>

Subject: Re: SC - Toys for Tots and other comments

We also have found a local charity/foodbank that will accept any "leftovers"

from feasts that we serve. The food must not have been served (in other words,

we don't scrape out the bowls that have come back from tables), but it can be

prepared. This is something that takes very little effort (packaging up the

leftovers, delivering them to the charity), and reaps many wonderful rewards,

not the least of which is the knowledge that food that might have been wasted

has gone to feed those who might have otherwise gone hungry.

Kiri

Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 11:57:28 -0700

From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at efn.org>

Subject: Re: SC - Toys for Tots and other comments

All right- I'm not outta here yet (GRRR) and I can't resist answering

this...

BalthazarBlack at aol.com wrote:

> > I just think that in keeping with the 'medieval'

> > theme charities that have are much broader and have more potential for

> > actually 'helping' could be utilized. For instance, I think the Make a

> Wish

> > Foundation is a good cause (Queen, king, prince/cess for a day thing.

> Allright. How does letting a terminally ill child sit on the throne for a

> few hours relieve suffering or financial woes? How does it "help" at all?

> In truth, it doesn't help the child or their family one bit, but it makes

> EVERYONE involved feel better.... just like the Toys For Tots campaign, or

> ANY other event dedicated to a charitable organization. I do, however, agree

> that our efforts MAY be better used to raise money (or, perish the thought,

> provide labor) for the construction of new schools, hospitals or research

> centers.... Maybe a special wing of the hospital dedicated to treating the

> Black Death would be "appropriate"?

Bal, have you ever heard of the Boy Bishops?

There were traditions (particularly in France and England, 13th-16th c

or so) of one day a year upending the social order. This usually

involved taking a boy and making him Bishop for a Day, Lord for a day,

wahtever. Very like our Mayor for a day traditions here in the States.

Sometimes it would be a beggar rather than a child. There would be

partying and feasting (sometimes as long as a week) and much is made of

the Substitute Ruler. What did it do? Generally it is held that the

traditions sprung up as a means of easing social tensions, especially if

folks weren't too happy at the moment. When it was done, everyone went

back to their normal routine. I guess you can say it did nothing

tangible but only made people feel better...

As to the modern tradition- it actually does help- giving the kid a

happy day raises their endorphins and can make them more comfortable if

it doesn't substatially change their condition. And most of these kids

are dying- I would rather a child take some happy memories of adults who

threw a cool party for him. I know if one of my kids were in that

position I'd do everything in my power to that end.

'Lainie

Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 11:52:12 -0700

From: Susan Fox-Davis <selene at earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: SC - Toys for Tots and other comments

> > I just think that in keeping with the 'medieval'

> > theme charities that have are much broader and have more potential for

> > actually 'helping' could be utilized. For instance, I think the Make a Wish

> > Foundation is a good cause (Queen, king, prince/cess for a day thing.

> Allright. How does letting a terminally ill child sit on the throne for a

> few hours relieve suffering or financial woes? How does it "help" at all?

> In truth, it doesn't help the child or their family one bit, but it makes

> EVERYONE involved feel better.... just like the Toys For Tots campaign, or

> ANY other event dedicated to a charitable organization.

We hear back from their caregivers that the children who have been our Wish

Princes and Princesses showing more life-signs and survival rates than anyone

expected for children in their respective conditions. It's a fine line, a child

must have a terminal illness but still be well enough to enjoy their 'wish.' A

day away from the dreary hospital routine is always a treat, but making a dream

come true can have long-reaching effects which cannot be bought with any

currency.

A tale is told of Prince Ramon, some months after his Day as our Wish Prince,

lying in a coma and not expected to last but hours or days. Someone put his

sword and his shield in his hands, and he awoke and rallied. What monetary

contribution could compare?

Yes, we who serve to make these days happen feel good too, but that's a happy

side effect. It has been a few years since we've had one of these tourneys, I

wish we could do it again some time soon.

Selene

proud court jester and occasional horsie to the Wish Princehood in Caid