From: mcdonald@athena.mit.edu (Steve McDonald)
Subject: Re: Group activity, 1650, Tangent, etc.
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 19:35:41 GMT

In article <oezoTSe00WB5F0OYQ7@andrew.cmu.edu> ds4p+@andrew.cmu.edu (David Schroeder) writes:
>But I'm curious.  How do you think of the various
>generations of people in the Society?  What does it take to be "old
>guard" in your part of the Known World?  How do the categories shift
>over time?  If you've been around for a while, how do you 'slot'
>yourself in the system of SCA generations?  If you're new, what
>are you discovering about the generational differences among
>all the people who were already here when you arrived?
>
>My best -- Bertram

This is indeed an interesting question, and something I have occasionally
thought about.  A month or two ago I noticed something interesting and
posted it here with regard to a previous discussion about SCA generations,
but it received no comment.  So I will bring it up again.  Looking at the
membership statistics for the last several years, it appears that at the
rate the Society is growing, it will double its membership in about 4 or
5 years.  This implies that in less than five years the people who are
active now will be in the minority.  For this reason I think that we could
define an SCA generation to be about 4 or 5 years.

I think this is a major factor in SCA generations.  One aspect is teaching
the new people our history and traditions.  With growth this rapid, if the
traditions are not passed on within the first few years of membership,
the traditions are likely to be lost or modified.  This is both good and
bad, of course.  There are a number of old traditions that I would not
mind seeing disappear, as long as they were replaced with something better.
But as the traditions change, differences between the generations emerge.

Rapid growth also means that after just a few years, a person's role changes
from new member to teacher.  As the influx of new people continues, a person
finds that the people newer than himself make up a larger fraction of the
total population.  It is natural for him to begin passing on to these new
people what he has himself learned about the Society and the period we
recreate.  Indeed, the older generations would soon find it impossible to
properly teach the younger generations which outnumber them if the
intermediate generations did not fairly quickly take up some of the teaching.

I am myself of a generation that joined three to four years ago.  This
generation is now stepping into active leadership roles on the local level.
They are starting to become event autocrats, head cooks, guild heads, and
even local officers and deputy officers.  New people are looking to us as
established members.  But the backbone supporting us is still the older
generations.  The oldest generations are looked to as major sources of
wisdom and models of courtesy.

I'd be interested in other opinions on the effects of the current growth
rate of the Society.  I don't think that many people have really paid much
attention to that growth and its effects, either good or bad.  I am
particularly interested because of the office which I currently hold,
Magister of Carolingia, which is equivalent to Chatelaine elsewhere in
the East Kingdom and serves to introduce new people to the SCA.


					Your servant,
					Stefan Skywatcher,
					Carolingia, East Kingdom
					mcdonald@athena.mit.edu