Headspace

The SCA Grand Council had gotten an assignment to ponder “Pay to Play” structures, their relevance and possible applicability to the Society. Let’s just say at the beginning that this didn’t please yours truly one bit. Couple of clarification letters were forwarded to the Kingdom list and our current representative being the kind she is, commentary was asked from Drachenwaldians. Here’s what we sent as commentary.

Unto Mistress Ariel do Lord Dubhghall and Baroness Mór send their
greetings.

Here are comments regarding the issues being discussed by the
Grand Council.

1. ‘Pay to play’ as a means of developing loyalty to the SCA as
organization

> We have discussed the fact that people develop loyalty to their
> local group, their household, their Kingdom, but not the
> Organization. Why is that?

Loyalty grows from belonging to and being a participant in, and
namely a participant with rights. From our Aarnimetsian/Finnish
point of view the inclusion of the members to the SCA, Inc. is
very limited. An average member has little say in the matters of
the Society. Quite often even getting heard is extremely
difficult, not to mention having a “vote”.

It would seem that the more a person is involved in the decision
making of the group, the more loyalty is felt towards it. Thus
often the strongest loyalty is first to one’s household and to
the local groups in ascending order. This is only natural. The
more I’m a member, the more it is “my group”. The high level SCA
organisation is so far away that it is difficult to develop
loyalty towards it.

This said, so far it would seem that the affiliate system is
working quite well in Aarnimetsä. As an example, the canton of
Humalasalo was not doing very well five years ago. At that point
it was decided to remove the local membership fee and to put all
effort into recruiting new people, getting them on a mailing list
so they could be kept in the loop, and arranging a variety of SCA
related activities. The SKA affiliate agreement coming into
effect finalised the success of the plan: the new SCA membership
system could be effectively communicated and explained to the
people, and it was obvious how being a paid member not only
brought benefits (like event price discounts) to the individual
but it also supported the local group (the canton), the barony
and the whole SCA. Today of all the Aarnimetsä cantons,
Humalasalo has the most paying affiliate/SCA members!

We believe (Mór having been the seneschal of Humalasalo for
several years during this process) that the key to getting paid
members is communal thinking. The membership fee needs to be
affordable and it needs to benefit both the one who’s paying and
the society they are supporting. To get the benefits of a
communal feeling (”loyalty”) to all levels of the hierarchy, the
membership must address all of the levels. In the affiliate
system:

1) The benefits for the individual:
- Discounts of event fees, in stores etc.
- A paying member has influence in the bureaucracy of the canton
(as per the Finnish law regarding non-profit associations).
- The member knows they are supporting the local group,
i.e. canton, see below

2) The benefits for the canton:
- The canton gets a set part of the fee as per their own choosing
(Humalasalo takes no membership share, some other cantons may
take a small share).
- The canton’s influence regarding the decision making in the
affiliate society level (SKA) depends on the amount of paying
members, so by paying for a membership, a person supports the
local canton in this way too.
- Due to the affiliate system in Aarnimetsä, a canton doesn’t
need to put resources into collecting the membership fees,
upkeeping a registry of the members etc. since SKA does all
that and publishes the baronial newsletter.

3) The affiliate association level
- The affiliate society collects the fees and uses them to
provide services (bureaucracy, newsletter, a Finnish insurance,
shared rules and regulations, important SCA events such as the
Baronial Investiture and Kingdom level events etc.) for the
cantons and their people.

4) SCA, Inc.
- Gets a share of the membership fees as agreed.
- Provides the main frame for the whole of the Society.

As a huge improvement to the old system, not only is the
membership fee much more affordable in relation to the local
economy, and easier to pay (since the affiliate society handles
all overseas money transfers), the system also grows loyalty
towards all levels of the system (also SCA, Inc.) by having the
membership shared between all levels and the said levels
co-operating in a rather seamless manner. All levels provide
services that in the end benefit the members.

In the Finnish affiliate organisation the costs for the society
are reduced by handling the functions as volunteer work. This is
possible when the membership bureaucracy is handled not on the
international but on the local level. Since in the affiliate
system most of the services are handled locally, this might be a
way to reduce the costs, since in the SCA Inc. Corporate budget
the office and salaries are the two most prominent expenditures.

2. Tiered membership

> The tiered membership is a useful thing to consider as well…a
> membership level for students perhaps, for people who want to
> come and watch, those that want to participate at certain
> levels…so that the people could pay for what they use. What
> should come with these tiers?

What does this mean then? What would be the levels of
participation? In normal SCA-officer jargon the levels refer to
Society, Kingdom, Principality, Barony etc. If this is the
meaning here, wouldn’t this have an adverse effect to the stated
intention? “I play to participate only at my barony level, so I
most certainly won’t do anything in the Kingdom” as opposed to “I
can participate on local, Kingdom, Society wide levels as the
situation develops”.

Or are these tiers intended to be such that at the cheapest
levels one can’t participate to the in-Society hobbies? Which
hobbies would these be and how would they be chosen? No fighting?
No dancing? No listening to lectures or participating to
workshops? We have found that the in-Society activities are very
important to the people. It benefits the whole Society that there
are many participants, including both people willing to teach and
people willing to learn. Membership fee requirements for
participating would hinder this. More regarding ‘pay to fight’
and thoughts on ‘pay to receive awards’ in the next section.

One possible way to read this would mean different fees for
differently ranked individuals. This promotes the idea of awards
as a kind of a caste system instead of associating the awards
closely with the contribution to the Society. If there was any
sense of justice in the thing, hardworking peers would be paid
for their attendance wherein a newcomer student would pay the
highest price. This would however add a very unpleasant feature
to the award system and also discourage new members from
joining. If it was done the other way around, it would in fact be
punishing those who have done most for the society! We view the
award system as something that should inspire the recipients and
others to continue to serve the Society, not as a rank that
perhaps cannot be bought but should continuously be paid for ever
since.

3. ‘Pay to’ models in the SCA

> The different “pay to…” things in different Kingdoms should
> be considered too. Some are pay to fight, some are pay to
> receive awards, same are not. How does this impact
> things…should it be consistent across the Organization?

Absolutely not! The kingdoms of the SCA differ vastly in their
culture, regarding the things that are appreciated, and how
business is conducted. While we may be able to appreciate that
in some kingdoms it indeed is perfectly legitimate to expect
people to show their commitment first and foremost by purchasing
a membership, it is entirely out of the question in these parts
(Perhaps all of Drachenwald; in any case it applies to
Aarnimetsä).

Here the participants are expected to contribute to the Society
first and foremost through their effort. Helping in events (quite
often not a small deal), working as officers, etc. This ethos is
something that we also try to teach to and inspire in our new
members (who are quite often students of various degrees with
limited financial possibilities). If we tell people that they’re
welcome to pay and help, that doesn’t sound too good for the
newcomers. “Come and join us in this shared effort and enjoyment
of living the medievalish dreamworld” is much more beckoning than
the alternative.

Regarding ‘pay to receive awards’. The idea that we’d teach
people to work in this Society that has a set structure (awards)
for recognising hard work and effort in service to the Society,
and would then consider them un-eligible for that recognition had
they not made a financial contribution to the Society is quite
appalling. This is contrary to everything we consider the SCA
spirit to be.

For the landed gentry granting the awards, this would also be
quite a hassle. In addition to the merits of the possible
recipient they would also need to consider their membership
status. And what of the people who fail to remain members at some
point? Would it lead into situations where granted awards would
have to be nullified as the recipient wasn’t eligible for them
per regulations? Surely a ‘pay to be awarded’ system would only
have effects adverse to the awarding system’s desired function.

As for ‘pay to fight’, the waivers are no longer required from
fighters here and thus the membership card is unnecessary for the
functioning of the in-society combat hobby as such. If this kind
of a thing would be implemented, it would appear to be ripping
off the fighters as opposed to other in-society hobbies. It might
also encourage the false idea that fighters make their
contribution only through their combat prowess and financial
support of the society.

To us it seems that not only ‘pay to play’, but all ‘pay to’
structures mentioned so far are detrimental to the hobby and
would create negative effects.

In Service,
Dubhghall and Mór from Aarnimetsä
mundanely known as Henri and Maria Laine