Condition of Belegarth realms?

[Cib]

I don't know where else to put this thread, I wasn't sure that it would get the right kind of attention in General Mayhem. These are some sort of pessimistic and sobering questions I have.

My main question is: "How many Belegarth realms are thriving?"


By "thriving" I mean:
-A realm with a large amount of active members
-Regularly gaining new recruits to the point of maintaining membership levels (not in decline) or in growth.
-With ample leadership, so that even when the current leadership leave the realm will continue to at least exist for another 5 years or so.

Which leads me to ask: "What percentage of realms could be called struggling realms?"

By "struggling" I mean:
-Low regular membership
-Difficulty maintaining membership levels or growth
-Little to no upcoming leadership (realm will likely flounder and die when current leader moves on)
-These realms my be new startups with a future or long established realms realms

Which makes me ask: "How many realms are in decline?"

By "in decline" I mean:
-Decreasing membership, ether no new recruits or not enough to replace turnover.
-Possibly no leadership

I suppose that could lead to the question: "What is the realm turnover rate?" we all know that fighter turnover is fairly high, but what about realms? How long to they usually last? What makes the big ones last longer?

Part of the reason I have been asking this is I have been wondering if there might be a better model four my local aria than the traditional local realm model. I would love to hear even your speculative thoughts.

[Azgarehta]

I'll speak for St. Louis is saying that there are a couple of thriving realms out here:

Arnor: been around for 10+ years, fed from Amtgard, Dagorhir, and Washington University Combat Club. Arnor is the melting pot of foam fighting in St. Louis. They just knighted 2 knights and have plenty of involvement from young and dedicated people. Strong leadership from Angmarth and Knight's Council.

Esgaroth: Dag realm on the opposite end of the city from Arnor. We've been around since around 2008, founded by 5 people and are currently in the midst of training high school and post-high school kids how to fight. Led by Olos and Black Company. Core Event Going Fighters: 7, Total practice attendance: 20-26

Wisp and his Amtgard guys are around in St. Louis and they've been around for a long time. I haven't been to their park, but I'd guess at 10-20 out there.

Washington University Combat Club: As with all university foam fighting groups, this waxes and wanes depending on leadership. I'd say that this goes from thriving to struggling dependant on the year/leadership.

[Fangesta]

Your question is a tricky one to answer for my Realm. De-Treba Mora is in a SMALL military town.

Our numbers range from 20-60, the problem being deployments there. We never fall below the minimum membership requirements, which in a town with a population of 11000 that's some pretty impressive numbers.

There was a realm previous to ours, NO we are not thrived from that previous realm, we started brand new and 20 miles from where we are now. That previous realm fell apart due to impatience by it's leaders because of the lull in membership. So to accomodate everyone we moved to where the previous realm held it's practices. Our realm started on the military base, not everyone can get there.

Rumbeard and myselves are not moving away from here, but we do have people we keep in mind for next leadership should we need to step down. We look at choosing those that are not going to be sent away, that are always growing mentally, emotionally, and physically, and that have strong ties to the community.

so even though our numbers fluctuate, we are a strong realm and will continue to carry on.

the point of my ramblings is to show that every situation is different and that has to be taken into account. You have to step back and watch the whole situation as if you're an outsider.

[Sir Anastasia]

Anduril is thriving and has enough leadership to take over if I croak. Every year is bigger and better than the last and I think we will see practices of 80 people before I move. We hit 42 attendees at a practice last Friday or Sunday (can't remember which).

Also in the Southern California area, thriving with a large pool of leadership and from oldest to newest:
Aggelgorod-Dagorhir, Andor, Sword Coast

I haven't asked about Desert Wind or Blackwater lately, but hopefully they are still good: they are definitely attending events though, especially Blackwater in solid numbers.

We also have many new realms popping up: Sandspire had a debut in February, and a new one in Costa Mesa has a debut this Saturday. They are starting out with a bang and hopefully the community will give them the support they need to stay in business.

Honestly, I feel pretty lucky to be where I am. Sometimes it seems like there are too many groups to count!

On this note, I really want to stress how important it is to visit young and old realms regularly. We all succede when there is a strong community.

[Kael Prime]

Fortriu is a thriving realm. Fortriu was basically a dead realm that no one even knew about(and were still very not know off) but now that we have the help of Bear from Sword Coast, we have been thriving. We have a NOW stable ladder of leadership in our realm. We average about 22-23 fighters a practice, 35 or more if all our members are present and the "more" is because we have at least 5 people trying. We have three stable units here, The Imperial Guard, The Element and Witherwood Company. We advertise ourselfs pretty well at the park we fight at which draws people to come and see whats going on( which is why we always have like five people trying.) Our only downfall is lack of garb, weapon covers and going to events. But other than that in the nexts few years you should see more of us Fortriu folks around.

[Blitz.]

To Support what kael said, im also from Fortriu, And its been around for 3 now. For the first two and a half years, we had 6 members. That was in. Then we grew to about 12. Now within the Last 6 months we've over doubled in size.

Location Location Location. Thats all i have to say lol.

[Torry]

I'm from Numenor, which traditionally has been quite a large realm. Our numbers have been slightly lower the past couple of years, but declines in attendance are going to happen. I can outline what seems to be helpful.

First off, we're in a college town, so there are always fresh faces to lure in. In order to pull in as many of those people as we can, one of our weekly practices is located in a high foot traffic area on campus. If you can find a good location that will allow you to fight and you can draw a crowd, work with your realm to move to that location.

Training: not all new fighters are going to want to bang their heads against the wall trying to figure out how to not die. If you can take them under your wing and teach them, they are more likely to stick around.

Leadership: Luckily, Numenor's leadership is quite durable. Even as knights move/retire, there are always new squires to take their place. This is much easier in a larger, well established realm. If you are in a smaller realm, you may need to be a leader or be a voice in the ear of the already established leadership.

From what I have seen of some local realms, often the trouble maintaining attendance comes down to personality conflicts and drama. This sometimes resulting in people branching off to make another, even smaller, realm. Once that happens, it is very difficult for either realm to stick around. If you can, try to encourage people to resolve their person conflicts when they aren't at practice. Nothing is going to scare away a bunch of potential new fighters than people bickering.

[Jabber]

I'm from Niflheim. We are a community realm of mostly college students. We started three years ago. This is my first year but from what I understand there were 3-7 steady members before. This year brought a bunch of new, dedicated recruits, including myself. We have strong leadership and are currently in the midst of changing positions because our leader is going to grad school. Our event attendance varies depending on the cost and school.

I would say, for our size and and the young stage of our realm, we are doing fairly well. We have lots of plans for new recruits and ideas for many other aspects of the realm we intend to implement in the upcoming year.

[Tobia Blackthorn]

New Dawn is part of the Southern Marches. We've been struggling a bit. I'm currently the leader in all functions. In fact I plan to talk to the actual leader about taking over, since I'm already leading practices and dealing with contacts and such.

We're definitely struggling with recruits. We usually have a max of 5 people, but there have been days when I just have to call it a day after an hour. You can only do so much when you just have one other person show up. Granted, since we're all college students who do not have the support of the college...having to practice elsewhere...a lot of our members go home to places once a month or so. We got a new guy who has a lot of connections, who I hope will help with recruiting. Honestly though, if we don't get better turn-outs by Fall, I'm going to recommend just carpooling over to Auburn, 45-mins away, for practices at RavenFeast.

[NessiePop]

Crimson Fields holds steady at around 15-20 fighters, with a dedicated core of 10 or so, who almost never miss a week. Those are mostly my guys. Our current leader is joining the military at some point, and we've got at least two people around qualified for the job.

Luinmir: Honestly, if I lived 45 mins from RavenFeast, I would still practice some days, but schedule that on a different day of the week from theirs, so you could still make their practices too. I live 2 1/2 hours away, and I still try to get up there every coupla months. Those are some kick-ass folks, for real.

[Big King Jimmy]

Dunharrow is an interesting realm....

Our average practice is 5. Yes 5. Me, Morbian, Moxk, Mel and Turin. Last year we got 2 new fighters, one of which made it out to an event. That was the first new fighter at an event we'd had in several years.

Now at an event, we have like 20 to 30 members for realm battles. The descrepency is 2 fold.

1. Our realm is spread over a very large area, so not everyone comes to realm practice. Our major hubs are Elgin and Dekalb IL. Dekalb did not have a practice last year, when it did it averaged 10 fighters, then trailed off.

2. A large percentage (>75) of our members are 9-5ers with real jobs, sometimes families as well. This prevents members from coming out on a regular basis.

Also, financial hardship has hit our realm hard, with several members that regularly show up to practice unemployed. Turin is also in basic training right now.

[Shepherd]

Our realm of Thorum started out as a Dag realm that was, really, the only one in the western suburbs of Chicago for a couple years. It switched to Bel a year before I started practicing there. It was really a unit practice of the Thorion Raiders, and last year, we decided to make it a realm so as to be more inclusive of outside folks coming to fight.

We have a large amount of young fighters as we are right across the street from the local High School. At the end of last year and the beginning practices this year, we have had 10-15 fighters on a regular basis and have been growing that number with more and more vets coming out (including Murdoc and others from HD, Hydra and The Order.)

I would say we are really starting to thrive as we have tightened up the leadership roles and put alot of time in off field for recruiting and weapons building. We have instituted having visiting vets give a short lesson a skill or technique. We were able to get 4 out to Spring war and Pack opener, which is great considering alot of our guys are in high school.

I find the enthusiasm is infectious. The more effort we put in, the more excited that everyone gets.

[Titan G]

i would say this is also a very fluid question. right now by your criteria dur demarion is in decline. however as the summer months come in tennessee we hit our stride after beltaine and really turn on as a realm until equinox and octfest. after those events we could probably be clasiffied as a "dead" realm and then we will pick up again on the same cycle