I've always felt the one thing the DB is seriously lacking is publicity.

We get new recruits, and then we struggle a lot with those new recruits, but what do we actually do to make sure we get the right recruits? Does anybody actually recruit people INTO the club, not just OUT of the Shadow Academy? Does anybody go and try and recruit off things like new Battlefront websites and forums? Does anybody go around pestering people who run fan websites to add links to the DB?

If people do, it's not something we ask them to do, and certainly not something we actively encourage. Sure, it's a good thing, sure we encourage it, but we don't actively make any public movement to encourage people to go around doing that. The most people get is a Scroll of Indoctrination... whoopee.

In that sense the DB is seriously lacking in any ambassadorial or diplomatic corps that can actually aid us in recruiting from outside the club, not just within the club structure itself. I'd see that as the best use for the Envoys.

We have Envoys to recruit from the Academy into Clans, that's a good thing, but better yet is having other Envoys dedicated to recruiting from the greater community into the DB itself.

"We have Envoys to recruit from the Academy into Clans, that's a good thing, but better yet is having other Envoys dedicated to recruiting from the greater community into the DB itself."

Not exactly, we have Envoys who are assigned recruits, once they have an assigned recruit it is their job to assist them in moving through the SA and into a Clan. By default they are assigned to the same Clan as their Envoy. So Envoys at current do not recruit in any way shape or form.

I do agree that a possible future use for the Envoys could be a diplomatic and or recruitment branch for the DB. There can easily be far more for the Envoys to do then they do now. Not to say their current work isn't important, but a good relationship between Envoy and Clan/House Summit should leave an Envoy with some spare time.

It has been my observation that most of the envoys are just dossier decorations..... I have sent the HM my propsal on some projected "duties" of a clan envoy.... and as far as the recruitment mentioned by goat, I agree something needs to be done, just not sure what, as I am not a very good recruiter and can offer no good suggestions.

An Envoy myself, I also participated in the original Dark Fury planning. What you see on the Shadow Academy site is merely the first, most basic, part of Project. The final document compiled by Pyralis actually spans 11 pages in MS Word.

I personally e-mail every new recruit (usually more than once) when I receive an e-mail informing that such a person has been assigned to me. I usually e-mail them more than once. Very few actually respond, but they are getting the welcome letters. Anyone who uses it as dossier decoration doesn't need it, but I figure that's what Kaiann meant when he requested that CONs and PCONs select the right member.

The duties of an Envoy fall under 2 broad, general categories of communication and assistance. You can break those up into smaller things if you wish.

Little bit of confusion in what I said...

When I said Envoys recruit into Clans I meant Envoys recruit into Clans. Thats essentially what they do. Now, true the Clan the new recruit is assigned to is set by the default, but I didn't necessarily say the Envoy recruits into THEIR Clan, just into the Clans, in general.

And that is what they do, as they help, assist, aid and encourage members to progress from the Shadow Academy into a Clan... that's what I define as recruiting more or less.

Likewise though, we need to help, assist, aid and encourage members to join the Dark Brotherhood itself. Right now we're linked to from... what, the RS site? SV site? Maybe the FES and ERC sites, though I'm not sure?

Thats four webpages... indirects at that, meaning a lot of members will just be people who are already members of those clubs. That means they're not going to be the most dedicated or eager of members.

Though I hate to ever refer to it by name, as do I hate to draw parallels, at times the truth is unavoidable. Its the one thing we lost from the Emperor's Hammer- recruiting. If you go to... cont...

...continued...

...ANY Star Wars fan website, especially gaming oriented ones, you'll nearly always find a link to the Emperor's Hammer. Now, true, lots of these sites are just out of date, old, and have never updated and left it there from the days when the Hammer was the biggest and, quite probably, best of the clubs around. Thats a fact we have to deal with though, those sites still exist, still come up in search engines, and still draw people into the Hammer.

Two years ago, that drew some of them to us too via the Hammer.

Now though, where do we get them from? I myself found the club when I was searching for new custom ships to add to XWA, which led me to the Science Office, which led me to the Emperor's Hammer, and thus the Dark Brotherhood. I wasn't looking for a gaming club.

That's the thing... we're just a gaming club, so unless somebody explictly types into Google "Star Wars Dark Jedi Gaming Club" they're not going to find the Dark Brotherhood. What we need is to be drawing people in from all sorts of areas, not just the already existing Star Wars community- which is what the RS, SV, ERC and FES represent.

How do you do that? Well, common sense would prevail for the most part as far as recruiting goes, although I'm not a publicist, nor do I claim to be, nor do I intend to be, so that would be up to the Envoys- or whomever- to answer, but the fact remaisn that somebody needs to be able to answer that question as somebody needs to be doing the job of recruiting.

"Joint" effort is often the response I get to this argument, as I've brought this point up in the past, though I refer back to my first post in when I said that unless you give people real incentive they rarely do anything. If people actually helped out simply to help out voluntarily then we'd not need Quaestors, Consuls, Order Leaders... anything. Fact is, people need to be told "thats your job" before they go out and use their head to do the stuff.

I will say, I do agree that a lot of Envoys are just ID line fodder in a number of cases. I've always felt that myself as they've never been treated as respected positions. It would probably help if the Envoy was listed on the Clan Roster at the top under Proconsul in a similar fashion to Rollmaster on the House Rosters.

"But that makes it too important! People would think its on the Clan Summit!" is the inevitable backlash argument to that. My counter-argument "So what?". The Envoy is MEANT to be a representative of the Clan that new members especially can come to for advice, help and assistance- why shouldn't it be a lot more public? If it makes Quaestors feel uncomfortable, then all the more reason, if Quaestors get that upset about their "authority" being usurped then they need to grow some balls and start worrying about their House's activity over their own importance.

Until we treat Envoy as a real position it will inevitably always be treated as a joke position, which in most cases it still is. There are a few Knight Class Envoys that do work hard, but I have to agree for the most part that Companion Class Envoys are nearly always just "whoever bothers to apply". If I only had poor people apply for Aedile, I'd not appoint an Aedile. The same isn't the case with Envoys, usually people will pick an awful applicant just because nobody else applied- thats an attitude that we need to change.

Anyhow... I've rabbited on for long enough. Summary:

1. Envoys recruit- so get them to do that on a wider basis.
   
2. Envoys need more official authority else they'll never be respected.
   

That about sums it up.

Since external recruiting sub-divisions never work, and never will work, and since noone is taking the time NOW to attempt to recruit outside (At least not totally seriously. I know some BF players try to), I think that idea is stupid and pointless.

How about we all just agree that the Envoys are completely worthless, have always been worthless, and move on? :P