New Deputy Society Seneschal – Event Support Services Position
The SCA Board of Directors is directing the Society Seneschal to develop and implement a new Deputy Society Seneschal Office and accompanying kingdom level infrastructure to deal with broad-based event support services.
The core activity and a core competency of the Society for Creative Anachronism is holding events – and our event autocrats and event staff are tremendous volunteer resources who typically shoulder the burden for our mutual benefit over and over and over again.
The Board of Directors of the SCA, Inc. believes that it is possible for the Society to take steps to reduce some of that burden by providing an ongoing information clearinghouse resource to provide autocrats and event staff with lists of providers of the support services needed to hold and best manage SCA events.
With this initiative coordinated by a Society-level Deputy Seneschal, and information gathered, managed, and supervised at the Kingdom level by deputy Seneschals, the new Office might thus gather, manage, and provide valuable and timely information for those who put together our events and activities. The new Office will be charged with developing a clearinghouse of event support services like local port-a-john providers, local externally certified SCA first-aid volunteers, local emergency services companies, perhaps even local event sites, etc… The Office might not only provide a list of providers, but could also provide additional information about those providers — such as if they had been used successfully or unsuccessfully by the SCA in the past, if they provided competitive or uncompetitive rates, basic information about their certifications/licensing (where applicable), etc…
This new Deputy Office will thus be responsible for providing information about the types of services listed above so that they might be made available for events when wanted or needed, along with information about the broader range of services of use to event planning and implementation staff.
The Office will be created as a new Deputy Seneschal position and, like the Deputies of all offices (e.g., the Seneschallate, Marshallate, Office of the Exchequer, Arts & Sciences Office, Herald, etc…) will act to develop and coordinate these resources at a Kingdom-level.
Comments regarding the creation of this new office should be sent to both comments@sca.org and seneschal@sca.org. Comments may also be sent by mail to:
SCA Inc.
Box 360789
Milpitas, CA 95036
This announcement is an official informational release by the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce this announcement in its entirety in newsletters, websites and electronic mailing lists.
I am somewhat confused by the term…. resources. What resources are they speaking of?
Freya, it’s probably wrong to speculate about exactly what “resources” there might be. I suspect that the resource most likely to be made available, is the most powerful resource of all: information.
I feel a little bit good about this decision of the Board’s, frankly. I’ve been advocating for YEARS for the SCA to wake up and look at its situation. It exists only so that events can be held and supported, it is heavily reliant upon the volunteers that run those events. Yet it has, basically, done not one single useful thing to assist those people from the Corporate level on down.
I’m not saying that no one ever helped. I’m saying that we put more organization into running a tournament than we put into finding places to have those tournaments.
It’s well past time that Corporate looked to see what was needed, and did something to help. I also have to tip my hat to Therasia von Tux, who has been pounding the phrase “core competency” toward the Board for a very long time, and who was instrumental in reminding the Board that the SCA’s core competency is events.
It’s nice to see they can, eventually, notice.
I’m still not understanding what information is going to be collected. I’m not saying it’s the fault of the writer as I often do not understand the written word.
Freya, the details will be up to the person taking the job. But I suspect that they’ll do a few things, like ask for reports on sites (Carolingia, for many years, maintained a “site book” that autocrat’s could use to find sites), or they may ask about outside services that events hired. I could see a LOT of information being shared.
When I was actively running events in Carolingia (and once for Known World), I frequently relied upon the knowledge and wisdom of others: where to get the best prices for materials, who might own equipment I could borrow, sites and potential site problems, how to work with local police or emergency responders, and so forth. I was lucky to be very friendly with some very experienced autocrats.
Imagine if everyone who wanted to run events could have that same level of help and support?
But they should already be getting that, Tibor. You don’t really believe that event stewards keep things to themselves and don’t share their knowledge and info with others?
I don’t know what the situation is in other areas, but the way businesses disappear here, it would be extremely difficult to keep updated.
I understand that it could be useful. And I think having a Steward’s Handbook should be required of each group.
But I still think this is an unnecessary position. I’d much rather speak to others in my group to find out where and who they went to for whatever. We’ve always done that here, including having a seasoned steward work with a first timer.
Again, I don’t say it’s a bad thing. Just unnecessary. If people don’t talk to each other, what are they doing here.
It’s a big Society, and not everything is as good everywhere.
And it might help, and given the restrictions probably can’t hurt.
And, it is the Board actually paying attention, at long last, to the most important thing the SCA’s volunteers actually DO. It’s marvelous, darnit.
It won’t be perfect. But it could, and I think very likely will, make it easier to hold an event. And that rocks.
(Of course, here in Carolingia….. we had the authors of The Autocrat’s Handbook to draw upon, a site book we used to keep up to date, an Autocrat’s Roundtable that used to meet occasionally as a resource to potential and current autocrats, and our own local autocratting handbook as well. So: at least back then, we didn’t need help. LOL)
It’s still a good idea: not everyone gets to live in Carolingia. 🙂
I’m going to have to agree and disagree. 🙂 Yes, it could be a good thing. But I still think it’s unnecessary. 🙂
This is an official announcement from SCA Inc, I believe that is where you will find your answer, I expect the gazette will not like to speculate.