SCA Census - Hmmm.

.....Master James warned us at May Crown that the SCA was going to issue a 'Census' this summer to gage the current make-up and thoughts of those who participate in the SCA. It was released this weekend and I went through it.

.....There were relatively few surprises in it. I guess my only real surprise was that I really thought it was going to go more in depth for the pulse of the SCA membership and ask a larger range and depth of questions. But I suppose that makes sense in some ways. The greater the depth of knowledge you seek, the wider the rage of response you receive, the more difficult it is to get some sort of cohesive picture. Especially in an organization as widely divergent as the SCA. In retrospect it somewhat mirrors the U.S. Census in the level of knowledge it requests I suppose.

.....I made sure to annotate my thoughts as clearly as possible. Definitely a preponderance of my thoughts were geared towards 'Pay-To-Play'. There were definitely several opportunities to express and re-express that viewpoint. :-)

.....Stuck my toe into the water of 'additional peerages'. That's a slippery slope. How far do you open the flood-gates? Are we looking at a future of peerages in the field of 'Combat Gossiping'? I'm going to have to see a lot more 'real' dialog on the subject (as opposed to demagoguery) before I come to any sort of personal decision on that point.

.....An interesting question that came up was that of same sex couples holding positions of territorial baronies and even that of Crown. It's not a new thought of course, but I hadn't really thought much on the realities of the concept until today where it was mentioned on the Survey, and in conversation with friends.

.....Personally, I don't think I'm opposed to the concept. Their have been instances in history where two people of the same sex were joint rulers of a land or other. So there is reality based precedence. But in an SCA setting it might be a bit more difficult in some regards. Considering that our 'Dream' is based off a fantastical romance. Arthurian Romance, Tolkien, Victorian Fantasy, these are the foundation stones of the Society. These fantasies require 'gender' roles: Knights in Armor slaying evil dragons, with Princesses being rescued, and welcoming the valiant knight home in victory. Somehow I find it difficult to picture two of the same gender fulfilling these roles. I'm going to have to witness first, or maybe witness the hybrid of how to make this work, before I wrap my brain around it.

.....Bottom line to the survey for me is that if we want the Society to survive than we need to recognize what makes it tick now and what the base population wants 'to get out of it' for the future. I hope that the BoD takes the results and does something constructive with them.

Aaron / Arontius.