The Tir Asleen Model for Recruiting

                It is my belief that a large percentage of 16-24 year-olds can be considered potential recruits.  Obviously Belegarth is not for everybody, but I really believe that most high school & college-aged young adults could enjoy fighting if it is properly presented to them and they are given the opportunity to have fun and develop some fighting skills.  Based on that assumption, I developed a systematic approach to developing a recruiting strategy that has worked very well for Tir Asleen and Nan Belegorn over the past two years.  For lack of a better name, I will call this recruitment theory the Tir Asleen Model.  In this segment I will hit the highlights of the theory and I will drill down into the nitty-gritty details in subsequent segments.

                Recruiting new members can be viewed as overcoming a series of barriers which stand in the way of potential members becoming long-term realm members.  The first barrier that needs to be overcome is getting potential fighters to try Belegarth for the first time.  At the most basic level, this can be viewed as an advertising challenge.  In general, you need to make people aware of what Belegarth is and that they are encouraged to join.  Realms can advertise their presence in a number of ways, but the best way is to fight in a public place and make it obvious that passersbys are welcome to join in.  This is most efficiently done is your regular practice place is somewhere with high foot traffic by your target demographic, such as on a college campus or a in a popular public park.  You should also always put out a professional looking sign have an outgoing, friendly person designated to approach people that look interested.  Having all of your members in nice-looking garb also goes a long way to improving your image overall and creating the right first impression.  In addition to passively recruiting during your regular practices, it can be very worthwhile to attend welcome student events at a college, fight outside the dorms during move-in week, set up a fighting field at/near local festivals, and offer to provide equipment and expertise to other community groups that might be interested in running a ‘fight night’ for their members.

                The second barrier to people becoming long-term members is getting someone who has tried Belegarth to come back a second time.  This almost entirely comes down to one question- did they have fun at their first practice?  If they have a good time, they are likely to come back.  Unfortunately, ensuring that new people have a good time is not always a straightforward proposition.  A careful balance needs to be struck to let your veteran fighters do some fighting at a high level, while still letting new fighters have fun and feel like they have a chance to make a difference in some of the games.  The first step is to have quality loaner gear available that does not put your new people at a significant disadvantage gear-wise.  It doesn’t need to be the latest tech, but it should not be a significant barrier to the new fighter having a good time.  The person calling games should include games that allow new people chances to do well.  Examples include games like capture the flag where there is an objective that you don’t necessarily need to be a good fighter to complete, games with little downtime so that if they die early they can quickly re-enter the game, and games that have a silly component to them so that they are enjoyable for new fighters even if they aren’t fighting or not getting many kills.  One of the most important things you can do to leave a favorable impression with new fighters is keep them from getting hurt on their first practice.  Obviously safety is a high priority for all of your fighters, but sometimes it might be necessary to ask some heavy-hitters to meter their swings or avoid new fighters on the field.  Sending your new people home with bruises is going to severely impact your new fighter retention rate.  It is important for the passerby approacher, leaders, heralds, and game callers to make it absolutely clear that new people are important to them and that their enjoyment of the game is a high priority.

                Okay, so you have attracted some new fighters and convinced them to come back to a second practice.  The next barrier is to turn these interested fighters into regular attendees.  The key to overcoming this barrier is to allow your new members to grow as fighters and make friends in the realm.  You can encourage your new members to grow as fighters by providing them access to the tools they need to succeed.  This includes things like hosting weapon building parties, garb sewing parties, and access to veteran fighter instruction.  Sometimes it might be more efficient to just provide your new fighters with inexpensive weapons for purchase and realm tabards with their first dues payment or when they attend their first event.  Having their own weapons and their own garb creates a substantial feeling of buy-in that they won’t have if they don’t have their own garb and are always borrowing loaner equipment.  Equally as important as helping your new people to grow as fighters is to allow them the opportunity to integrate into the social fabric of the realm.  You can help this process along by providing social opportunities where all realm members feel welcome.  Sometimes this can be at a different time & place as practice, but it often works well to go get food after practice as a group or all go over to a realm member’s place to hang out.  It is critical that new fighters feel welcome to come along.  Veteran fighters will already likely be friends and don’t need encouragement to hang out together.  These structured social times are most important for new fighters, so make an effort to get them to come along.

                Tir Asleen has found that if we can get our new fighters to attend a weekend fighting event, they are likely to become long-term members.  For us, this represents the final barrier to transitioning potential recruit into a long-term realm member.  Tir Asleen’s main recruiting period is the first six weeks of the fall semester, starting at dorm move-in and using Oktoberfest as a ‘finish line’ for the bulk of our new recruits.  We make sure our new members know what Oktoberfest is and encourage them to come with us by making an announcement about it at every practice and making a concerted effort to get all of our new members weapons, garb, and transportation ahead of time.  Do your best to provide structured times where people can make weapons and garb, but sometimes you might have to provide some personal help outside of those sessions to make sure everyone who wants to go has what they need.  After your new people have weapons and garb, they are going to need transportation and lodging at their first event.  I encourage you to actively mediate ride-sharing, since sometimes veterans might prefer to drive themselves, but will take riders when asked by a realm leader.  Ask your new fighters about their level of familiarity with camping and help them share, borrow, or purchase the tents, sleeping bags, and other equipment they will need.  Sometimes students can get excused absences from classes for trips with student clubs.  If your realm is a student club, look into your college’s rules about this and help your new student fighters get an excused absence if that is an option.  Finally, once you are at the event, don’t abandon your new members.  Camp with them, fight with them, and party with them, and you will have successfully transitioned your potential recruit into a long-term realm member. 

So that is a pretty course-scale look at the Tir Asleen model for recruiting new members.  This theory assumes that you are recruiting in a target-rich environment and have some access to schools or colleges to recruit from.  If that is not the case, some of these strategies may still be useful to you, but I strongly suggest that each realm take a comprehensive approach to developing their own recruitment model that works for their own unique situation.  In subsequent segments I will drill down into these lists of actions and provide some details and options and examples of how Tir Asleen has approached these strategies.