On prowess

A question was asked in a FB group "The Circle - chivalric discussions" about what does prowess means for different peerages.

"Question for all peers.

There is always the discussion of prowess with fighters of rapier and heavy fighting.....
Knights and MODs can you explain prowess in your own words?
Pelicans and Laurels....if you were to use prowess to define something in your peerage what would it be any why?"

My response:
As has been mentioned prowess is skill or mastery, as a pelican it is a bit more difficult to judge the skill of service. It is not like you stand and watch people make the dishes and can judge how good their service is.

I think that it is important not only to look at the what but also the how of the individual. So the event was good but how did the individual work with others, lead, coach, solve disputes, deal with problems.
We must be carefull not to equate sucess with service, yes service needs to be sucessfull but if we only look for sucess we might reward the wrong behaviour. In heavy if you only go for winning then you might very well turn into somebody with a reputation of being a rhino. A person who only looks for sucess and award might produce very sucessfull events but step on everybody they work with. Also somebody might do a big work of service, but due to no fault of theirs it was not sucessfull.

Another aspect is that service is not sacrifice, I know kind of a paradox for us pelicans, but a person needs to have the skills to know themself and others so that they do not sacrafice either.

Also prowess is not enough

Edricus (OP) Drachenwald

The group in question, the questions in this group are interesting and the discussions are at the moment usually quite good.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/306122960422599/?multi_permalinks=310672623300966¬if_id=1593145103137661¬if_t=group_activity

On change

Some of my friends on FB write about that the SCA is falling appart and that E-SCA is breaking the fun.

In my mundane life I work with organizational development and at times with Change management which also means trying to understand why certain responses show up.

My feeling is that many of us who are a bit older in the SCA feel that the discussions that are being held are emotionally difficult, we might not be consious of the respons or why we feel the way we do. Now of course discussions about racism and sexism are difficult subjects to get to grips with. We have most likely allways has had the problems but that is a different issue, I am trying to understand the respons to the situation.

So in a way I beleive that the SCA (or any hobby) has been a place where you actually could turn off the outside world and not have to care about it. The problems of everyday were simply left at the door, everybody could leave their luggage, come in rest and recouperate and then go back to the outside world feeling a bit refreshed.

But now suddenly this calm haven of life has left the door wide open and all of the problems from the outside come into this in someway sacred space. You suddenly encounter the discussions you have at work and read of in the newspapers and hear on the news, in this part of your life that before you saw as safe.

I believe that the discussions happening now are necessary, but I understand that they will be painfull. I wrote this down in order to have an idea of why certain responses show up. It is not that people disagree on the issues as much as they most likely have an unconcious emotional respons to a difficult question and most people act on change and problems with a form of denial.

Change takes time, it is not just a matter of changing a policy, this deals with culture, and in general culture eats strategy for breakfast.