the rumor mill grinds on

[ppfuf]

Grrr! Where the hell do these rumors come from? I was talking to one of the Crosstonites at dance last night and she asked about the feast at collegium. Fine so far. Then she said that she wanted to sign up for it, but she heard from somebody at Crown that it was invitation only. I said huh? Dammit! I had to ask her not to tell me who it was who told her that because I was afraid I'd be annoyed at them forever. Then another Crosstonite came into the kitchen and said she'd heard the same thing. How the hell did pre-registration for a class (not a hard concept, I hope) turn into *private feast keep out, peons!*.

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

How are you attacking the rumor?

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I've have the emotional bandwidth to do so. And even if I could fight a rumor, what good would it do? We're almost out of seats as it is (yay!).
I'm just deeply annoyed at the "you have to be a peer to teach", "you have to have an AoA to walk on the eric", "some events are for peers only" rumors.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Maybe you could designate one of your staff to write a short note to the West email list along the lines of "We've heard a rumor that the feast is invite-only. This is absolutely not true -- all it takes is a reservation, as detailed in the event announcement."

What good? It erodes the credibility of the idiots who have promulgated this rumor. Maybe similar rumors will have fewer legs next time around.

I think he said, "Blessed are the cheesemakers."

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

Have there actually been any announcements about the feast? There's no published link for Collegium yet, there's nothing in this month's page, I don't recall seeing any announcements on SCA-Waste, yet you're getting close to capacity on registrants.

I think word of mouth promotion of your PPF simply turned into a game of "Telephone." No malice, just inevitable mistakes. Person A tells Person B
"You have to pre-reg for the feast at Collegium" - by the time it gets to Person Q, I can see how it could've devolved to "You have to be invited."

Re: I think he said, "Blessed are the cheesemakers."

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

There's Page copy for Collegium in the April Page which talks about the need to pre-register and directs readers to the collegium webapge http://www.collegiumoccidentalis.org/ which had the 2.0 version of the FAQ I posted here on it. (my goodness, that sentance got away from me didn't it? sorry, write if you need clarification. 10pm and a bottle of wine are a bad combinatin for clarity).
You're probably right about the telephone game. I will take a few deep breaths and see if it's better in the morning.

Re: I think he said, "Blessed are the cheesemakers."

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

I do hope so, the feeling better, part, I mean.

[roswtr.livejournal.com]

Cynthia's right -- this feast has mostly sold out (yay!) by word of mouth advertising only, it's not too surprising that there's also a bunch of rumor about how to score tickets. Anybody who says to you "I heard...." needs to hear that the rumor isn't true, but it's worth posting messages to SCA West that also say so.