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Anealan Recruiting Survey
Everyone seems to “know” how to recruit for the SCA but opinions on this have changed over the years and so far as I know, nobody has actually tried to quantify it before, at least not in WA. The point of this survey is to find out how people currently in the SCA found out about the SCA and what they joined for. From this we can work out what recruiting methods are most useful and what attracts people to the SCA. Hopefully this can make our recruiting efforts more successful and help us to get better return on our investment.
I was the booking officer for the Night in the 14th Century Feast held in Aneala on the 26th of March 2011.
As part of this role, I took the liberty of asking everyone who booked (and a couple of people who wanted to
come but could not) the following two questions:
How did you find out about the SCA?
What did you join for?
I did not ask interstate visitors as I was mainly concerned with WA.
I surveyed 92 people. Everyone I asked answered. 100% response rate from a sample population is pretty much unheard of.
Of the people surveyed 64 were adult members, 22 were adult non-members, 4 were child members and 2 were child non-members.
We have no good way to know how many non-members play but we know exactly how many members we have.
| Group | SCA Members | Members in the Survey | % Group Members in Survey |
| Aneala (including all subgroups) | 117 | 63 | (54%) |
| Aachenfeld | 48 | 32 | (67%) |
| Abertridwr | 43 | 18 | (42%) |
| Aneala only (inc Vallon d’Or) | 19 | 9 | (47%) |
| St Basil | 7 | 4 | (57%) |
| Dragon’s Bay | 40 | 4 | (10%) |
| Boesenberg | 22 | 1 | (5%) |
Overall, I covered 54% of the members in Aneala with this survey. I think it’s fair to assume that a similar proportion of active non-members came to this event, and therefore that I covered around 54% of the people playing in Aneala. That should be a representative sample size for any survey.
Given the low turnout from the shires, I will leave them out for now and just cover the situation in Aneala.
How did you find out about the SCA?
| Number | Percentage | |
| Word of Mouth Total | 33 | 38% |
| *Friend | 19 | 22% |
| *Relative | 6 | 7% |
| *Other | 4 | 5% |
| Demos Total | 30 | 34% |
| *Medieval Themed | 14 | 16% |
| *Uni O Days | 15 | 15% |
| *Local Fairs | 2 | 2% |
| *School Demos | 1 | 1% |
| Website | 11 | 12% |
| Posters in Game and Book Shops | 6 | 6% |
| Other Medieval Groups | 5 | 6% |
| Born into the SCA | 3 | 3% |
So word of mouth is our best recruiting tool. This makes sense – if you like something, chances are your friends will too and they will come with a built in support network for their early days, which will help them to feel at home faster and encourage them to stay.
The next main recruiting tool is demos. Of the demos, demos at medieval themed events and Uni O days are by far the most useful. The medieval themed demos of the past include the Perth Medieval Fayre (run annually since 2006), the May Day Fair (which ran annually for a few years about 15-20 years ago), and the Knights of Austria demos (which we did for the Perth Art Gallery in 1998). These demos account for 12 current members. The Balingup Medieval Carnivale has run annually since 1998. It got us two members for Aneala’s Balingup canton but no Perth members. In contrast we have done several local fairs of various kinds each year for 20 years and a possible average of a school demo a year for 20 years (more a few years ago, less recently) and those demos only account for 3 current members. An average demo takes 30-50 people for a day or more, which is a lot of resources that could be spent doing other SCA things. It makes sense to save that sort of effort for where it will get the best return, and make a big effort for the medieval demos and O days and forget about local fairs and schools.
The website has been good to us in recent years and seems to be gaining ground as a first contact point as well as a good way for people to find us if they already know about us and to find out more about us.
Posters have got us a significant number of people considering that we have not done a serious poster run in 15 years. They take much less effort than demos and clearly get results. We should do more of this.
Making nice with the local metal weapons clubs has not hurt us either. Occasionally we pick up permanent players from them, often we can get them to visit for our larger events.
What did you join for?
| Number | Percentage | |
| *Fighting + Archery + Rapier | 21 | 24% |
| *A&S inc music and costume | 18 | 21% |
| Medieval Stuff | 18 | 21% |
| Fighting | 16 | 18% |
| Costume | 12 | 14% |
| First Event | 6 | 7% |
| A&S | 5 | 6% |
| Family Activity | 5 | 6% |
| Social Life | 5 | 6% |
| Atmosphere | 4 | 5% |
| Born into SCA | 3 | 3% |
| Rapier | 3 | 3% |
| Archery | 2 | 2% |
| No Choice | 2 | 2% |
| Girls | 2 | 2% |
| Music | 1 | 1% |
| Feasts | 1 | 1% |
| Other | 2 | 2% |
Some people gave more than one answer, for simplicity I used the first one they gave. I wasn’t thorough enough with the people whose first event it was, so they are just listed as “first event”. Chances are they will distribute out much the same as the rest of the population.
So the result is almost a three-way tie between combat, arts and sciences and “medieval stuff”. “Medieval stuff” was a popular answer. It’s a bit difficult to define but seems be a combination of an interest in medieval history, and the whole range of combat, arts and sciences, and events the SCA has to offer.
A couple of people were joined up by their significant other without being given a choice in the matter. They don’t seem to mind now.
Two (men) joined because there were hot girls and they thought they might have a chance. They’re still here many years later, so something worked.
I suspect that the reason many people stayed in the SCA is different to the reason they first joined. Maybe I’ll ask that question next time I’m the booking officer for a large event.
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