Re: DISC: Pay to Play--Non-Member's POV

[Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>]

Poster: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>

Greetings from Tibor.
  
Lyon filius Henri wrote:
  I am a non-SCA member(former member, now in Tidewater Medievalists)  who
  is attending the Pennsic War.  I am bringing a bow in case I am
  permitted to shoot for the archery point, (I'm terrible, but I
  understand sheer numbers matter) and I have plans to take fencing
  lessons while there.

I'm sure the lessons don't require membership.  I hope those more in the know
can make the correction if I err, but I am sure you can shoot for the East,
directly, without a membership card.  (This isn't intended to take sides.  If
you want to shoot, you should be able to shoot.  I don't know if the Midrealm
requires a membershipt to shoot directly for them.)
  
                                   My outsider's point of view on the
  matter is: Ok, whatever.  Your club, your rules.  I can't really justify
  it--I'm not the philospher that some on this list have been shown to be,
  but at a gut level I find it perfectly all right that an organization
  that requires a great deal of work to make it run should ask me to
  provide this small token of my support for their efforts before enjoying
  the fruit of those efforts.

You are correct.  (Gasp from the crowd...  but wait.)

We charge such a fee: we call it an event fee.  The local group puts forth the
effort, and charges a modest fee.  In addition, our organization rewards its
volunteers greatly: in social terms, and with awards and respect.

                               This is especially true for fighting because
  it takes so much non-fighter support to pull off a tourney.  Marshals,
  MOL, water bearers and a chirugeon for SCA, and add four judges to an
  Alairian tourney count of non-fighter support folks.  If those people
  working hard to give me a fun day want the equivalent of three bucks a
  month from me, and they'll throw in a very fine newsletter every
  quarter, ok.  I'll pay or not play.

But those fine people (and, frequently, I am one of them as herald or water
carrier, or both) do so without the direct or indirect support of the
Corporation or its services.  The Corporation doesn't even pay their event
fees.  It doesn't reimburse their expenses.  (I had other people damage or
abuse about 20 dollars worth of equipment last Pennsic, while water carrying
in the woods battle.)

I don't want the Corporation to do so, either.  I *like* it that we do things
for each other.  If I wanted to pay lots of money to be merely entertained,
I'd head off to those overpriced Renaissance Fairs, or to Disney World.

Why do people ignore the event fee?  That is the fee that everyone pays to the
groups that most directly support our game.  Yet for purposes of this
discussion, people pretend it does not exist.  Why?

	Tibor
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