Emissary

In the years since our The Force Awakens-inspired membership surge, the club has steadily shrunk. Although activity and engagement remain high and Discord has fostered a greater DB-wide sense of community than we have ever previously enjoyed, the long term health of the club depends on arresting and reversing the slide in numbers. That is a task with two primary aspects: 1) marketing the club in a way that clearly explains who we are and what we do, and 2) creating infrastructure and policies that will help convert new joins into lifelong members.

Traditionally, the Headmaster has been the DC position with notional responsibility for the new member experience. That may once have been true, but in the modern DB the HM’s duties are rooted firmly in a Shadow Academy that provides new members with brief (but very useful) primers on the club, its systems, lore, and activities but otherwise leaves them to their own devices. The bulk of the new member experience is in fact handled at the Clan level with little direct involvement from the DC. In recent years, projects aimed at broadly improving the new member experience have been driven by the Grand Master and GM/DGM staff, which gives them high-level visibility but also leaves them to ad hoc teams and can lead to stagnation when the GM is unable to focus on them among many other competing priorities.

Over the past ten years, the club has gone through several iterations of a position focused on marketing and recruitment: Recruitment Tribune, Social Media Tribune, and now Communications Tribune. The first two enjoyed varying degrees of success and the third has not yet had a full opportunity to implement her plans, but all three share a handicap: as Tribunes, they are typically excluded from leadership discussions and decision making and carry less perceived prestige than a member of the Council. As Tribunes, the positions are, by definition, limited in scope--primarily to social media posting and the occasional ad campaigns--with no influence over or responsibility for what happens to the people their work draws to the club. It has become clear to me that we are setting them up for failure without direct representation on the DC.

It’s time to elevate the club’s recruitment and retention efforts. To that end, I have created (technically, revived with completely new responsibilities) a new Council position: the Emissary. As detailed on the position's Wiki page, the Emissary will be responsible for:

General Duties

• Oversight of the Brotherhood’s social media presence.
  
• Primary responsibility for monitoring new member onboarding club wide and working with the Council and the Clans to improve the new member experience.
  

Specific Duties

• Develop and run active recruitment campaigns across various platforms.
• Supervise the Communications Tribune and their efforts across the club’s social media accounts.
• Manage the club’s public-facing Discord channels and onboarding including #welcome.
• Identify onboarding problems with existing Brotherhood systems and propose feasible solutions.
• Develop, in consultation with the Seneschal and other relevant leaders, new or revised systems focused on introducing prospective members to the club and successfully integrating them into the community.
• Coordinate with club leaders to identify and spread best practices for recruitment and retention.
• Maintain a regular publication schedule for the Rogues Newsletter.

Fictionally, the Emissary will act as a sort of scout and diplomat for the Brotherhood, seeking out promising potential members and maintaining good relations outside our borders:

Fictional Role

The Emissary is tasked with bolstering the Brotherhood’s membership, and its relations outside of its own realm of influence. Much of their time is spent traveling outside Brotherhood space exploring new regions that might be tapped for new members, resources, or influential alliances. Their duties are not only outward facing however, as they are one of the prime resources new members might turn to as they navigate the complex workings of the Brotherhood. The Emissary often works with each of the other Councilors and the Clans’ Leaderships to foster an accessible environment for the new members to thrive in.

Applications

Much of the concept for Emissary came from discussions I had with our current HM, Arch, and I gave him the option of remaining HM or taking on the new role. He has chosen to finish what he started as HM, so now we need to fill Emissary. As this is an entirely new job, it will be largely shaped by the first person to hold it. Therefore it's essential that we get the right person for the job. There are no rank or firm experience requirements; however, I am looking for the following:

• A strong understanding of the current new member experience and ideas for how to improve it.
  
• Organizational skills. The Emissary will need to be able to track and keep projects moving or nothing will ever be accomplished, and will also have to work with and manage a staff including the Communications Tribune.
• An ability to work collaboratively with the rest of the Council, especially GM, DGM, and Seneschal, and with the seven Consuls and other clan leaders.
  
• Basic knowledge of Discord administration.
• A commitment to the job for a minimum of one year. You should be confident that you can give the position the time and energy it deserves for at least a year.

We will be accepting applications for two weeks, through November 26. Please send your applications to me and Atra. Although there are no former Emissaries you can ask for advice about the position, please feel free to reach out to me by email or on Discord and I'll do my best to answer any questions you might have.

Headmaster

Obviously this changes some things for HM, which has nominally been in charge of new member integration. HM will be formally refocused on SA development and maintenance along with taking official responsibility for the club’s “knowledge management” including the Wiki, Codex (to whatever extent it’s still relevant), and the Discord resources channel. The HM Wiki page will be updated soon with the new position description, but the gist of it is that in addition to maintaining and expanding the SA, the HM will now formally oversee the Wiki and our Discord resources channel. The Wiki Tribune and Quizmaster (the Trivia Tribune) will also directly report to HM.