Hey Lover

Vittoria posted about it this morning - - they're dropping from 3 to 2 AnS events a year. A Fall Collegium and a Spring AnS Tournament

xoxoxo
d

As I understand, Herald's Collegium will also be integrated into Collegium.

For this past collegium, total through gate was 68. 20 were Collegium instructors, 7 were IKINS instructors. For the rest, some showed up later in the afternoon, some just for their class. There just wasn't enough attendance to give any class their fair share or due. I believe that at the previous one, we had almost 140 people there (maybe less, but it was definitely over 120).

The eternal optimist in me now rears its head, and proclaims that in order to demonstrate that there truly is merit in two collegiums per year plus A&S, then we should make it abundantly clear through good attendance and solid performance. Unfortunately, this past collegium was not convincing in that regards.

If you still want to know why give me in about 10 minutes :)

Even if you moved GWW and technically that is a CAIDEN event, October is just crushed, two Coronets and a Crown is just a LOT of stuff, So while I am not going to comment on the 3 down to 2, moving fall Collegium, to November just makes sense to me. Also, if it doesn't conflict with a fighting event, maybe even a stick jock like me will go.

'm of mixed feelings on the whole thing. For a scheduling perspective, it would be far smarter to keep the spring and not the fall. The best venues for collegium are churches and schools. Most schools don't open their schedules until August 31st (they don't even answer the phones in the summer)when their school year starts. Most churches are busy on Sundays. Trying to get a site at the end of August for the November Page is cutting it rather thin.

The only real solution is to treat Collegiums as the Kingdom events that they are, not allow other events to conflict with them and give them better weekends rather than being moved to appease the Principalities. Right now, they just don't get the priority that they deserve.

I agree that October is TEH INSANE, but I actually thought Spring was a *good* time for Collegium? Not much happening in April, is there? Though there isn't much happening in November either, of course. Also, I personally dig the little church site we use here in Sacramento (UCC on Morse) -- and no, NOT 'cos of the proximity, but I thought it had an intimate enough feel without being too out of the way per se...?

I have to agree with Donata, though, that I think keeping Spring as opposed to Autumn (if one MUST be cut) kinda makes more sense. But hey, what do I know/ count, as I'm kinda not on the playground right now...

1) Spring is a problem, because people would rather be at a fighting event
2) fall is a problem, because people would rather be at a fighting event
3) moving it out of "camping season" would help, on both counts.
I'm not entirely sure why the decision to drop spring rather than fall, other than it gives more time to prep for fall next year, and really make it go.
We're going to try it. We're all trying to get the A&S stuff in the kingdom on a better footing. When ALL the A&S events for the year lost money, and not insignificantly, that was a sign we needed to change things. Holding as many as we have now seems not to be working. We'll see how we do with one fewer event next year, and all of us trying to work on the class recruiting next year for the two events as a team (A&S and Collegium, together!).

I'm in total agreement with the numerous people who have said that these events are where they are because of a lack of interest. They're not "sexy" at this point. We're a very fighter centric kingdom right now, and that's just how it is. It isn't good or bad - just is. If we'd like to be more involved in the A&S stuff as a kingdom, it's going to take an effort to get us there. So, we're going to try some new things and see how it goes. One of the saddest moments I've had in this office was a discussion where someone talked about not doing things at A&S or Collegium because they aren't "crown" events. Umm, they make up the other third of the kingdom events for the year, but people don't see them that way. That comes from how we treat them, from the royalty on down. They've gotten to where they are because of how we, as a kingdom, see them. It's going to take time to change that, if we want to.

I think the whole Collegium topic is a good thing to (re-)examine and discuss. I'm still thinking about it, but the analyst in me wants to do a requirements analysis on the whole thing. ;-)

I'm still thinking about this and I don't have answers. I wrote a comment over in ppfuf's LJ already. Some other/modified comments are:

-- I think it's worth looking at what types of classes are best done in an indoor classroom environment with audio/visual aids. How many of those classes do we have, typically, over a year? Can they all fit into one Kingdom collegium? How do we best serve these types of classes and the audiance's that are interested in them?

-- A related point is what are the kinds of classes that don't need a collegium-like classroom/indoor setting. Can these and Are these classes already being held elsewhere (resulting in their potential audiences not feeling the need to attend Collegium)?

-- I know that for me, personally, I'm drawn more towards "stuff" that I think I can integrate into my overall SCA experiance. Now, in my case, what's going on in the medival and renaissance mind facsinates me, and how that relates to my modern mind and experaince. How stuff can be applied to my SCA play, or if I get a historical context to better understand my SCA play (and attraction thereto) always interests me. Traditional Colleguim allows time and space for those discussions, as well as collecting other interested people together for those discussions. Those interactions are possible at other events (e.g. the Virtue roundtables), but are more difficult because of the other demands on people's time at Crown/Coronet/Coronation/Investiture events. Really don't want to eliminate Collegium.

-- But I do see a trend towards integrating academic and hands-on social/Arts study into how we play the SCA. We have classes so that we can apply that knowledge to our SCA play, right? The cook' playdates are great examples of this, as is the PPFs and salons and, with luck, our 16th C Day at West/An Tir War 2010 (yes, that was a shill ;-) ). I think Arts are become a destination activity in and of themselves. I think they will always get less of a draw than partying and maybe even fighting or the "SCA Game"-part of our group, and I'm OK with that. The SCA is a big-tent organization, to each their own.

So, yeah, I think I'm OK with one Kingdom Collegium per year, along with more integration and visability of Arts stuff into the SCA game itself. And the WK Oct calander is crazy; my personal life did not help, so I didn't make this weekend's Collegium even though I'm very fond of them.



Edited at 2009-10-26 10:33 pm (UTC)

Ok, I'll open my mouth here, maybe another thing to look at is how AnTir runs Ithra. It is VERY different than how the West runs it Collegium, but it seems to work very well for them. I know there are people on this list who know Laurels and Pels in AnTir who could explain how they do it, and the numbers of people they get. So as long as you are going back to the drawing board, find what IS working elsewhere and see if we could make it work here.

Wow, there's a lot of discussion here. I have to add my 2 cents anyway.
1. having 2 kingdom events in the same month is killing me. I didn't teach at A&S because I did a huge dinner at Crown. I need more prep time and more focus time in between. Why can't we have Kingdom events in July and Sept?
2. The coronets should not be consolation prizes for those who didn't win Crown. Enter the lists because you want to be Prince and Princess and have something to offer.
3. Financially, having 2 kingdom events in the same month is hard on people. Even when you know it's going to happen, it's hard to save up for it.
4. My class was hands on, make it there, taste it there class. I paid for gas to drive to Collegium, paid my site fee, and paid for all my supplies (almonds, commercial almond milks, and handouts)and did prep work. I got a nice breakfast and 1 student.
I don't blame the chancellors, they did a great job. I do partially blame the grueling schedule. I purposely skipped GWW this year because I knew it was going to be too much.
I don't blame the royalty - Her Majesty, Her Highness of the Mists and the Lady of the Mists were all there.
I blame the populace for not demanding the classes they want, and coming to the event and taking classes.
There's no point in guessing what classes people want. They need to say what they want. I think Pre-reg would help this.