If I Were King Of The Forest

This page is specifically a list of things we might consider doing if we wind up as Baron and Baroness. The agenda here is twofold: to keep track of ideas if the situation arises, and to help decide if we want the job. Baron Emerson once recommended that one should only take the job if you have an agenda and ideas, so let's see if we do.

(Yes, the title is a deliberate reference. It helps keep perspective.)

General Principles

Most importantly, whatever we do, we've got to do it with as much joy in our hearts as possible. It's way too easy to get bogged down in the problems, and that's just a recipe for cynicism and burnout. The discussions of problems are important, maybe critical, but they have to be bounded: we can't get into a mindset of, "We are gathering today to Solve The Problem Of Factionalism" -- that just takes all the fun out of it. We've got to be able to put all of that aside and just have fun, on a regular basis, if anything's really going to work.

Ideas

Here are some concrete ideas of things we might try, some from me and some from others:

• Experiment Ombudsman -- A meta-concept, certainly not to be worded that way. But I should suggest to folks that they come to me with any and all crazy ideas for things to do, which I can add to this list, as well as coming to me if they're looking for something to try -- I can sort of play matchmaker for projects. Projects should be preferentially aimed at newer members to run, rather than the usual same-old crowd. Eventually this job should be given over to someone else who is eager, but I'm likely to be able to jump-start it most effectively.
• The Baron's Cohort -- Once a month, pick a guild or activity, and encourage the newbies to come along to try it out. Work with the guildhead to come up with an activity that is suitable for an untrained mob while still getting the idea of the group across. Explicitly encourage people who have fun to keep coming to this thing. (It should only be once a month so that it doesn't eat into peoples' activity time too much.) The idea here is both to encourage diversity, and to help the current new members to get to know each other better.
• The Reading Group -- High concept is essentially a book club for period books. For instance, one month we all read a section of the Book of the Courtier, then get together and discuss it.
• The Night of the Courtier -- A salon in the style of the Book itself. Not so different from Philosopher's Guild, but with a bit more focus on periodoid topics, and trying for a refined mode of conversation.
• The Ladies' Solar -- especially for a casual outdoor event like May Day. Sitting in a random cluster on the lawn (probably on blankets/cushions), for gossip, daisy-chain-making, nibbling small finger foods, needlework, ogling the passersby. Not limited to any one household or age group. (This one was, obviously, Jane's idea. Find a lady to head it up?)
• The Fighter's Bard -- suggested by Abigail. Have a fighting/bardic themed event, where fighters and bards must team up, and are judged jointly on the quality of the fighting and that of the song/story/poem/etc written about the fighter's exploits. Could get sillier about it, and have the fighter have to rescue the bard or some such.
• Odd Pairings -- more general notion, also suggested by Abigail. Seek out "odd pairings" that result in events in-between the usual "everything for everybody", but not precisely single-interest. The Fighter's Bard above is one such; Conviviality is a traditional one. What else can we do? This sort of thing can breed cross-pollination in a very practical way.
• Golden Needle -- again from Abigail, a sort of A&S variation of Golden Sword. An A&S competition/exhibit, open only to artisans who haven't received any A&S recognitions. (Or possibly, no recognitions in the field entered, if we want to be open to the Laurels -- not clear whether that's appropriate or not. Think about it.)
• Autocrat's Academy -- from Antonia and Barbara. Have a series of deliberately-small events, one a month, designed to be low-impact learning experiences for new autocrats. This was tried and aborted, but it's well worth trying again.
• Autocrat's Roundtable -- doesn't need to wait for me to step up, and probably shouldn't. I'm being encouraged to restart the Roundtable, and that's a fine idea: it may help demystify things, and get more people trying to play. (Rumor has it that there is already in the project in the works to get this started, so I may not need to.)
• Fixing Council, One at a Time -- I've heard a disquieting amount of distrust of Council reps, at least in some cases. Regardless of the election process, that needs fixing, probably by leaning on the reps individually. We need to understand the causes of this (which probably differ, case by case), and deal with it. An aspect of this is squishing the perception that Council is a monolithic power center unto itself, and getting back to it clearly being a representative government.
• Elections Aren't All Big -- the process problem for officer elections is causing part of the distrust. We really need to work on this, probably with some common guidelines and principles, while allowing for individual guild variation. Should be realistic: there often isn't a contest -- often not even a single real candidate -- but some basic process should be observed regardless. In particular, we need to make clear that officers should never be simply annointed: at the very least, there should always be an open call for interested parties.
• Carolingians Do Too Travel -- lead some expeditions out-Barony to various events. Focus especially on neighboring groups, to try and build a bit more local cohesion. This should also help with Carolingia's ever-terrible reputation: getting to know folks personally tends to poke holes in bad myths.
• Atomizing the Minuscule -- the sad truth seems to be that few people are really reading the Minuscule nowadays, so we should figure out how to bring the idea up to date. The core notion is that we want shared, official communication. In the current environment, that likely means that it should focus on an RSS feed, running more frequently and more up to date. The Minuscule per se would then become a monthly collection of that feed, perhaps? Also, think about what social needs the Minuscule fills, and what we want it to do. Another aspect of the problem is making it more relevant and interesting -- ideally, returning it to its proper place as a central element of the Barony, helping bind us together.
• Weaning off the Digital Teat -- Carolingia was an early and passionate adopter of online technology, and we still use it heavily. That's lovely, but we've probably gone too far: we've wound up using it as a substitute for actually interacting face to face in many cases, and that's hurt us socially. We probably need to find a healthier balance. (How?)
• The Baronial Schmooze -- another idea from Abby, this time trying to address the idea of encouraging more face to face gatherings, to wean us a little from online. "The Baron can put on a small spread of bread/cheese/cold meat and people can show up and mill around and hang out for a little while with their barony. If you did it, say, midafternoon, after the morning people have done their flurry of morning activity and before the evening people have their flurry of activity."
• Baronial Gathering -- an idea from Kathryn, which I've heard in other variants over the years. Anssem is encouraging that we do this at fencing practice. "Every other month rent some space for 3-4 hours on a weekend afternoon with reasonable parking, somewhat T accessible preferably and most importantly a large lawn or small playground. We have lots of people doing interesting research and no good way to share it. Hold two tracks of classes so they can share and their friends can come listen. No garb - regular clothes. No feast - bring your own food and drink if you want something (and feel free to share). Parents can bring their kids (and are responsible for monitoring them or making arrangements with other parents) because there will be room for them to run around. Heck, maybe someone would teach a class for the kids or some basic dances too.
  It's a minimal fuss get together with enough variety that maybe, just maybe enough people would show up to make critical mass. Kind of like a large lawn party except with focus. :-) If the lawn was big enough, there could be pick up fencing and fighting too. People would get to have all those conversations, make all those introductions and hopefully hatch those plans that make things happen in a group."
• The Great Mapping Project -- A bit dangerous to even play with, and could backfire horribly. But it might be useful to formally map out the Venn diagram in graph form, with the people, relationships and circles, and feed that into some really good graph-analytic software. This might illustrate the factional lines clearly, and help us understand where it may be helpful to gently nudge things towards a few more relationships.
• Teach Folks to Talk -- A very subtle but pervasive problem in the Barony is that we have become astonishingly passive; more specifically, unwilling to engage with others face-to-face, especially to ask them for things or invite them. We almost always put out these online announcements of, "I'm looking for somebody to do X", or "If folks want to Y, I can help them". But we don't ask people directly, and the result is that these rarely get taken up. We need to understand this syndrome, and try to break this bad habit, because things mostly happen when people are asked directly.
• Don't Assume -- We've gotten much too casual about simply assuming our officers: taking for granted that the Knight Marshal or Waytes or Dancemaster or what-have-you will of course come run their activities at a given event. That's not just inappropriate, it's downright rude. This bad habit needs to be stomped hard: we need to spread the word vigorously that autocrats must always ask for help, well in advance. (It will, most often, be happily given. But asking is the difference between a grudgingly-provided activity and a content one.)
• Add Interest to Council -- mentioned by Safiya, and worth exploring. We've always described Council as a "business meeting", and we've let that become more and more true. It isn't clear why it needs to be just that, though. The interesting part of Council is mostly the announcements section. Can we beef that up, encouraging these, adding presentations and other news from around the Kingdom and Society? Can we find ways to make it more interactive, not just broadcast-oriented? We've focused far too much on making Council short -- we might instead focus on making it fun.
• The Physical Social Network is Everything -- an important observation from Constance. In general, we are vastly more effective getting people to come to activities if there is a personal, physical connection. It is very weak to say, "There's a thing going on; come on by". It is somewhat better to say, "You, personally, would like this thing, and should go to it." But by far the most effective technique is to say, "I am going to this thing you would like, and would love it if you came with me."
  This point is sharpened when the activity is at an individual's house. Most of us are shy, and going to somebody's house for the first time without accompaniment can be extremely intimidating.
• You Can't Look Stuffy With Dragon-Shaped Cookies -- another from Abigail. "The problem with our reputation is that we're stuffy and insular, right? So if you became Baron, you could send official envoys to other baronies (and you'd likely want to make note of the culture in said other baronies before you do this) with some kind of court schtick that's not remotely stuffy, like "I come bearing fruit from His Excellency's dragon hunt, which produced such meat that he wishes to share it with his neighbors" and then have a gift of a bunch of dragon-scale-shaped cookies, either just for the Baron or enough to be shared with the court/event."
  I suspect that we are just stuffy enough that folks would prefer that we keep it somewhat period. Still, the idea's a good one, and Digby Cakes in period-themed shapes (including silly period-themed shapes) might well manage to be both period and pleasantly silly.
• How Does Court Run in Your Land? -- inspired by the Harun al-Rashid event, suggested by Fenice. For high-theme events, specifically ones with a particular period, it might be fun to put some research effort into figuring out how courts run in that scenario and adapting a bit. We tend to run our courts very much as "generic Carolingian", which is largely "generic SCA", but Court can be a lot more interesting when you think of it as an opportunity for new and interesting theater.
• A Place for the Kids -- children's activities doesn't have to be huge and heavyweight. Some folks have suggested that simply having a place for the kids to congregate, with some simple activities, can be a great help. We need to understand this better, and make sure it gets communicated to the autocrats.
• We Don't Need To Segregate So Much -- that said, one of the strengths of the Society is the way that we sometimes treat children in a fairly period manner. At our best, instead of treating every teenager as an infant, we integrate them into our activities, and sometimes even give them real responsibilities. When it works right, this can be good for the kids, good for the families, and good for the Society, especially in the long run. We should be looking for ways to expand this, treating the kids as an integral and normal part of the Barony instead of an imposition to be managed.
• Championing the Champions -- (sparked by Jehan asking the candidates what their intentions were WRT next champions' tournies) My sense is that the way we're dealing with Champions has gotten a bit stale: that it's not exciting either the audience or entrants the way I'd like to see. How can we make the idea more special and interesting? Should we differentiate each Championship more? Should we make the Champions more unified? Should we increase/change their responsibilities, or play them up more? What are the goals of the Championships, and how can we achieve them better?
  Start by gathering the past and present Champions for a round table. What do they think is and isn't working? Brainstorm extensively, and let's try messing with things...
• How do Other Groups Do It? -- Tibor has experience with the barbershop-quartet world, which has had some similar problems and did an extremely principled job of addressing them. I need to read through the site on how they did that, and think about what lessons we can draw from it. He gives a bunch of pointers in a [comment here].
• Different Is Good -- One point that's been made to me is that the idea of Carolingia as snobbish is still pretty prevalent. Some of that seems to be folks out-Barony taking Carolingia's different-ness as an implicit slight: that if we're doing things in a way other than what they're used to, we are implicitly criticizing them for making bad choices.
  We need to work on this, but can't pretend that we're going to simply be the same as everyone else: we are who we are. But that is not an attempt to make others do exactly the same thing; rather, Carolingia's culture has always had a baked-in assumption that variety and experimentation are good, and that folks should do things differently.
  The question is, how do we get this point across? We need to find ways to explicitly respect the customs of the rest of the Kingdom without sacrificing our own identity. Most importantly, we need to ease anything that makes folks defensive vis a vis Carolingia, and promulgate more of a live and let live mentality. (Otherwise, we're going to continue to get into dumb fights over this.)
• Contingency Planning -- The 2012 Lawsuit Settlement demonstrated vividly the brittleness of the SCA's corporate structure. This particular settlement was affordable (if expensive), but only because we settled for much less than the plaintiffs were asking. It remains the case that a single severe lawsuit could bring down the whole house of cards.
  That being the case, Carolingia should do some basic contingency planning. This should be done calmly and carefully, with a realistic eye on what might happen and what we'd like to wind up with afterwards. Then we may find that there are some things we should be doing now to prepare.
  Note that this is not a call to revamp the SCA's overall structure -- much though I might want that, it's well above my pay grade, and outside Carolingia's scope to affect much. But we can validly talk about this specific consequence as it relates to us.
• Regional Leadership Council -- While folks in the area are friendly, you can't really say that we work together much. It would probably be a big win to get the area barons/seneschals together, to talk about regional cooperation. Should likely start as a relatively social thing: maybe start with small groups of 2-4, and see if we can get something to gel. At the very least, encourage the high-level officers in the region to get to know each other better, as part of more generally encouraging the citizens to do so.
• Welcome to Carolingia -- Largely suggested by Niki: people moving into Carolingia often don't feel very welcomed. I don't think it's that we actively snub or offend them (usually), but it's true that it is horribly easy to get lost in the shuffle. So here's an idea. We should put together a standard "Welcome to Carolingia" packet -- similar to the usual SCA intro, but aimed more at experienced members who have immigrated, to help them understand how the Barony works and how to get involved. (Might even have a personal letter from the Baron?) Everyone should know about this, and there should be a clear understanding that, if you know of someone who has moved in-Barony, it is your responsibility to see to it that they get the packet. You don't have to send it yourself, but you should make sure that somebody does so.

   

Business Requirements

It's trite, but a bit of discipline is probably necessary here, for prioritizing. What are the most critical problems we need to solve?

• The Fractured Venn Diagram -- Carolingia has always been a place of overlapping circles, and that's fine and right. But those circles have drifted far apart. We need to nudge them closer again, before we wind up with factional politics tearing us apart, and each interest group too weak to help things. Note that, while we do have some overlap between circles, they tend to be very closely related circles; overlap in the more general sense is a lot less common than it once was.
• Apathy -- A huge, over-arching problem. We're jaded, frankly. We need to inject more magic, more fire, back into the Barony. Plain and simply, we need more people finding the SCA fun again.
• The Ever-Shrinking Barony -- People keep thinking that we are still huge, and that's wrong in a crucial way: the amount of time being spent on the SCA has shrunk staggeringly, probably on the order of 75-80%. We need to slow this shrinkage, while at the same time recognizing it and restructuring in ways more appropriate to our current reality.
• Status Mentis What? -- possibly the deepest and hardest of the problems, likely too big to grapple with directly, but a common thread to pay attention to. The election discussion has shown that the motto "Carolingia Status Mentis Est" has been overused to the point where it's a slogan, not a guiding light. People just plain don't agree what it means, and some don't trust it, because it has been used as a bludgeon. Underlying this, there's a general fracturing in the community identity. We need to figure out who we really are now, and who we want to be. This is probably going to be a lot harder than it was when the phrase was coined, because we are much bigger and more diverse, but for the sake of the community we need to start developing at least a rough sense of identity again. (Otherwise, we'll be a geographical unit and nothing else. That would make me sad.)
• Not Enough Family Fun -- A lot of parents have difficulty having fun at events, for a variety of reasons. There typically isn't enough for kids to do, and the parents can wind up spending all of their time tending to and entertaining their children instead of really participating. So we need to think hard about how to integrate families better into our events.

Cassandra's List

This is a collection of suggestions that Cassandra has amassed from watching various organizations, which she posted in a comment in my LJ. Recorded here as long-term reminders:

• Want a volunteer? you've got to ask them directly - telephone or face to face.
• The same people doing the work all the time is not the problem everyone thinks it is. It's ok; leave it alone. It has a natural life-cycle. (This is the only one I somewhat disagree with -- I think we've gotten too far out of balance here.)
• Thank people, with more than a 'thank you'. (Adults need star-sticker rewards exactly as much as children do; trust me on this.)
• Be welcoming to everyone. (This is cultural, and really, really hard to get people to see how they're being non-welcoming.)
• Get input from not-just-the-people you already talk to all the time.
• Don't, don't, don't try to solve problems through email.
• Don't yell at or scold people in public. (I'm still prone to being surprised at just how ruinous this behavior is. But I've seen it again and again; it never ends well.)
• Don't ever do back-room, or parking-lot decision making -excluding the rest of the group from the conversation. I've seen insistence on keeping decision making or problem solving out of the public eye implode more than one local volunteer group. It's ugly, very destructive, and it happens a lot.