RE: Jobs and Cookies

[David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.UMD.EDU>]

Poster: David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.umd.edu>



Deidre wrote (in part)
> > and perhaps 120 active peers in the kingdom.  There were about
> >1200 people on The Acorn mailing list last I remember a count.  Do the math.
> >There are a lot of you and relatively few of us.

Gawain Kilgore / Greg Stapleton responded
 
> Not trying to belabor a point or anything, but that works out to a ratio
> of 10:1.  Would it be possible to divy out the populace, 10 to a peer
> and the peer could "look after" their flock, so to speak?

As written, this is unrealistic.  Am I to track everything that 10-15
total strangers do?  And what about assigning newcomers, or dealing with
situations where a peer becomes inactive, leaving his dozen out on a
limb.  People don't become inactive by switching off a light, either --
there is usually a gradual period of lessening activity, spread over
years.  Further, what about distribution problems?  There are a lot
of peers in the North of the Kingdom, leftover from the period when
the center of population was in Storvik (at that time almost all of
MD and NoVa).  Although the distribution has evened out quite a bit from
15 years ago, there are still relatively few peers in South Carolina
and the isolated parts of NC and VA.  There are also issues of personality:
not all peers are the same, and not all people get along.  If you are
`assigned' to a peer you don't get along with, shall you just give up
the SCA totally?  And what about trying to match disciplines--I don't
drink.  How shall I evaluate the work of a brewer in SC that I am assigned?
Or how shall a Knight without any Arts award decide when it is time for
him to recommend someone he was assigned for a Laurel?  Or how shall a
Pelican make a good decision on recommending a fighter she was assigned
for a Sea Stag or the Chivalry?

So, why don't we modify this idea.  Have each order try to watch the
Kingdom for up-and-coming people within their discipline.  The Sea Stags
try and watch for people who are teaching fighting, and so on.  Rather
than an artibrary assignment of people, we get a more focussed effort
and less wasted energy.

We could call this a "watch list".  :^)

Of course, every Kingdom Order and Peerage has such a list already, and
they try and keep it relatively up-to-date through regular meetings and
discussions.


[1 : 10 ratio paragraph continuation]
> As more
> people would be found, who are of peerage quality, the ratio would go
> down and become even easier to handle.

The ratio of peers to total kingdom population has been relatively
constant at 1:10 since I joined the SCA, although Kingdom population has
more than quadrupled in that time.  There is no reason to believe that 
this is going to change much in the future -- as we make more peers, some 
peers drop out or gain interests outside the SCA, and bunches of new people
find the SCA.  The ratio is not likely to change.  A handful of peers
are made every reign -- sometimes only 1 or 2 in a reign, sometimes as
many as 5 or 6.  To change the proportion of peers to populace in any
substantive way would require making hundreds of peers in a few years.
This isn't going to happen, and if it did there would be a huge number
of people very very upset.

Dafydd
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