RE: Disc: Pay-to-Fight

[Lance Harrop <lharrop@mrj.com>]

Poster: Lance Harrop <lharrop@mrj.com>


Lord Gawain Kilgore writes:

> I guess if I get right down to it, I feel that if any of us have to pay,
> we should all pay and equally share the load of funding our game.  Once
> again, everyone that comes to an event is currently receiving benefits
> from the organization, therefore, they should help to support that
> organization, in my belief.  I believe that this should be society wide.
>  I mean, isn't this one of our principles, pitching in together and
> sharing the load?  
> 
I am wondering WHAT benefits from the organization Lord Gawain is talking 
about?  Our Insurance does not cover individual participants, where 
dues-payers or no.  This is particularly amusing because, I'm told, 
membership in the NRA, for about the same amount, gives you life 
insurance for death from the use of a firearm, and property insurance for 
your guns.  Admittedly their membership is a couple orders magnitude 
larger then the SCA, but boy, would it be nice if my armour was insured 
from theft, and I had life and health insurance for accidents from 
fighting (or dancing, for that matter).

The newsletters and TI are a direct benefit, you get 
them if you pay for them.

If you are a member, you usually get polled on baronial questions, if you 
live in a barony, once every two years in Atlantia, a lot less often in 
other kingdoms where they don't have term limits.  Then again, some 
baronies poll anyone who claims membership.

If you are a member, you can (joy, joy) volunteer to be an officer and 
dedicate all your free time to helping run your group or kingdom.  Some 
benefit that.

Corpora SAYS that all you need do to attend an event is make an attempt at 
period garb.  It never demands membership.  

Anyway, I think pay-to-fight is bad for a couple of reasons.  One, it 
puts us seriously out of step with our neighboring kingdoms.  People even 
run off to the East to get authorizations, rather then bother with 
Atlantian BS.

Then there is the point Duke Richard raised, that the policy is an 
attempt to get authorized fighters more in touch with the Kingdom.  Well, 
not everybody in the states of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas wants 
to be in touch with the Kingdom.  Just because people live in our 
geographic bounds does not mean they consider themselves subjects of 
Atlantia.  

Nor should they need to.  Atlantia gets along fine with its 
committed populace, as long as the Crown attends to the advice of its 
peers, officers, and subjects.  When that's not the case, trying to force 
membership on people just tends to backfire.  Lots of people who live 
around here like to fight at Society wars without committing more then a 
couple of weekends to kingdom events, at most.  That's not something 
terrible, nor something to be discouraged.

In Service
Leifr Johansson
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