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Champion
 
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Last Login: Today @ 4:40 PM
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| I completely agree with Alistair. I believe there are two main issues: 1) Should LRP do more for charity...and for what reasons 2) Which charitable projects should LRP support? I'm all for supporting charity, however I LRP because it's my hobby and I enjoy it not to raise money for charity. I do my own things for charity and am always willing to contribute or attend charitable events. What we're really talking about is ideas for fundraising projects and tapping into the LARP community for that particular purpose which sounds fair enough for me. On Alistair's point on giving for the 'right reasons' to raise the LARP profile, I agree in principle...but it is no different from what larger companies do (such as BT). As part of their Corporate Social Responsibility Policy they support Childline as its a charity closesly related to what they do. This sounds perfectly reasonable to me as the Charity benefits from much needed support, and the company from publicity...win-win situation really. I think charitable support on events I attend should go towards relevant charities as already suggested e.g. sites, National Trust etc. I'd want to know which charity it was going to first, and what the money would be allocated to. I'm very conscientious when it comes to giving other people my money :-) Matt ----
If I wanted to listen to an arsehole, I'd fart!
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Heroic Knight
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Last Login: Monday, August 18, 2008 4:45 PM
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I guess my other suggestion would be that donations should be optional. Money on the ticket price and all that isn't good. For example, many Asian families I know believe dogs to be unclean vermin, so a compulsory RSPCA donation or dog toy thing could be offensive.
I'm not personally troubled by being offensive, just raising the question to the liberal contingent...?
On an anecdotal note, when I and my better half go to longer events, a local rabbit and guinea sanctuary who we support look after our rabbits, for which we give them a decent donation (above the odds compared to comercial kennels etc). That is because it is a personal thing for us, and we want to donate and be appreciative. I doubt many other people would care very much for this charity, or would esteem them higher than other organisations, but it's local, small, personal, useful and worthy to us. Why then do we add another "peer pressured", or "institutionalised" charity donation into the act of going to an event? I'm not a fan of the idea.
If people want to give to charity they will go out of their way to do so. If people are mildly socially guilty they can assuage that by forking out £3 a month to some street marketing organisation who will take their money for the next five years before the charity they suposedly represent gets to see any. If people don't want to give to charity, but instead are just basically nice people who will help a mate out in a fix, then good for them too.
_____________________________
Maelstrom - Carl Whitesnake
Scavenger LRP - Organiser
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Wag
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I'm all for helping out for societies/clubs helping out charities, just so long as it's part of the society/club's mandate. While I was in DUTT, we tended to whore ourselves out to anything going - including one extremely memorable Summer Ball (and people whinge about safety at big larp events - try teaching a room full of drunken student party goers how to sword fight - exciting! - went through about four practice swords, I think) - but the point is they were all local concerns so it effectively doubled as an entertaining event for those involved as well as some free advertising (with the possibility of making friends with a custodian of future larp site).
If the end goal isn't part of the mandate followed/service provided by the company, then I don't see what purpose they have to disperse their energies away from what they should be doing. I don't want larp games to spend less time on larp and more time on charity, unless there's some convincing argument that it's going to publicise the hobby and bring more people in, leading to a better game for me (in excess of efforts dissipated arranging on the advertising).
For local groups, it's good strategy to keep the people you have to rely on/interact with (councils/scout camp owners/universities/student societies) sweet. Helping out with charity events they are running sounds like decent way to advertise the hobby and keep them on side.
Beyond that, and other such pragmatic concerns, I don't see why LRP should do for charity what LRPers choose not to.
Marios
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Heroic Knight
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Last Login: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 10:50 AM
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| Actually, i think some LARP groups do, do more for charity but they usually go unheard of due to the fact that, charity isnt charity if you really boast over it. A prime example (not boasting just a example) Is the group Seaxe&Sorcery, recently we were doing the Mayor show parade in Enfield, and although it cost alot of us to get there, the "London load" mixed with some core from Essex turned up in Enfield, and spent the whole day marching through Enfield town centre and going around the fun fair at the end. As well as this every christmas Banquet we do, we hold a Raffle (usually IC and OOC stuff in the raffle but we prefer IC kit as it really goes well with the role play) All the money goes to charity. Finally we do things for the scouts and several other things ( i do believe before i was around they used to do charity events, or similar things for free which was on behalf of the duke of Edinborough awards). Although this comes at a great sacrifice to many i think the point still stands its good fun, and it makes me realise something alot of the business of today and modern society of today could do with more of, and thats Charity. I personally would like to see the large systems do more also since i understand they are trying to make the systems (but also make a profit) but i think they can do so much much more. Although personally i think it comes down to the people who runs the systems attitude, our system is completely non profit, and we usually sacrifice a huge ammount of time, and effort, and money into the system, so seaxe&sorcery itself is almost built on the foundations naturally on giving and sacrifice for others enjoyment. I do think though if the majority did do more, the respect of LARP in this country would be more national and wide spread, I notice in Germany the news teams do news reports of events and there is a amazingly huge commercial coverage. Its something United Kingdom could use also when it comes down to Live Action Role Play.
Seaxe&Sorcery: HMS (IC) King Heimer. Warbands: *Insert random dead character here* Unforgotten Realms: Asvaldr
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Knight
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Last Login: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 11:48 PM
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| No. (I think that puts my case eloquently enough)
The older I grow, the less tolerant of idiots I become.
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