[MR] Pennsic Escort Service (Was, woman attacked at Pennsic)

[Stacie Larson]

Once upon a time when rocks were soft, I ran the Campus Escort Service
at William & Mary.  Even at placid, distinguished W&M, there were
problems, and Pennsic is bigger than Williamsburg, Virginia, by a
couple of thousand people (leaving the tourists out of the census, of
course).  But, the two have a lot in common - somewhat separate from
the wider world, generally nice people trying to form a community,
occasional dark and scary places to walk, even buses that just don't
quite cover everywhere you'd want to go when you want to go there. 
Escort was founded so that no student (male or female) had to walk
alone at night (it didn't happen often, but we'd walk the guys, too). 
So, personally, Lord William's idea strikes me as a sound one.  It's
just implementation that's hard.  Some things would be easy to fix, and
some harder.  If they could be answered, a Pennsic Escort could be a
Good Thing.

1.  "Official" Escorts.  You'd have to have some sort of distinction to
separate real Escorts from counterfeiters out to isolate their victims.
 This is an Easy Fix, I think.  Fancy baldrics, flashlights, and
radios, for example.

2.  Sheer size of Pennsic.  You'd need several dispatch points, so that
you didn't have to wait for your Escort to get to you in the bog and
they're up on a hill.  Wait time was the single biggest complaint I
remember from my college days; when faced with a 45 minute wait for a
safe walk or risking a 10 minute scary one, most folks opt for the
scary one.  Fortunately, most folks win that bet, but not all do.

3.  Volunteers.  Pennsic Security can hardly get enough volunteers
throughout the War as it is.  You'd need to have enough volunteers that
everyone who wanted an Escort could get one without falling back on
Problem 2.

4.  Dispatch.  How do you let the official Escort know you need a walk?
 Pennsic hasn't got a phone to use in every encampment to call the
dispatcher.  This is the hardest fix, I think.  Plus, you'd actually
need a number to call to get the walk in the first place.

Assuming Problem 4 could be solved and there were enough volunteers,
the first two problems are easy to solve.

And, just so I'm not only raising Bad Points without being constructive
- assuming way the heck more volunteers for Security, to include
Escorts, what about Security Substations every few blocks?  Maybe Lord
Bob in the place you're visiting can't walk you across all of Pennsic,
but he could run you a block over to a substation.  There, you could
wait in a safe location and the volunteers there could radio for a
nearby Escort to come fetch you and take you where you need to go.

Just thinking in Times New Roman,
Cecily

-----
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 18:00:07 -0400
From: "Chris Goodson" <chris_goodson at bellsouth.net>
Subject: RE: [MR] Woman Attacked at Pennsic
To: <atlantia at atlantia.sca.org>
Message-ID: <002601c4906f$0dfde850$0201a8c0 at CLGSTUDIOS>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="US-ASCII"

This angers me greatly. Not so much that there is one twisted 
individual
out of so many good people, but that there was no system in place to
assure that every lady who needed an escort in dark places got one.

Perhaps next Pennsic should see the creation of a volunteer service of
gentles to walk those in need from point to point at night. I would
certainly volunteer. Any thoughts?

William Faleston



		
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