Just got my polling for the Baronial election in the mail. Apparently, for the election to be valid, they require fully filled-in forms (five separate fields) from 50%+ of all paid members.

By postal mail.

And there is no SASE enclosed.

This plan strikes me as coming dangerously close to the "unrealistic" line, given how hard it is to get people to put anything in the mail these days. (I know too many people who find the whole idea of sending postal mail quaint, since they are doing all their bill-paying online.) I still think Kingdom made a very poor choice in arrogating the election process to itself, but sobeit -- there's not a lot we can do about it.

So: if you are a paid member, *please* be sure to fill out and return your ballot, even if you look at the slates and have the entirely reasonable reaction of, "I don't much care -- they'd all do a good job". It looks like we need a serious get-out-the-vote effort if we're to avoid things getting weird and unfortunate. Spread the word...

... even when it isn't primarily my plan.

The Novice Schola was, by and large, a raging success. Lots of interesting classes, mostly well-attended as far as I could tell. Scads of novices, perhaps more than I've ever seen at a single event, with a total attendance over 140. Lots of students from a variety of Boroughs (especially a gratifyingly large turnout from Fenmere), but also a remarkable number of non-Borough new folks. I have to say, it's been a long time since I've felt quite so optimistic about the way things are going -- if we can manage to hang onto even a majority of these novices, it bodes quite well.

I spent most of the day in the dance room. We had two 2-hour dance sessions: first, an English/French session taught by myself and Mara, then an Italian one run by bess and ladysprite. The room was a bit cute, but sufficed for the number of dancers we had so long as everyone was friendly. Whereas most such Dance 101 classes have historically tended to be a lot of dance practice ringers and a few novices, this was quite the opposite -- mostly made up of newbies, most of whom did quite well at catching on. There's nothing quite like dancing with someone who is getting the clue, seeing the dance click even while you're in the middle of it.

I did teach SCA 201, and thank you all for your suggestions -- the class was mostly built up from the most frequent requests in my thread of a few weeks ago. I wasn't entirely happy with how it went -- it was more me talking and less interactive than I would have preferred -- but it seemed to be at least moderately useful, based on the feedback I got.

I wound up off-board for dinner -- since the feast sold out, I told them to sell my spot to one of the novices. (I'm a Brandeis alum, and I'm still pretty comfortable going down to the cafeteria in garb for takeout.) So I had my painfully OOP quesadilla while sitting with some of the Fenmeri and fiantha and having a good schmooze.

The ball was smallish but enthusiastic. Indeed, enthusiastic enough that fire alarms couldn't stop it. In the middle of the break between sets, the fire alarm went off -- we couldn't tell what had happened, but we could smell smoke (not apparently related to anything we had done, fortunately). So we all trucked outside and stood around in front of Usdan. And waited, and waited. Eventually, Alyson, who had been standing around with her cello, not wanting to put it down on the concrete, decided to start playing Scottish Bransle. ladysprite, ever quick on the uptake, started calling, and before long we had a good-sized circle dancing around the cello. So the rest of the Waytes started joining in, and more dancers, and Mara gave up and simply ran the rest of the Ball out there in front of the building. Not exactly the most elegant dancing, but fun and high-spirited, and a fine proof that you really can't stop Carolingians from dancing.

So overall, it was a really good day -- enjoyable and successful. A fine omen for the new year...

So last night was the big schmooze on the subject of the Carolingian Boroughs -- a sort of combination debrief, philosophical roundtable and planning session for the fall. I thought it was quite useful, not least in that it got lots of new ideas on the table, both about why several of the boroughs have had specific issues in recent years, and things we might adjust to help.

One subject that came up repeatedly, though (and this is really the main point of this posting) was the little mismatches between implicit Carolingian assumptions and the way the typical college student thinks these days. For example:

-- The Touchy-Feely Thing. A point that was echoed by all of the younger members there was that the "hugginess" of Carolingia can be very offputting to a lot of potential members, especially female ones. On one level this isn't anything new, but it seems to be more striking now than it used to be, and a bigger problem. Many members of the Barony have spent many years internalizing a touch-oriented culture, while the student world has apparently gotten rather more conservative in this respect.

-- Getting Off Campus. When I was in college, it was pretty normal to wander afield -- Fenmere may have done so more than many social circles, but we weren't unusual in feeling that the campus was destitute of worthwhile things to do. Nowadays, though, it seems to be remarkably difficult to get students off-campus for activities like ours. A point repeated several times was that many schools are turning themselves into little arcologies, emphasizing that It's Dangerous Out There and trying to make themselves as self-sufficient as possible.

None of this is really intended to start a big Borough argument; these subtle shifts are simply things we're going to have to adapt to if we want to stay viable, and we had a useful discussion of how they might be addressed. (Hopefully with more success than some prior attempts.) But the examination of how we have to adjust to shifts in mundane culture did remind me of a speculation that's been running through my head for a while.

It would be really interesting to see how the ebbs and flows of mundane politics affect clubs on a mental level. It's hard to separate my own headspace from the larger scene, but I don't seem to be the only one who has observed that Carolingia, and perhaps the East in general, is just a little *crankier* these days than it used to be. And y'know, I'm forced to wonder how much of that is internalizing the external influences.

I mean, we are a fundamentally romantic club. Historical accuracy is a lovely goal, but the SCA was created mainly from a romanticised view of history, and most people who join do so with that sort of view in mind. But we do not live in romantic times. Certainly up here in Central Blueland, there's a certain grim tension underlying everything these days. Does that feed back into the SCA? Is it just a little harder to throw your heart into romantic notions when romanticism feels like an unaffordable luxury in mundane life?

I dunno. This is, as it says, an idle half-formed musing lurking in the back of my head, and there are so many factors in play that it's hard to separate them. But it does rather feel to me like there is some connection there...