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The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is a non-profit educational group dedicated to learning about and re-creating the middle ages. I have been a member for 14 years now and it is still quite enjoyable! In the SCA you learn about the middle ages by studying and doing / living it yourself. You can learn the crafts, the history, what daily life was like, and you can even learn about the combat of the time. Personally, I like meeting new people and making new friends (see me at the Pennsic Troll booth*!). I also like to help-out at events (either at Troll, or in the kitchen), and to shoot archery. Volunteering at events is a great way to meet people and make new friends. Helium hand (persistent volunteerism), though, has also gotten me the office of Exchequer (treasurer) for our local group out here in SW Ohio, but it is not as hard as I had thought it would be (either that or I’ve not been hit with much of the difficult paperwork yet).
From the SCA website you can find information about SCA groups that are local to you. If you are interested, please contact the seneschal (president) or chatelaine (“welcome wagon” person) of the group for more information about when and where the local group meets.
If you go to a SCA event, unlike a renaissance festival, you are required to dress in a reasonable attempt at period clothing (CE 60-1650). If someone gives you grief about your garb (period dress), let them know that you are just starting and would like to have some help. (If they continue to be a jerk about it, please, please, please ask someone else for advice/help). Remember that in every group, there are "purists" who are able to devote much more time (and/or money) to it than others, and who may have lost track as to why others can't do as "well" as they can.
Everyone
in the SCA develops a "persona" (alternate personality?), a person
who could have lived in the middle ages. The persona
has a period name and can be created with as much depth of realism/research as
you want to put into it.
Take me, for example: My persona is Mathaeus Blades,
nationality unknown, but living in the highlands of Scotland, and a member of a
Hiberno-Saxon household. I have not had much time to
do more than give that little bit to my persona, but it is a start.
The household I am a member of is Clan Wulfgard. Though households are do not have official standing within the SCA, they are period, and can gain reputations on their own. Wulfgard's annual "Scottish Rebellion" party at The Pennsic War each year is getting more and more attention at the years go by....not for lots of drinking or rowdiness, but for good company, good music, good conversation, and GREAT mead.
*In the SCA, the registration / check-in point for events is called Troll. It is called “Troll” because the registration point is the bridge between the modern world and our SCA world. Since there is paperwork / fees as an obstacle wielded by someone, and trolls live under bridges, therefore those working the booth must be trolls. This is what I’ve heard as to how the name came to be.