On Leaving Your College

Since graduating at the end of last year, my wife and I spent some time planning how we'd leave the College. It happened with some sadness, as we both started out in the College, met through the College, and had spent years watching it grow. But, leaving had to be done. This post is mostly an exploration of why that is, along with some of the method.

One of the main reasons we left is that we're both getting towards a decade older than the general population of first-year uni students. That starts to feel all sorts of awkward, despite the best of intentions on both sides. It can also change the dynamic of the group, with the older, theoretically responsible folks making people think they should behave.

Additionally, as members of the Old Guard, and in fact both former Seneschals, we were starting to feel that the way these whipper-snappers are running things is wrong, because it's not how we did things, con-sarnit. If they're not doing things my way, they must be saying I was getting it wrong, and that's impossible, because I'm always right. Curse these youngin's with their strange fashions and silly music.

But, the new generation of Collegians seem to be doing a fine job of running things. Numbers are up, people seem keen, and that's a mark of success. My ways of running the College are really focused around pulling it back from the bring - I remember more than one month where the peak numbers were 3 (of which I was the only student). Once you're not on the verge of shutting, then the ideal methods change.

So, the decision was made, we shall leave the College! Ah, but we should wait until the new folk this year have settled in, they might need some advice that we can be helpful with... Okay, we'll start skipping a few meetings, only coming to the ones with something interesting going on... But habits are hard to break, and when "not coming" is a decision and "coming" is the status quo, you just keep coming. Eventually, we decided to just cut it off at a certain mark (which was timed well with the next planning meeting, by coincidence. Not having the Old Guard being opinionated in the College planning meeting is a good thing if you want to move on).

So, we've left, we're now alumni of the College of Saint Aldhelm instead of veterans of it, and the College is growing in new and exciting ways. May God have mercy on their souls.

Now get off my lawn.

On the Care and Feeding of Colleges

A subject that is quite close to me right now is the ways in which Colleges, those university-based branches of the SCA, are like and unalike the other branches of the SCA. This is the first in a series of posts on the matter of Colleges, as there is far too much for one post.

I joined the SCA through the College of St Aldhelm, and also had the variable pleasure of leading that group for something more than two years. I'm currently still a member, and having to resist the urge to keep leading the group despite having passed the key to my successor.

Most of my experience is with a fairly small, old College. Membership tends to wax and wane, getting as low as 2 or 3 over the summer some years, and getting as high as a dozen or more after some good firm recruitment.

All Colleges operate under a parent group, be that a Barony, Canton, Shire, or any such geographic group. The relationship can, at times, be a tense one, with the goodwill of both sides being stretched by competing needs of the two groups. Ideally, a College should act as a feed-in system for membership in the geographic group of which they are part, and if done well, this can be a benefit both to the College and its parent group.

In my experience with the College, those new members who only get involved in College activities tend to drop out of the SCA as soon as they graduate, or sometimes as soon as the exam period hits, where those members who find at least one activity outside of the College to participate in, whether it's archery, fencing or heavy combat training, the group's A&S activities, or even being an officer in the parent group, tend to continue in the SCA for longer.

However, when encouraging College members to join the wider parent group, it's important that they not be encouraged so hard that they stop attending College activities entirely, because to bring in new members, a College has to have a reasonably-sized and friendly group of existing members, regularly attending the College's activities, otherwise you're left with a group of new people who don't know anyone in the SCA, which makes it hard for them to become part of the SCA.

One of the important things for keeping College members attending College meetings is there being regular, and interesting, activities at them, which is somewhat complicated to arrange at times, and shall be the subject of another post.