[MR] Ugliness and newcomers

[Elvira Pedrosa]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Jessica Fitzgerald
<guiendolyn at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Greetings All!
>
> I confess, I don't read the merry rose like I should and I had no idea what ugliness was going around until today. Having read some of the comments, I'm sad to say I'm not surprised. My first event was atlantian 10 year/emerald joust. I grew up in the Sca and I'm only currently 26. I'm part of this group everyone is debating. The Sca IS too expensive. For my husband, my toddler and I to go to a weekend event it never costs less that $150, and we don't even have to pay site fees or feast for our little one. It is much easier to rent a movie or buy a video game, and cheaper too.
>


What part of the expenses of the SCA do believe are something others
can trim? Many of the expenses related to your kite are directly in
your control. From what I understand much of the heavy kit can be made
with small financial investment and sweat labor.  Not a lot of rapier
gear is something you can make, but you can make your own gorget,
hood, and jacket

I am not sure how you get $150 for a nearby weekend event for 2 plus a
toddler. Even with feast on a upper priced event I think the price
would be closer to $75 plus gas.   You can easily cut out all of the
extra food costs by bringing from home.  The groups I have been
directly involved with have very slim margins, between the costs of
the site, toilets, and other basic expenses they are not making much
profit from the events.   Some events routinely lose money.

Costs are something we need to look into, but many of the costs are
the choice of the attendee. How do we as an organization help people
cut expenses that are not directly in the control of the event hosts?

Elvira Pedrosa