Designing Welcoming Events

We were hoping for responses from a wide range of SCA members, but especially from those whose event experiences are affected by factors that might not affect the rest of the SCA community. These factors could include:

• Physical illness or disabilities

• Sensory issues

• Allergies or dietary restrictions

• Neurodivergence or mental illness

• Responsibilities as a parent or carer

• Income or work responsibilities

• Education

• Travel difficulties

• Ethnicity or racial background

• Cultural and linguistic background

• Religion

• Gender or sexuality

• Age

• Other factors

We distributed the survey primarily through Facebook, using Facebook groups like "Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) - Unofficial", "SCA Inclusion, Diversity & Equity", and "Lochac" to invite people to participate and share the project further. Information about the survey was also sent to the chatelaines/hospitallers of each kingdom.

This survey has been designed by Lady Gwen verch David, of the Barony of Politarchopolis in the Kingdom of Lochac. She is a member of the LGBT+ community and has personal experience with mental illness and chronic physical illness. She is also the primary analyst of the survey data.

Also a member of the survey team is Lady Skjaldadis Bragadóttir, of the Barony of Aneala in the Kingdom of Lochac. She is a queer neurodiverse woman of colour and an immigrant, with personal experience with mental illness.

This research is a purely personal project. We are not acting as officers of any kingdom, or of the SCA as a whole. In developing the survey, however, we did seek advice from the Society Diversity, Equity and Inclusion officer, and we will continue to seek their advice as we prepare to publish our results.

The survey was open from 1st December 2019 to 1st February 2020.

We have given a full list of the questions asked on our Survey page.

The survey was designed to avoid identifying anyone, and people who responded had control of which questions they answered and how detailed those answers were.

In the first stage of analysing the results, we have gone through all answers and permanently deleted any information that might be identifying in context, and replaced it with a generic summary in square brackets. For example something like "Rowany Festival" might be replaced by "[major local event]".

We will be publishing the results of the survey online and sharing them in SCA spaces. What we publish will be a mixture of analysis of general trends, and some quotes from individual responses, but we are working to make sure those quotes are as anonymous as possible. We will be seeking advice from the Society Diversity, Equity and Inclusion officer about how to best share our results beyond publishing them on this website.

Our goal is to offer our analysis to SCA officers and event stewards, to help them plan activities that are accessible to a diverse populace.

Not every suggestion people make in this survey is going to be practical for every situation, and some may even contradict each other - for example, people who get migraines might ask for low lighting, while people with low vision might ask for bright lights.

What we hope to do is provide insight into what affects which groups, and help our community think about how to manage those effects in a positive way.