What is Staff? - by Greg

It's strange to think that we're more than halfway through this Westfinder season, but already thoughts are turning toward next year. Recently, there's been a lot of talk about Westfinder's growth, not only about where we're going, but where we are in relationship to our past. A lot of people have expressed concern that Westfinder isn't what it used to be, and that there's a feeling of informality and spontaneity that's slowly disappeared over the last year. Whether or not you feel this way probably won't change by reading this post, but I'd like to talk to you about What Staff Is, because while Staff's organization has certainly developed since Westfinder's beginning, its purpose has always remained the same. As I see it, Staff has changed, but it's changed in response to our community changing.

I first came to Westfinder in time for the last game of Westfinder's first season. At the time, Ben S. and Khy M. were the only "staff members". We didn't play in Cordonices, though -- we played around the grounds of College Preparatory School, which was open for a volleyball game. The game was attended by about 10 people, including myself. We're talking old school -- and in this case, that means small.

Without launching into a montage with pump-up background music, Westfinder has come a very long way since then. In one year, we went from bringing 6 people to Advanced Camp to bringing 17. Our last game, EVI, had 32 people in attendance, and that's only 3/4 of the highest attendance we've ever had.

This fantastic growth is not the result of any staff organization. We've grown because you have all told your friends how much fun you think Westfinder is, and they've given it a shot; at least 80% of all of you heard about Westfinder from a friend. Westfinder has grown so much, if we ran things even close to how we did a year ago, our events would buckle under their own weight.

So let's get to why this is called "What is Staff?" (I'll try and keep it concise.) Staff's duties are, order of most to least importance:

1. Ensuring the safety and health of all Westfinders. This ranges from being able to give you guys a band-aid to teaching you safe play-fighting to making sure that you'll be able to ease into AND OUT OF a character you're given to play.
2. Making sure everyone has fun. This means, for example, designing workshops that are simultaneously fresh, engaging, and educational.
   
3. Including Everyone. Unless you are at risk for danger or are a danger to others, you'll never be turned away from an event. However, as I'll explain soon, "Including Everyone" doesn't mean that random Westfinder Wilkins gets to teach Intro to Swords.
   
4. Doing it all over again. Staff is Westfinders, just like you -- in fact, we wouldn't be staff if it didn't mean we love it so much, we're willing to devote extra time and effort to making sure that we can have safe fun again. And again. And again.

For everything's that's changed about how Staff runs Westfinder, these four points have ALWAYS remained the same. But Staff hasn't always been able to uphold them. For my first game, I got a very nasty splinter in my finger. We had no med kit. Some folks got into character. We had no derole. We also had no idea whether some other folks would have decided to come and play soccer on the CPS field at the same time we were hoping to play CTF. Now, we have a medkit, deroling sessions, and rent our very own space so that we can not only fit so many people who want to play into a single space, but make sure that the space is ours.

More recent activities have continued this trend. Waivers (and talks with Wayfinder) help make sure that Westfinder can keep running, even if someone's parent decides that we're responsible for their kid's broken leg and sues us for all we're worth. As recently as Black Honor - if someone had gotten hurt and their parent decided to sue - there would have been no more bootlegs or CTFs. (And then what would you do with your Sunday afternoons, HRRRMM?)

One last point. We've never had a community like this before. We never had a game with more than 25 people last year. Last year's staff was picked just because we need a few more people. The criteria for selection? They'd been to events before, showed a solid grasp of what goes on, and committed themselves to the work. Our current community has outgrown this method, and I personally guarantee you that Staff selection and organization will evolve once more to fit the community Westfinder has become.

Welcome to the stage where you are the process. The community meetings, this blog, this post, and your reactions to it are all the beginning of some fantastic changes. It all may be a bit overdue, but I promise you that we are working harder than ever to make up for all the lost time.

Thanks,
Greg