[Populace] Re: [CaerAdamant]

Mon Aug 27 23:08:05 EDT 2007

Greetings Everyone,

I have been meaning to post some comments on my reaction to the meeting however, I have been exceedingly busy with work and autocratting Swamp Thynge.

I am going to preface this by saying I have had a lot of thoughts and I am going to try and get many of them down, so it may come across as a bit jumbled and long winded.  Also, I think I have decided that being blunt and honest is probably going to be better for the shire than sugar coating everything.
And, lastly, these are all my opinions and thoughts, I don't speak for anyone else... just me. and I will admit that I am not omniscient nor clairvoyant... so there may be things going on that I don't know about and I may have false knowledge of things that I have only experience through hearsay.  And also, I will be refurring to things that happened years ago... and my memory may be sketchy.

First off, let me say that I am firmly against splitting the shire in two no matter where the dividing line is.  I believe that in the long run it will be bad for all Scadians living in the state.

The shire has had problems for years that we have never as a shire sat down to try and solve or if we had, we never came up with any lasting solutions because the problems just keep recurring.

Over the years, I keep hearing about North/South problem, primarily how the south keeps getting ignored.  I've heard numerous reasons for it.. gas prices, too long to drive, not enough people down there, no one willing to host activities, no one showing up, etc.

Well, I must admit, currently, when I think of the SCA, I look North.... why?  because that is where the bulk of the kingdom is...  For me to to go to events in groups to the south, it is at least an hour and a half drive to the nearest group into another kingdom.   I don't know the people there, I don't know their customs, heck, I don't know the who's who... it would be like starting all over again.  Meanwhile, going north, I can drive to about 8 or 9 groups in the East in that same hour and a half, with customs and people that I know.

Meanwhile, I know that people in the southern end of the state might not even be able to get to one group in the east in that same hour and a half.

That is going to cause a difference in mindsets of people on either end of the state.  

When I first joined the shire, I had the time and ability to go to about 20 to 30 events a year.  I went all over, met a bunch of people.  I got to experience a bunch of things, tried various tasks... figured out what I liked and what I didn't.  etc.   But I also learned some valuable things about how the SCA worked.

Firstly, this organization has a deep undercurrent of "its who you know..."  The more people you know, the more connections you have, the further that you will go.  The more likable you are, the more friends that you have, the more support that you can get to do anything.  That doesn't apply to just individuals, but to groups as well.

For a long while, very few people in Caer Adamant traveled, and when they did, they tended to stick together (I am thinking 10-15 years ago).  I was generally considered the lone exception.  I would go to events and people would constantly ask me why the rest of the shire didn't travel more, and they would be amazed when I would tell them how many members we had.

We would host events, and get a small turnout...  I noticed though, that when I autocratted or feastocratted the attendance was higher...  I don't claim that I was doing things any better than some other people, however, I was better known and people would come to see what I was doing.

As I said... connections breed support.

Also, when I first joined, Caer Adamant had just split from Bhakail, and there was a large amount of bad feelings involved in that.  Many of the members at the time did not like the Baron of Bhakail at that time and wanted nothing to do with the Barony.  Back then, Barren Sands was inactive (kind of like it is now), Iron Bog was a lot smaller, and Harthorndale... well that was where "Old Peers went to retire" :)   So, in other words, we had no close connections to neighboring groups.

Because of that, I think that we floundered for several years.  People developed some very strange ideas of how things run, basically because they never got a chance to see how things run elsewhere.

I think because of that, we developed a reputation for being clueless... argumentative.. annoying etc...  and I think that is why we have had trouble getting tons of people to show up to our events.

When, I first autocratted Swamp Thynge about 8 or 9 years ago.  We got about 100 people to show up and at the time we had about 40-50 active members.  Now, we get about... oh 115 people at Swamp Thynge... but we now have almost 100 paid members in the shire.  What that tells me is that we aren't drawing as many people from outside the shire as we used to.  Part of that is due to past history... but part of it is also due to rising costs of travel.

Why do I bring this all up????

Well, I am seeing all of these same conditions occuring in the southern end of the state if it becomes a separate shire.  It will be even more isolated since its only Eastern neighbor will be Caer Adamant, and from what I hear its only close Atlantian neighbor, Spiaggia Levantina, is dwindling and having problems of its own.

Secondly, we are having problems getting people to travel to Northern Delaware from the rest of the kingdom, I would say that a group in the southern end of the state would have even more troubles getting a good attendance at events.

And thirdly, there are numerous personality conflicts existing between the two regions.  In a perfect world, we would all be the best of friends...  however, as times have gone by, people have grown apart and developed numerous animosities.  People in the southern half of the state have asked why people from the north don't come to activities in the south.  The responses were generally vague comments about distances... but I am going to be bluntly honest here:  

The only current regularly scheduled activity in the area that the new shire wants to claim is at Laurens'... the Gathering of Friends.  

I live in the northeasternmost corner of the state.  I am yelling distance from the PA line.  It takes me about 25-30 minutes to get to Hedewigis's and Tomaloc's, and those are the closest activities to my place, and I have been to both of there houses countless times.   It takes me about 45 minutes to get to Padraigs (more if there is any back up on I-95), and I go there.  Its about the same distance to the Library in Odessa.  And I drive right past her place to get to the meetings in Dover.

So... why haven't I been to any of the the Gatherings of Friends.  Plain and simple, there are people who attend them that I don't wish to socialize with.  Its not because of the distance; although it does play a small part, its not the primary reason.  I have so much going on in my life right now, between work, coaching, working out, and trying to develop a love life, that I would prefer not to spend time with people who will cause me to feel frustrated.

I must admit, I have had thoughts along the lines of "let them form a separate group... so that we don't have to deal with 'them' ", and I have heard similar thoughts from others.  But to me that would be an awful reason to split the shire.  It would break some of the tenuous connections that we have and would certainly  cause both groups to suffer.

If we split the shire when there are so much bad feelings, then there will be almost no way to ever soothe those bad feelings.  If we don't do something now... we never will.

So that is one of the main reasons why I am against splitting the shire in two.  Because I believe that the new shire would have too many struggles to try and combat to become a successful group.  At the best of times, forming a new group is tough.  Doing it with this many hurdles....  I would say its nigh impossible. 

I also do not believe there is enough unity down state to form a cohesive shire.  I was amazed at the number of people who showed up to the meeting... however, I also noticed how many of the people were basically complete strangers to each other.  Which is why I think so many of the activities down state have had trouble getting started.  No one really knows enough about each other to know what people want to do.

I also think there is a sparsity of "do-ers" downstate and an abundance of "thinkers".  To get things done, takes both.  Someone to come up with the ideas... and someone to get it done.  If you rely on a few people to constantly do both, those people get quickly burned out.  

I admit, I am primarily an ideas person... my follow through is not always as great as my ideas.  However, I know that there are sufficient "do-ers" around me that if I come up with an idea, there are people around who can help make it a reality.

I haven't noticed those kind of people in the southern end of the state.  Over the years, I have heard lots of great ideas come out of the south; ideas for events, activities, etc.  however they seem to dwindle off.  And often times, I hear the "northerners" get blaimed because we didn't come down and support things (i.e. run them).

Perhaps this is changing.  And it does appear that Sigfried has managed to pull people together.  However, I would like it shown to me that this is going to last and that it wasn't a fluke.

Okay... by this point, I know many people are probably thinking "Kael is being Kael again... all negative and doomsaying" So I am going to end this by being positive.

I believe that if we all are willing to work together that we can find a solution to this problem that does not involve splitting the shire in two.

We need to open up communications.  We need to work together. We need to work through grievances instead of letting them fester.  We need to set goals that we can work together to reach.

If people think its too late for all that... then the battle is already lost and we are doomed to failure.

However, if we are willing to work at it as a group, then we can grow.  and by growth I mean quality not quantity.  I don't mean by number of members...  I mean by accomplishments, by amount of activities, by making us into something that we would be proud of... and that the Kingdom would be proud of.

I think this proposal of splitting the shire was perhaps the wake up call that was needed.  Perhaps we do need to do something radical to get us working towards a solution.  I think we should explore a number of options though to make sure we choose the right one.

Perhaps we need to bite off something that will be very difficult to chew.  Perhaps planning an event that would require every last bit of person resource that we have.  Something that would be so work intensive that it would require all of us to make it happen and that no small amount of people could pull it off.  An event that might take 2 to 3 years from conception to fruition.

Perhaps we need to explore growing... moving up a step.  Maybe, its time to do some serious talking about becoming a Barony or a Province  to push ourselves to the next level. If we do that, then we could look into forming a subgroup in the south.  A group that could help pull the south together, however not sever ties to the rest of the state.  Allowing the entire SCA presence in the state to grow.

Perhaps we could remain as a single shire... but do something that we haven't done in ages...work on eliminating the North/South mindset and work on becoming just Caer Adamant... the Diamond Fort that glitters and shines... but cannot be broken.  Get rid of the dividing line and working on becoming a large family.

Or perhaps, we are destined to split into two shires.  But instead of bickering over who gets which zip codes and why the split is happening.  We can take some time and put some energy into creating the best two shires that we can.

==========================

Now I am probably going to be waaaaaaay too busy over the next few days but if anyone wants to talk to me... well, let me know and I can probably make some time at Swamp Thynge.  But don't let me stop you from talking with each other.  

Lets see what we can do when we work together.

Kael

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jehan Yves de Chateau Thiery 
  To: populace at caer-adamant.org ; CaerAdamant at yahoogroups.com ; ShireToBe at yahoogroups.com ; caeradamantofficers at yahoogroups.com 
  Cc: Seneschal Caer Adamant ; EK Seneschal Queue ; Lord Sigfried ; seneschal.south at eastkingdom.org ; ogealagain at juno.com ; L Brizendine 
  Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2007 9:47 PM
  Subject: [CaerAdamant] 

  Salutations to all involved with the negotiations to split the 
  current Shire of Caer Adamant into two Shires.
  As per discussions that went on during the "Gathering of Friends" 
  that was held today, we want the populace of Caer Adamant to know 
  that we have heard and understand their concerns and would like to 
  know if the removal of the zip code of 19734 from the area of the new 
  Shire, leaving it in Caer Adamant, would lead to an end of all 
  conflicts and allow the "split" to proceed in a timely fashion. If 
  there are still other problems that remain, please let us know so 
  that we may address them as we have done this one.
  Jehan Yves
  Proposed Seneschal of the new shire 

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