Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Scott. I see nothing wrong with letting all members know who is being moved to inactive after a muster or as it happens.

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It might actually encourage their friends to reach out to them and bring 'em back. That happens, I know I and others have done similar just for random reasons.

Salute!

Quote: Those are specific examples (mention in prior post of removed officers from LGA muster rolls, and their lack of registered games and log in record to the forums).

Yes, specific examples are less prone to accusations of exaggeration and misrepresentation.

... the policies enacted by LGA HQ has helped to clear the muster rolls for some of the 21 new recruits (a club wide phenomena that surely speaks to the vibrant culture we have here!).

Regards,

But has not their Army Command already done that in a muster that went unanswered?

Fellows, as "active" members of our club, it is your responsibility to answer the call, not the Administration's responsibility to chase you down. If you are "active", you would already be here and would certainly respond. Administrator's should not have to search for "active" members.

That is possible. Depends on how well they know their AC/Admins & how much they hear from them....



I believe that as an administrator you should make multiple attempts to find the member before letting them go. When you serve as a admin you dedicate yourself to the members. I never had issues with trying to track people down. Also sometimes people don't answer a muster call, but will answer it the next time around. Sure it sometimes took a couple friendly reminders to get some of my Prussians to muster, but they did. Sometimes it got guys who were dormant for a few years back to gaming again...why, because sometimes, even if they don't respond, if they keep seeing your name, they might eventually start to recognize who you are. When you build relationships with your officers and they recognize you, mustering becomes a lot easier. After several years of being the voice of the Prussian Armee and the main POC and a name they saw all the time, near perfect musters were achieved. I always left room for folks to muster the next time. Gave at least a year before I filed someone out and that was usually good practice. I think the members do have responsibilities, but we admins are here to serve the members and if it takes more of a sacrifice for us to do so, so be it, your men will appreciate. That's what leading an army here is all about.

We did make several attempts to contact the now inactive members

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The club exists for its members, so we should be flexible in meeting a range of different needs, welcoming to a range of different members, from the vocal ones with many games in play to the casual gamer, content to join in when time permits.

And if a muster is missed or just don't have time for games during a few months period of time, there should not be the burden of having to re-enlist to start playing again, or to stop by the Rhine tavern and find their account has been shut off.

I am glad to hear that you tried to contact those that were made inactive, John. We should make the effort, but at the same time we should expect some level of turnover as people lose interest or drift away, like the officers cited by Todd in his example.

However, if we need room in the ranks for new officers, well, the CiC controls the order of battle. And if there is interest in a formation comprised of the most active officers, or formalize ad hoc formations, much like le Tondu did in several campaigns, you can do that to.

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Marechal Jeff Bardon
Duc de Castiglione et Prince de Wagram
Commandant de la Garde Imperiale

We have members who have not played a game in months, years and some never. In addition to this they have not signed into the forums for months and in most cases only to muster now that it is required. Previously they sent in an email to a emailed muster request. We recently place 6 LGA officers on the inactive list. As far as I can tell they have never registered or played a game since 2010 and before that I have no records and missed 2 musters in a row.

We still have members who have mustered, but have not played a game or post in the forum other than to muster.

What do they contribute?

No one is advocating someone having expelling members en mass. But at the same time this last muster some of the members only mustered after multiple emails from the corps commanders and myself. Unless your personal or business life is in complete turmoil it is rude not to reply or to not respond to at least the second email.

I will also point out we have a member battling cancer, who while his games are on hold, did muster!

These changes in fact the changes actually give members parameters that did not exist before, so those who follow the procedures benefit.

I fully agree with others that we should be more flexible than 4 enforced musters per year (as the new rules proposes). I also wonder why the French army is removing officers that seems to be in-active since 2010?!
Since the beginning of the AAA we did annual musters. So, every year in around this time of the year we removed in average 7 officers from the OOB to the arty reserve. These were indeed officers not playing games, not active in the forum and not in contact with any of the higher commanders in the army.

We used a simple system of 1 email + 2 reminders + 1 forum post (missing officers)+ 1 private email to their reserve email address (which we collect at their application). And it always worked.

Out of these 7 two or three always respond later, in 3-4 months, to become re-activated again. That's because indeed we keep them in the mailing list.

Besides that every 2 years or so I send an email to the complete list of arty officers (the reserves) to ask them to re-enlist. 1 or 2 will do each time.

And just to respond to an earlier post: it is NOT a one click operation to activate or de-active an officer! In the DOR perhaps yes.
In the army administration and website it is around 15 minutes work per officer to change the websites, the off-line army administration file, send an official email to the officers, and his commanders, that he is de-activated etc. And that is indeed such a waste of time when an officer pops up again after a few months. So, when we do 4 muster per year the army commanders will be busy continuously to chase officers, activate them again and de-activate others. So far about one-click- operations!!
I prefer to use my time in a more efficient way.

What on earth is the problem if a not-active officer stays on the OOB for max one year? If the OOB becomes to small we make it bigger...

New club rules or not, but I will not do 4 muster per year and I will also advise the other army commanders in the Coalition not to do so.

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Gentlemen & Those of the French persuasion <Salute>

I suspect that a majority of the members of this club are here to find like minded people to do battle with. Some like myself enjoy the banter on the forums as well. We are grateful to those that give of their time to organise the club.

There are probably some who have met people who they continue to play against but don't bother to register the games because they have become two friends who play games.

It matters not whether the cabinet are appointed or elected. The are experienced players who have given their time to the club. They have discussed these changes. They have come to a decision based on their experience.

Lets vote yes - see how it goes - tweek any problems as they appear.

Lets get back to exchanging insults with our foes.

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The mechanism for making changes as noted in this thread is to vote "No" and send the rules back for revision.



The next club election is in the summer, so we have plenty of time to make the necessary adjustments rather than approve rules that are in need of editing. In order to make changes, you need to vote "No" on the sections you want to see tweeked.

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Marechal Jeff Bardon
Duc de Castiglione et Prince de Wagram
Commandant de la Garde Imperiale

As far as this muster thing...

Maybe I am crazy, but I cannot wrap my head around people arguing against it. You guys are suggesting the club should bend over backwards for members who are not currently playing any games and cannot be bothered to answer a simple email or forum post. So if they are moved to an inactive status, with the ability to become active again at any time, what exactly is the club losing? I'm sure this is a small minority of the club anyhow.

Now, I would not mind seeing some exceptions made for legitimate reasons. For example, if I secure a contract tomorrow that is going to result in my needing to work out of town for the next 4 months, I would hope the club would make an exception for me not being able to remain 'active' at that time. However, even if I was moved to an inactive status, big freaking deal. I just ask to be made active again when I return.

It sounds like you are suggesting a lot of time and energy be expended tracking these people down.

I do not care what type of club or organization you are talking about. If you need to literally beg people to be an active participant, something is really wrong with your organization.

A couple emails or waiting until after a second missed muster is hardly what I would call bending over backwards.

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Marechal Jeff Bardon
Duc de Castiglione et Prince de Wagram
Commandant de la Garde Imperiale

Jeff,

I'm fine with a couple of emails being sent out. Emails get lost or even sometimes fail to be delivered.

Some of the posts in this thread though are suggesting a lot more than that. I just do not see the reason for it.

And nobody is saying that after someone is made inactive that their commander cannot keep trying to contact them to bring them back into the fold if they think it is worthwhile. The rules do not mandate that all contact be cutoff from them and they be shunned.

Salute!

As for trying to make or maintain contact with officers, as both a Chef d'Etat-Major and Corps commander I have sent multiple emails out to the officers in my units, not just at muster time, but for other reasons as well.

The vast majority of my emails never get a response from more than a fraction of the recipients.
During musters, a total of 4 - 5 emails were sent in total over a 2 week period to those who failed to muster or finally did so in the last day(s).

As with so much in life the core of the issue being discussed here is communication.
Members of a club which they voluntarily joined have a responsibility (as I see it) to maintain contact with the club.

If a member has real life issues that require him taking a break from gaming -
or otherwise be absent from general club interaction, it simply takes an email explaining in the smallest amount of detail to someone in the club that you need a leave of absence.

If you are up front saying going to be gone for a year - well maybe you will lose Regt assignment, but you could surely maintain your rank; if you are up front about being gone for several months, say through one muster - I'm sure it is no big deal - because you communicated!

In no way what so ever do I see it as the responsibility of the club to chase or track down erstwhile members - the burden of membership is on the members.
Nothing more and nothing less.

Regards,