Re: University

[David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.umd.edu>]

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


Lady G writes:


> Principality??  In a kingdom this small?  Think of poor Atenveldt when it
> stretched from Arizona to Montana.  It takes 7 hours to speed from around
> Tuscon to Flagstaff.  And that's just part of ONE state.

Your example is poorly chosen.  That was a long time ago; the Kingdom of
Atenveldt now consists of nothing but Arizona.  It just finished splitting
off its most recent principality and is now just a single state.  In other
words, Atenveldt has now made itself smaller than Atlantia. 

You're also simplifying a complex issue into a single factor, geographical
distance.

Group density and population are also important.  There were seven events
listed in the Acorn for July; 9 for September (four on a single weekend);
10 for October (five on a single weekend).

If there are 8-10 events in a given month, and I have time to go to two of
them, I'm going to go to the two most interesting.  All other things being
equal, an event that is six hours away is less interesting than one that
is 30 minutes away. 

What does that mean?  That means that I, an active peer with multiple
interests, am missing 80% or more of the events held in the Kingdom of
Atlantia. And the events I go to are more likely to be close to me, with a
few exceptions like University (where I am always there) and Very
Interesting Events (like the Seven Deadly Sins event two years ago). 

I remember when I went to nearly half the events in Atlantia.

Am I less active?  Nope.  I happen to have a record of every event I've
been to since 1984. I've gone to 18 events every single year I've been in
the SCA (plus or minus 1 on a given year.  The only exception was the year
I was on the throne, when I went to many more events).

But there are more events, and more groups, now.  More events is a good
thing.  But growth has a price, and the price is that the kingdom gets
bigger, and people know other people less, and it only gets worse. 

Principalities is not a dirty word.  A principality is a reasonable
solution to the downside of the growth of the SCA and the kingdom.  It
isn't a question of _whether_ we should have principalities.  It is a
question of _when_.


Dafydd ap Gwystl, who loves Atlantia

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