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Society Membership Trends

During a recent discussion of levels of Society participation, I was asked about long-term trends in overall membership numbers.

As it happens, I had previously extracted some of the relevant figures from other sources — some of which showed up in a post about kingdom-level breakdowns — but hadn’t gotten around to publishing the older numbers here, because the data is incomplete and would benefit from additional review and cleanup.

That said, even if the specific numbers are taken with a grain of salt, the overall pattern shown here is likely of interest to others, so I might as well share this as a work-in-progress.

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Can Onlookers Report Harassment of Minors?

In the wake of an unpleasant interaction at a local event, I wrote to the Society Seneschal to ask about the correct way for observers to file reports regarding inappropriate behavior towards youth.

In response I was informed that “there are no policies that limit who can report concerns about such actions,” although I didn’t receive a response to my follow-up asking for additional details.

A few weeks later the same subject came up during East Kingdom Curia, when the Kingdom Seneschal mentioned that harassment reports regarding minor participants should only be filed by parents or guardians, and could not be initiated by other observers.

This interpretation was confirmed via email — “it is up to the legal guardian / parent to file a report” — along with an indication that this is an established Society-wide policy.

I’m not sure what to make of the gap between these two explanations.

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Coping With Increased Society Fees

The Society has just announced an increase in fees, as decided at last weekend’s Board meeting. Annual membership fees are increasing by $10 per year, while the costs of additional family members and non-member event participation are increasing by $5 each.

Here are a few tips for folks unfamiliar with the Society membership system:

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In Support of the East Kingdom Rapier Crown Variance

Earlier this month, the East Kingdom’s royals submitted a request for a variance that would allow the Spring 2024 crown tournament to be determined via a rapier contest rather than rattan armored combat as has been the practice for the last five decades.

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East Kingdom Curia Feedback Regarding Youth Combat

One of the core elements in Society governance is the periodic updating of each kingdom’s laws by the reigning monarchs, in consultation with the kingdom’s officers and baronage. The East Kingdom’s next Curia meeting will be held on February 1, and as several of the proposed changes would affect the Youth Combat program, I wrote in to voice my perspective.

My correspondence is attached below, along with the proposed changes to current kingdom law.

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KEM Authorization Policy Reversed

TL;DR: Contrary to a previous ruling, Kingdom Earl Marshals do not have the power to singlehandedly authorize participants in martial disciplines for which they are not qualified.

As part of the fallout from the Wistric Saga, in July 2022 the Society Seneschal ruled (or “interpreted”) that Kingdom Earl Marshals could singlehandedly issue martial authorizations, including in disciplines for which they were not warranted.

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Corporate and Society Inclusion Offices

The Board is soliciting feedback on a change to the governing documents that would affect DEIB efforts.

It looks like they are both creating a DEIB Society Officer (who would coordinate in-game kingdom and local DEIB offices), and separating that office from the Corporate Office of Inclusive Programs (which would be focused on corporate and Board support).

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Email Is A Social Media Platform

TL;DR: There are no clear Society-wide policies regarding mailing lists; I’ve made a recommendation that they should be covered by the Society Social Media Policies.

Electronic mail has been around for my entire lifetime (give or take a couple of weeks) and is so pervasive that it fades into the background, ceding attention to the showy titans of social media that have emerged over the last two decades. But if the historical sequence were reversed, and email was introduced today, we’d likely see it as a natural evolution of that ecosystem — another social media platform.

Or at least that’s how it seems to me, which is why in discussions of SCA policy I’ve always assumed that the Society guidelines for social media — about offensive content, or copyright, or a dozen other topics — also applied to email.

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Update: Branches Can Create Their Own Facebook Events

TL;DR: SCA branches can create their own Facebook events using their official Facebook page identity without going through the KSMO; however, some kingdoms might impose additional requirements for kingdom-level events.

Earlier this year I posted about an annoying stricture of paragraph IV.C.3.d. of the SCA Social Media Handbook which specified that “On Facebook, Events are to be created through Official Kingdom Pages.”

The one problematic word there is “kingdom” — because it means that local branches have to coordinate all of their Facebook events with the Kingdom’s social media officer, and in the East that means that over fifty branches have to funnel their hundreds and hundreds of Facebook events through a single individual.

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SCA Social Media Can Allow Off-Topic Conversations

In a recent discussion of the reasons some local branch officers persist in creating “unofficial” Facebook groups, an officer from another region of the kingdom reported that two branches had gone down that path because they had been told that “official” social media channels could not allow any off-topic conversations.

This came as a surprise, as I know online conversations often wander, and it’s totally common for a local populace discussion forum (whether on Facebook, Discord, a mailing list, a video conference, or wherever) to include a mix of group business, historical trivia, crafting discussions, in-jokes and wordplay, conversations about role-playing games, pictures of people’s pets, and a hundred other topics.

I wrote to the social media officers at the kingdom and Society level and was pleased by the prompt reply: “there’s nothing wrong with having occasional off topic conversations.”

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