Vito_T suddenly stops in midstride, raises his head and takes a deep breath.

He opens his mouth, shuts it, ponders, and decides to speak.

We live in a time of relative peace.  Our alliances and friendships aren't easily shaken, and we've managed to set aside our egos and pride in favor of mutual growth.  Despite all our best efforts, I'm sure this peace is finite, as someone is bound to come around and rock our little boats.

It's because of this peace that I'm asking what I see as a question not to be posed in times of war and strife, when the demons are stirring and dissecting every word in search of a chink in your armor or any hint of vulnerability.  I'll simply lay out my vulnerability for the benefit of all who desire to know it:  I want my family to be closer, more interested, and more active.

We run events in an effort to get newer members involved, active and captivated, but it's never enough.  I would speculate that other families feel the same way.  This is an important issue that has to be dealt with in every crew, yet to my knowledge, no one is talking about it.

So I pose this question to any current or former CL, RHM, LHM who wishes to share any successful programs that they have implemented that have increased family involvement, cohesion or activity:  How'd you do it?

To those of you who aren't Leadership, your opinions are no less valid on the issue: What could a crew do to get you more interested/invested in the family?

Thanks in advance for being open about this, I look forward to seeing how creative you folks really are.

From a point of view from someone who is pretty fresh off the boat - the first of my family line to walk these shores no doubt....

To be honest it's a hard question to answer. But maybe, just maybe, the key to doing what you ask is to become more personal with your members. Speak to them when you see them come around, spark interesting conversations. Try to be less formal. I'm not sure, I mean what would I know? But at first I dare say, the only thing that kept me active is the fact that I was active in a similar.... situation(?) before I arrived here, so it's not like I could just hang up my boots and call it a day when these streets are ripe for the picking.

Maybe another idea could be to ask your members (new ones especially) to invite friends from whereever it is that they came from to come and join this thing of ours. Having friends leads to competition, and competition leads to more effort, and we all know what that leads to.

But alas, what would I know?

Michelotto shrugs it off.

Part of the process has to be stemming the tide of inactivity from where it starts - recruiting openly and showering newcomers with invites is going to lead to inactive members.

My suggestion would be to introduce new members to other family members and give them an icebreaker conversation so they feel more attached. Its easier to stay active when you talk to other people on the site. This will give also give them someone to turn to if the RHM, LHM and CL aren't on.

Fayth wanders past the conversation, then she starts to listen and heads back

Well the first thing you can do is send a mail explaining how to get to the coffee shops (irc) and give them the family coffee shop to head to. Get them in the coffee shops where they will find it easier with the other bonuses you get from being there.

Usually this works very well and I have to say I doubt many people think of it.

The quality of your crew depends a lot upon the quality of the member you invite.

Right now I have 11 members in my crew and the majority of those are new to our shores. I'm not expecting them to speak endlessly in the HQ and never be out of my mailbox; frankly I don't want them to. The important thing is that they all approached me and know who I am and what I'm about. In short, they wanted to work for me.

A lot of being a successful member you pick up from experience and watching. I'd prefer and actually encourage my members to watch the way the upper structure of the Northern Lights operate. My old boy has a wonderfully annoying phrase of "you have two ears and only one mouth", which means you should listen more than you talk. You will learn more and look far less dense when you do decide to open your mouth.

Interaction comes with mutual experience, encouragement and time. This assuming you've bothered to check the members you have recruited are compatible with you and your crew. Not everyone is made to work together and some members don't understand what is required of them in the first place. As Cato suggests, if the effort is put into recruiting, not just an open door policy, you will reap the rewards. The members you do get will want to work for you, will want to succeed and improve the crew.

~T~

I would agree with all said here and speaking from personal experience with Vito_T's crew, the hierarchy has made a point of approaching people, asking how they are doing.  An excellent job of attempting to pull people into discussions, competitions etc.  Some of us have responded, unfortunately even from my low rank standpoint I can see some don't.  But isn't this the way of the world in general?  Aren't there always going to be the ones who inspire, the ones who get inspired and then the group who are willing to just do their every day tasks and go home?  Should they rank to made?  No, not in my opinion but not sure they care.  And aren't they in one way a necessity to our families, the base of people who bring in the earnings, are usually reliable since if i/a they are gone anyway, the base of the pyramid so to speak.

Something that just occured to me in reading another's speech also is that again, some of this problem in general may go with the criteria for ranking.  In this speech a mademan was saying he just didn't give a f***.  Then, my question is, how did he become made?  Obviously from our God's point of view he had the rank coming but if we promote people who don't care, we will just end up with more and more of the lethargy you speak of Vito.  And no disrespect intended towards this made man and/or his family as obviously I don't know the details but as a point in general