| Green Leaves for Newcomers: opinions and suggestions, please? |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|01:37 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | idea | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  curious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | kids meowing at the cats | ] |
I have a cunning plan.
I've had the idea since my first Festival, and intend to offer it around a bit more overtly henceforth.
The problem it would be intended to solve is the one of newcomers being ignored at events. As a regular participant at SCA events, I find that I hang back when new faces appear, because I do not know whether they are wayfaring, newcomers, recently returned after time out of the game/in another place or what.
I have also been a mature newcomer, and found other SCA people a bit hesitant to place me as a newcomer, probably expecting that I was wayfaring, returning or something. Also, there are many children who have been in the SCA longer than I have and there are children who have only been to a few events, so some unfamiliar children require a little more supervision, direction and assistance from the parent-herd than others.
The solution (partial, optional etc) I've thought up is that of having an option for newcomers to wear some kind of indicative token. I use the term "Green Leaf" as the placeholder token in my own mind, there may well be a more appropriate item I have not thought of. But for the purposes of discussion, green leaves will suffice. Say the green leaf is a simple leaf shape cut out of green leather with a string or piece of leather thonging to secure it by. It could be worn tied or pinned, on wrist, neck, hat or garb at the discretion of the newcomer, or not at all. Purely an optional thing.
I would expect that regular players (who would have to be informed of the meaning of the green leaf), on seeing an unfamiliar face, would be able to spot the leaf (given fair eyesight) if it was being worn and be able to offer greetings, hospitality, information, introductions and assistance to the newcomer as appropriate. No risk of being embarrassed by finding out that the "new" person is a long-time player. No fear of one's welcome being unwelcome or rebuffed coldly, as the green leaf expressly invites such warm and cordial welcomes.
The newcomer would be welcome to wear the leaf for as long as they felt "new". They could choose not to wear it to local trainings after the first couple of times, say, but prefer to wear it at their first big event, their first wayfaring experience or similar.
The only down-side I can see is that newcomers may be overwhelmed by people rushing to greet them, help them and learn about their interests. There is also the possibility that it would, over many years, lapse into being used by long time players as a kind of "talk to me" signal, thus clouding the waters.
So I'm curious to know whether other people have opinions on this matter and whether maybe something similar has been tried before? Ideas? Suggestions? |
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| dreamz |
[Dec. 27th, 2009|11:19 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  guilty | ] |
Had a dream where I was yelling at my dad. Woke up feeling guilty. |
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| dreamz |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|01:55 pm] |
An odd dream: I am teaching in a huge auditorium and one of my students is talking to another (both wearing blue lipstick) and I give them a look and they stop and then one crawls up the wall to the ceiling and then across the ceiling very quickly as some sort of class demo and the ceiling is very high and she eventua...lly comes down and she is wearing a diving suit with big yellow flippers. I wonder what it means.See More |
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| Happy festive season |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|10:50 pm] |
I hope you all have a happy festive season!
Whatever you choose to celebrate, be it time with family and friends, birth of a God or change of a season, I wish you all joy and happiness.
Keep safe. Peace out. |
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| Working on posting more often |
[Dec. 16th, 2009|03:27 am] |
A note in reference to last night.....
One should not watch a show about cooking on nightshift. My stomach growled all night. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.... mmm... food porn flashbacks.
One should also not watch Bruno at work. I'm sure the dancing cock shots were not worksafe, hence I turned it off. I'm running a bit thin on movie choices to watch on nightshift. Got any reccomendations? |
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| forgive me lj |
[Dec. 15th, 2009|03:25 am] |
| [ | music |
| | I feel - The Sundays | ] |
For it's been a long time since my last real post. It's 3:08am. This may not be coherent.
Update:
I got married. It was cool. I like being married. I love my husband.
We now have 8 horses (3 on the market for sale... wanna buy a pony? You know you want one) 5 geese and only 1 rabbit as well as the usual menagerie. The bunnies all died except for the buck due to miximitosis. Quite sad really. So we got geese. They don't get mixo. And I like their joyous honking.
We may have finally found the right set of ponies. We struggled to find the Bird the right pony. She is not as confident as the other girls, but somehow managed to bond to the little pony that threw her off 3 times and ignores her as a rider. So we had to find one she felt comfortable with and will actually ride rather than sit on and be ignored. We may have found him. He is on trial until Sunday when we have to make a decision to keep him or send him home. The Tree got a super-pony taht suits her well from a local pony club. They are best mates and love frolicing around together. Little Spice can now ride Misty independently.
I rode Star for the first time in about 5 months today. He remembered everything we worked on and so we grew his lessons a little bit more. He was super. I forgot how much I enjoyed riding him, it's been hard to prioritise it when we're working so hard with the ponies. Now we just need to find the right 4-legged friend for CE and we'll have a full set. We are still sharing Star, but I don't think CE enjoys riding him as much. Star can be quite challenging for a beginner because he's almost too responsive.
Minerva, the filly, is huge. She's 11 months old and taller than all the horses except Star. She had a hoot today dancing around the older horses trying to coax them into playing. She was bucking and charging at them as they ignored her and occasionally flicked an ear at her. I haven't laughed so hard in ages.
I've been reading a book set in revolutionary France and I've just started watching Julia and Julie this evening, which is also set in France. Suddenly I'm homesick for a place I only visited for a fortnight in my youth. Visiting Paris relly effected me all those years ago. So new, yet so familiar, it felt like home. Not the kind of home you earn because you walk the same street every day and see the same people at your workplace, or work the soil with your own hands. But the kind of home where you step off the plane and you slip right into place like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle.
I look forward to going back to France someday.
Hmmm... itchy feet. |
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