[MR] Gaming Guild

[david wendelken]

>From: Signora Sveva Lucciola <ladysveva at yahoo.com>
>Subject: [MR] Advice on organizing and forming guilds

I've seen huge amounts of energy get devoted to setting up Guild Charters, ranks, honours and perogatives, etc., that would have been better used to "just do it".

If you have fun doing what you like, and do so publically, people will notice.  If you make them feel welcome and make sure they have fun with you, many will come back to have fun with you again - and they'll bring their friends.

That's the best way to make things happen in the SCA.

It takes no official approval, no paperwork, no bureaucracy.

The email list just set up (gamesguild at yahoogroups.com) can become very useful for gamers as an easy way to pass info back and forth to one another.  But it won't act as a substitute for public fun and making people welcome!

I would be very wary of accepting SCA money.  There may be more paperwork attached to it than it's worth.  That doesn't mean that gaming interests can't be served with SCA money!

Example:  We might want to have a chess tournament, and need 15 chess sets.  Let's say that between us, we can come up with 10 from home.  That means a shortfall of 5 sets.  If the autocrat is cooperative and can afford it, the autocrat might use the event funds to purchase the 5 sets.  Those sets would not belong to the "gaming guild", they would belong to the group that hosted the event, or perhaps the kingdom.  That group keeps ownership of the sets, but makes them available for use by SCA members - just like anything else.  We have loaner armour and costumes, why not loaner games?

Non-SCA money example:
Let's say that the autocrat isn't cooperative or the money just isn't in the event or group budget.  What can we do?
Well, if the gaming guild is "just a group of folks" and most especially "not an official anything of the SCA", we can raise money any (mundanely) legal way we want to, and spend it however we want, also.  No SCA rules apply, other than if we want to have a fundraiser at an event, we should be wearing costumes (just like we would anyway).  It's a private activity undertaken by private individuals for private purposes.  This privately sponsored event can even be advertised as an activity at the event, even though it isn't an "official SCA activity".  We do the same for contests, weddings, etc.

Hope this helps!

Andras