more SCA stuff ( less ranty more thoughtful)

One of the issues that arises fairly regularly is people feeling they are being overlooked for awards. This does happen because the award system is so arbitrary, relying on word of mouth from other people. I think there is a trend which allows for the belief that those with the awards are more important than those who are not loaded down with titles, pointy hats, letters and scrolls. So there seems to be too much emphasis on awards and not enough on the fun. If a person begins to feel they do not get anything for their work while others do they start to see their work as worthless. Sadly this screws up the whole point of an award reward system.

The sad thing is that no one is important and everyone is important. Without the whole the group is nothing. Every person who contributes is vital. So how do you reward this? For me it was by trying to individually thank each scribe that worked for the kingdom while I was Signet with a letter once a year. I'm sure I missed people and probably upset more than my fair share of folks but I tried really hard to let at least the scribes know that what they did mattered a lot. Saying thank you goes a very long way no matter what the service is and it doesn't need to be in award form.

I think we lose perspective after a certain period of time about why we are doing this, and we forget it's just a hobby and it's meant to be fun. Those crowns are not real gold, the kingdom is just pretend and on Monday we all head back to work and real life ensues. When we start playing to be rewarded rather than being rewarded by playing and having fun the hobby becomes a job. I'm not sure how we undo this particular learned behaviour but I do think that if we go into it expecting to be lauded and rewarded for everything we do we set ourselves up for disappointments.