Taking a squire somewhat reminds me of dating. You keep an eye out for an “available” person who might be compatible with you. You watch them trying to assess if you really like them, and to see if they like you. You reach the point where you have the sometimes awkward conversation with undertones of “yea I kind of think you are awesome, do you think I’m awesome too? Cause if you wanted to get together we could do some stuff?” You open yourself up to rejection. It is an important decision, you are going to get incredibly close with these people and your reputation will be impacted by theirs. It can be a nerve wracking experience.
I think each of us approaches it in a slightly different way, but for me an important thing that helps is approaching mentoring in game with set goals that help drive my selection of people to work with. I enjoy finding people who are already amazing but somewhat “overlooked” or under confident and facilitating them getting opportunities to contribute in a more visible way. I enjoy taking casual players who aren’t as active as they could be and helping them deepen their connections and contributions to the community. I also like helping to create what I call “bridge players”.
I consider bridge players to be those who get involved in activities with multiple groups of people and participate in a variety of aspects of the game. They are the people who can be seen staffing and playing at both “northern” and “southern” events. They are the ones who engage in combat, role play, crafts, do bardics, and look fabulous doing it (or at least a few of those things). They are the people who have respect for and of a diverse group of players who prioritize different things. These people often end up helping members of one subgroup understand the perspective of others. I feel like their existence is important in helping us remain “one game”.
My goals lead me to look for people who are well rounded, who have an interest in or at least are willing to consider trying multiple parts of the game, and are from diverse groups. I typically work with a small group of people at a time. In addition to each of them having a relationship with and learning from me, I also expect them to have relationships with and learn from each other.
While some of the Knighthoods I respect most are national knighthoods, I tend to do the exact opposite in picking people to work with outside of Folkestone (though Rubis did join after we were working together). That is because frequently those that join Folkestone are veterans who aren’t at the stage in their career where they would benefit most from the way I work with people (though I was a squire as a vet and got a lot out of it). The times newer players join Folkestone I consider mentoring them not just my responsibility but the responsibility of Folkestone as a whole and I am confident they will be supported. I also have not opted to work with more than one person in the same country formally at a time.
For me the start of working with someone formally is working with them informally. I generally like to get to know new people and hear about why they play and what their goals are. If when I’m having those conversations, it seems as though their goals are ones that I feel I can help with, if we seem to “click”, and it feels like they’d appreciate my encouragement. As well as my advice, I tend to end up talking with them again. Sometimes we only talk occasionally, other times we talk frequently. At this point I’ll often give them suggestions on things I think they should consider, or might want to try.
If I start feeling like I might be interested in working with someone formally I often ask them if they are willing to do tasks or “homework” that I suggest. There are many people I've worked with informally, where neither they nor I wanted to work together more intensely. Though there was still appreciation of each other. This gives me a sense of how motivated they are, if they want to be working with me, and how good their follow through is. If that goes well I will often let them know that I’m considering offering to formally work with them, explain what that would entail, and get their feelings on that.
It is important to note that I informally work with a lot of people and only end up in formal relationships with a small number of them. At times I help someone connect with a knight that would be a better match for them, or at times they naturally grown and develop in a different direction and find their own alternate mentors. There are also some people I've had informal mentoring relationships with that have spanned years, and are close to as strong as formal relationships I've had.
To me the difference between “informal” and "formal" is the level of commitment we each have to each other. When something is informal, I don’t have strong expectations of follow through, my thoughts are shared as suggestions, and I don’t feel an obligation to regularly work with someone if opportunities to do so don’t naturally arise. When it is formal, I expect them to follow through on tasks they are given (though I am open to discussions if they really dislike something for some reason), and I feel a personal obligation to make sure I’m regularly working with them. I do have expectations around how active they will be, and at times I've let people know that were they to reach the point where they could average making one event a month I’d work with them, but that they would need to show me they were able to before we should formalize it.
Once I've let them know all about how hard and demanding I am to work with (I really am) if they remain interested and have convinced me they understand and will be able to meet my expectations (and I feel I can meet theirs), I ask them to do a final “pre-task”, and go and talk to other people who have worked with me to get their opinion on what the process was like and what they feel they got from it.
If after gathering all this information they remain interested in working with me we formalize the relationship, but by that point they really have already been my squire in all but name for a period of time.