I am excited about participating in the SCA’s A&S50 Challenge. For more information on the Challenge you can check out the website. and if you like what you see join the Yahoo group. I will be doing the Persona Challenge. You can see my entries under the category “A&S 50 Challenge,” appropriately enough.

The Challenge is non-competitive but it’s nice to know what each other is doing. We learn from each other and encourage each other in the doing of it. Here is an excerpt from a letter by Lady Albreda whose lovely brainchild is the Challenge.

Most of us in the A&S community struggle to get past the novice/intermediate level; not knowing how to proceed, who to talk to for advice, what the latest research says, what about our work could use improvement or how to make those changes.  We lack a clearly marked path upon which to journey towards excellence, and we lack support along the way.

The SCA has a huge resource base that can light our path; our Laurelate and members of Kingdom A&S orders.  They are veritable fonts of wisdom, but they aren’t mind readers (they don’t know who we are, or what we want from them), and have limited time and resources themselves, much of which they need as they continue along roads of their own.

Thus, one of the main purposes of this Challenge is to meet other travelers, and perhaps, to begin to walk together, and show each other the way.  Each of us, no matter where we are on our journeys, has something to share with our fellow Challengers; complete novices can share enthusiasm, beginners can share discovery, intermediates the processes by which they solve problems, and experts can share of their experience and resources.  Hopefully we can blaze, mark, and illuminate trails, not only for each other, but also for those who have yet to even set their feet upon the path.

Being new at something is an amazing experience; enthusiasm and that sense of discovery are just plain contagious.  The second goal of this Challenge is to get everyone feeling this by trying new things.  There are SO many Arts and Sciences that were practiced in period that we just don’t see much of in the SCA.  People DO practice these diciplines, but often in isolation (and, unfortunately, frustrated obscurity) because they think others just aren’t interested in them, when, in reality, most people just haven’t been *exposed* to them.  Trying something, even just once, even if it doesn’t give someone a fully working knowledge of a given art or science, CAN give one a better appreciation of the work, and the people who do it, both in an historical context, and within our own Society.

When you put these two goals together, you end up with our motto “to learn and share of our learning, and to create and share of our creation.”  Our Society is full of passionate, skilled and knowledgable people, all of whom share our Dream.  It is my hope that this Challenge can make it just a little bit sweeter, a little bit richer, for all of us.

You can read the letter in its entirety here.