James and I have spent a lot of time on the subject of how new members perceive the club when they join, versus after they join. This is something that we feel an ‘older’ member of the club might take a little for granted against somebody new that is eager to get stuck in, but becomes a little frustrated after a time.

Both James and I understand this because this is how we felt when we joined as cadets. While I cannot speak for James I know that it was only a choice I made to ‘give STF a go’ around a month into my joining STF that is the reason I am still here. We both feel that we lose enough cadets who join us, begin to post and then end up AWOL’ing out that there has to be a similar feeling among at least a few.

Much has been said from members of the club about member retention and how we could go about keeping these people but for all of that, little has been done and we continue to lose cadets. We are getting people joining STF and we are starting to get out there on Facebook, role play events and on Internet searches, but in our opinion it’s pointless expanding this network of advertising for members if we can’t support and keep the members we already have joining us. We need a solid base so that when people come to us, they get what we have to offer.

In our experience as cadets the frustration comes from DH’s that are often not around to RP as much as we expect, and from looking through STF’s own resources on the club and role play and finding that things we look for are not there, or that they are, but get told they are out of date in some way causing frustration at time wasted. My own feeling as a cadet that I am sure other cadets and members have felt, is that as a club we put so much emphasis on the upper echelons of membership, that we forget about the new members and keeping STF realistic about what we offer them.

What do we offer them? A fun, active and authentic Star Trek role play experience where members have a library of supporting resources, exams to take to up-skill themselves, and active and knowledgeable people to help guide them in their role play. When I joined, I was amazed at the depth that STF had to offer in the way we did things and the setup we had. I quickly learned that while it was great on paper, the reality was less shiny.

So, after all of that, what is it that James and I want to see to get our new members and cadets more interested and stay?

1. STF is a club where members can have many characters and be on a number of ships, Academy DH’s are on multiple ships and as a result, often don’t post as often as an excited new member would expect. They usually stay within Awol limits, but from experience once every five days is hardly what an eager cadet who wants to get involved expects. We teach people how to RP in STF, we do not teach them how to RP on a number of ships and how that effects a writer and posting times. Cadets are completely inexperienced with that style that we as established members are familiar with, I only understood that when I graduated and got on a number of ships. What we would like to see, is the ability for a cadet that is interested to have Two cadet characters, one on each Academy ship and preferably in different departments so they can experience more DH and Command support, different styles and GM’s and understand STF better. Ideally the second character would come into play a month after the cadet joins and has learnt the basics of our posting style, and graduation would happen with the cadets first character when both would leave the Academy. Of course, the input of our membership here would be vital to getting this right.

2. A large part of a new players introduction to STF is the Players Handbook. With the upgrade to Exodus this could use some work to bring it up to date and into line with our current systems. The big thing here is we do not need to reinvent the wheel with question guides or video’s etc. We have the Players Handbook, and it works. We need it to be an up to date and accurate piece of STF that explains easily what we do, why and how we do it. It needs to support the new member in what they need to know, and the existing members in what we need to teach. It needs to be the go-to guide for STF and as the first thing new members see, after the welcome email often, it needs to be right. To get it right, we need to talk to the existing Cadets and ask them what they expected, what helped and what was confusing. Us ‘old timers’ making a guide for beginners is likely to overlook what we consider straightforward and simple, and what better way to include new members than to get them to help us make a guide to help other new members?

Role play writing is at the core of what STF is and what we do. Before we try to expand the club, grow membership, we need to make sure our base is solid and right. Do that, and we have a foundation to work from to then grow the membership, otherwise we will just chase our tails.

Thank you for reading

Dave and James.