Siderea

I can't disagree, unfortunately. For some reason, the Barony's energy level has been dreadfully low this past year -- there's still more going on than many places, but a lot less than I'm used to.

You're also right that the Borough activity level is down. None of the Boroughs are entirely healthy at the moment. Fenmere and Felding have decent numbers of members, but they're doing relatively little with the Barony at large. Mitgaard is fairly kaput (which worries me terribly). Duncharloch *is* kaput, and Ivory Keep has largely lost its way after some organizational confusion caused it to be unrecognized by the college. Greenwood Isle produced several active members, but it is having trouble getting a second generation -- it isn't clear what's going to happen after next year.

I'm genuinely unsure whether the two issues are related, although it wouldn't surprise me: as I often say, the Boroughs tend to drive the energy level of the Barony. What's done is done for this year, but I'm going to try to get folks involved in recruiting next year -- it's already a problem, and it wouldn't take much more to become a genuine crisis...

Interesting food for thought, but I think it's only half the story. You're right that the activity level is lower than it's been some years, but it's higher than it's been some others. A few guilds have gone inactive, but I suspect some of the holes you're seeing on the calendar are simply people forgetting to put stuff into the Minuscule. (Year by year, the Minuscule matters less and less, as the Barony focuses more on electronic communications.) I believe there's still more happening on a weekly basis than there was fifteen years ago.

What seems different (to me) this year, though, is a lack of excitement. It's not that things aren't happening -- it's that I'm just not seeing a real spark of enthusiasm anywhere. A lot of activities are ticking over fine, but they're not dragging people in, saying, "Hey! Look at this cool thing I'm doing!" That hits the boroughs particularly hard, because they are hugely sensitive to that kind of enthusiasm: it's what draws a Borough out of its hard candy shell and gets members actually *doing* stuff.

This is all self-reinforcing. The Borough folk are far more likely to show up to stuff when they get a sincere "This is really cool!", not "Yeah, we have a weekly practice". And there is little that does more to make a practice feel lively and fun than folks who are seeing it with un-jaded eyes, and still have the first blush of enthusiasm themselves.

I have some real hope for the upcoming year -- the event calendar is considerably less routine than this year's was, and that's usually good for waking the Barony up again. This isn't the first time I've seen this sort of collective burnout around the Barony, and we've pulled out of it before; however, happening at a time when the Boroughs were slumping a bit to begin with was a dangerous synchrony.

Good point, though -- there is a two-pronged issue here, and both sides need to be addressed. IMO, though, the issue isn't how *many* activities the Barony is pursuing, but the level of enthusiasm being applied towards those activities. Folks really need to find their passion again, whether within the existing activities or in new ones...

I think what I'm wondering is, is this a standard cycle? does this sort of thing ebb and flow? Has Carolingia seen this before?

Yes and no. I wrote in another comment about Bowling Alone and one of the modalities of club failure.

Has there been a substantial change in the location distribution of Carolingians and/or the likelyhood of the majority of Carolingians either having cars or being willing to use public transit [...]

I suspect that if we looked, we'd see some spectacular changes in the constitution of the Barony and of its typical habits:

• The combination of fewer boroughs and members/borough plus the inevitable aging of veteran members means that the average age just sky rocketted. While there's been, for a while (but not always) Carolingians drifting off for career or children, they were in a minority. I don't think they are any more.
  
• When I joined, T-accessible events were typical; I didn't have to get many rides. But as the price of rental facilities grew and the size of the facilities we needed for events also grew, we could no longer afford in-city prices. Events moved out to the burbs. Now a solid majority require a car.
  
• The price of residential rents has been skyrocketting in the city; I would not be surprised to learn a smaller percentage of the barony lives in the city, as opposed to the burbs.
  

Is it that more people are dividing their energy between SCA and non-SCA things?

One of the things which has struck me is the number of Carolingian friends of mine who are artisans who have decided to pursue their (perfectly period) arts primarily outside of the SCA. I may even count in that number; I'm more likely to go to Amherst Early Music than Pennsic.

Is it a wane in interest and energy due to something about the communal activities themselves?

I've been wondering that, but someone who is actually attending events would have to comment.

I read something recently, either in a journal or on the Carolingia List, a comment about how the overall quality and/or depth of events in Carolingia has lowered a bit, probably due to having donation-only events due to the NMS.

I don't think that was on the list, or (a) I would have seen it and (b) the flame war would still be on-going. :)

I don't think the NMS/donation-only thing is degrading events (I could be wrong and welcome more info). I suspect we're not replacing retired star autocrats. I've been hearing from cooks for ages that we burn through head cooks and don't replace them at the same rate.

Speaking as someone who's done a lot of work as Autocrat's Chief Minion and Counsellor, it seems to me that autocratting has gotten much harder in certain ways, the chief among them finding a site. I've seen planned events fail due to lack of site; more commonly, they compromise dreadfully, and autocrat's plans get scuttled. It's hard to find spaces for archery and thrown weapons which also have kitchens and halls. Just tourney-field+kitchen can be a challenge.

I think there's lots of other things, too. Back in the day, it was a big thing that dance practice and fighter practice not be scheduled to conflict, out of respect for those who (and hope that more would) do both. Today, that's exactly how it is. If people today don't care that fight practice is up against dance practice (when there's a whole nother free day in the week!!) why should they care if fighting and dancing don't happen at the same events? Erk.

The Barony used to feel more inter-woven than it looks from the outside now. Back in the day, an autocrat who had nothing to do with fighting would still want to have fighting at her event, just because she wanted to have a cool, multi-facetted event. A fighter autocrat who knew nothing about dance would want dance at her event, because if she didn't have it, her event wouldn't seem fully featured. I don't get the sense that's still true. Theme events seem so much more common, whether by period or by activity.

I was thinking the same thing. It seems to me that Debatable Lands has been waning for about a decade, but it's hard to tell what's going on. We seem to have problems with recruiting, retention, and cross-fertilization, and I suspect some of the underlying causes are the same for both baronies.

The retention issue is two-pronged, actually: we don't retain new members, and we do retain old mambers -- which isn't a problem, but does change the balance. A 19-year-old college kid typically doesn't want to hang out with a bunch of 40-somethings with kids; we need to close the gap so there are more 20-somethings and 30-somethings (including many who are single and sans kids) so the students will see people "sort of" like them. I'm not sure how we get there, though; we didn't catch the change early enough. And unfortunately, it can be a hot-button issue if not handled very delicately; some hyper parents will see "we need more young people" as "they don't want us and our kids around, those unfriendly bastards!", and that's not it at all. It's about providing an environment that is hospitable to the people we hope to recruit, and mundane 40-somethings with kids aren't good recruiting candidates. Consider: how many of us would join the SCA now, if we were encountering it for the first time and not in college like most of us did?

And storytellers has been discussing its dire meeting attendence on their email list (to which I am subscribed.)