[MR] Permanent Crown Sites [LONG]

[egeorges]

I have finally made my way through most of the emails on this topic, and
here's my 2 farthings....

1) The pros of having a permanent site are (a) significant lightening of the
load on the Kingdom in terms of finding event bids for two of the 12 Kingdom
events on the calendar, (b) certainty for participants and staff in terms of
knowing what to expect for Crown Tourney.  That certainty has a  number of
ancillary benefits:

(i) Participants and staff can plan far in advance to attend or not attend,
to work or not to work
(ii) Site lore will be readily available because of the fact that the site
is frequently used.  My guess is that after a year or two Crown Tourney will
be an event that practically runs itself because the logistics of it will be
largely worked out.  As long as we are organized about preserving that site
lore (and god knows we have our share of ridiculously organized individuals
to handle a task like that), autocratting Crown becomes a relatively cut and
dried proposition.
(iii) Because autocratting Crown can be so routine, it could become an ideal
event to train aspiring autocrats who want to get involved with autocratting
Kingdom level events.  I am a BIG believer in creating opportunities for
people to learn new service skills in the SCA.  Here in Ponte Alto, members
who want to try their hand at autocratting are encouraged to autocrat our
Bloodbath event, because it is by far the most routine event to autocrat.
That gives them something to cut their teeth on and build the confidence to
take on a more complicated event afterwards.

(2) Cons of the proposal of a permanent site are (a) People living far from
the center of the Kingdom will have to travel significant distances to
Crown, and will not have the option of encouraging a Crown bid close to home
to alleviate the travel, (b) A sense of sameness can set in with Crown, an
event that already has trouble attracting people because it is a "specialty"
event that has little going on other than Some A&S competitions and of
course, Crown Tourney itself, and (c) autocratting remotely does propose
some challenges and limits who can be involved in autocratting and in doing
other jobs to those people who can take the time from work to travel for
several days,(d) the risk that non-local individuals without relationship to
the region and the site could be less than rigorous in the care of site and
staff than those who are local, and (e) it locks us into a long term
contract, which is always a risk financially and logistically.

There are obviously responses to many of these points on both sides.

I am personally in favor of a permanent site for Crown because I think that
many of the cons have responses that minimize their impact:

(a) Yes, living far from the center of the Kingdom means that you have to
travel more to get to Kingdom events more often than not.  But realize that
Atlantia comparatively speaking, is a geographically compact kingdom.  There
are Baronies in the Midrealm that take nearly nine hours to drive across.
People in other kingdoms regularly drive much greater distances than most of
us do to get to Crown Tourneys and Coronations.  

People's ability to travel is often constrained by many things -- time,
distance, money, family, etc.  We as a Society are going to have to get used
to the fact that while certainly we want to make all of our events as
accessible to as many people as possible, that there will be many people who
can only play at a more local/regional level, and that this should not make
them "second class" SCA players.  I think we are already battling this
phenomenon as a result of last year's gas price spike and this year's
struggling economy, but it's a fact of life in our modern world that the
amount of time and resources people have to devote to a hobby like ours is
shrinking, and that issue is a larger issue than what needs to be considered
here, a can of worms that is incredibly important to our growth as a Society
but really tangential to the main issue.  

But it is relevant to our discussion here in that we need to acknowledge
that the problem of keeping the Kingdom more united and Kingdom events more
accessible is not going to be solved or rendered unsolveable by the decision
to declare a permanent site for Crown Tourney.  It is harder to get to
Reidsville from Northwest Maryland than it is from Richmond, no question.
But that hardship is lessened if you know 12 months in advance that you'll
have to go there if you want to fight in or watch or autocrat crown.  And as
someone has already noted, if you want to be King or Queen and live in the
far reaches of the Kingdom, you'd best be prepared to do some travelling.

(b) the problem of poor attendance at Crown has less to do with the location
of it than with its nature as a "specialty" event.  I don't think giving
Crown a permanent location will have as much impact on attendance as perhaps
including a high quality archery shoot or rapier tourney.  We also have a
tradition in Atlantia where Crown lists tend to be small.  In other
Kingdoms, Crown lists can top 60 combatants.  There are reasons why people
are hesitant to enter the Atlantian Crown List, I am sure, but someone else
is probably better qualified than me to discuss that, and again, it's an
ancillary point at best to the matter at hand.

(d) The issue of activity that could lose a site has less to do with whether
someone is local to the group than it does with whether we are building a
culture among our event staff of leaving sites better than we found them.
If we are doing that effectively, this should not be a problem. 

(e) every contract, whether long term or for a single event, has risks.  You
can always modify contract language to cover those risks.

In other words, I think that while there are some legitimate cons to the
proposal, which means we have to go forward with this deliberately and with
foresight, none of them rise to the level where the idea of a permanent
Crown site should be discarded out of hand.

One solution may be to try it out for two years and see how it goes.
Perhaps a contract that has a two year initial period with an option for an
extension for more years?

With apologies for the length, I remain,	

Luce Antony Venus

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