We have a good club here. It would be great if we could get more returning captains. I think the most ships I have seen on the water was 12 at one time that was almost 15 years ago. We should put our heads together and come up with some ideas to get more people involved. My mom works for Nintendo, I was thinking about having her put flyers up around the campus there. She also knows a lot of people at Microsoft to do the samething.
I have used club membership as a surogate economic indicator. It has worked suprisingly well. We hit our peak of 11 ships on the water in the summer of 2001. The economy was already headed down but the ships had been build several months earlier. Within a very short time we lost half of the captains who were participating. When we were told by the media that the economy was in recovery... I didn't see a pickup in the number of interested people for another couple of years and even then what we saw was a very slight uptick. When the games that have been played and have now came to light are factored in, the majority of the economy had not really recovered and was only slowly improving for many years afterwords. It requires an investment of time and money to build a ship and there seems to be a limited range of folks that have the combination that we can appeal to. I have always thought that it makes sense to get the word out. There have only been a few ships that have just appeared without the captain showing up for one or more battles ahead of time and those who have appeared that way have not stuck with the hobby. One lesson that I have learned is that the best way to get people involved is to get them to the pond. That is the first and primary thing I push when I talk to someone who shows a bit of interest. If they have a good time at the pond, they are likely to come back. I think Hovey has a good idea with the cargo tubs. I try to maintain many ships. It is very difficult and I don't do it well. With a cargo tub, I can arm one of my warships between battles and let a visitor take it out (with help) and attack the cargo tub. This means I have fewer ships to maintain than if I was trying to keep a loaner running. It also should provide a better experience for a visitor because even taking on a ready to battle ship you don't know is a major challenge. Without being a target for other ships, they can concentrate on what is still a challenging new task for them with the chance that they will successfully sink the cargo ship.
If you need help taking care of your ships phill I can take and maintain one for you. I have a couple people who are interested. I can loan it out to them I that's ok with you.
I agree that a slow economy is not helping. But I do think that if we get ships sinking from combat (they look so cool as they roll or slip under!) and people get to see it and maybe get a little stick time, even if it is only on a transport, they are far more likely to come back. And if they keep coming back they will be far more likely to get a ship built and run it. As an other idea to make things interesting. What do people think about awarding some sort of award for combat action. Maybe a small pennant your ship can fly for being sunk by enemy action, sort of like a service medal? I think it might look kind of neat to have some sort of decoration for those vessels that routinely go into harms way. It would give spectators something else to chat about and help to distinguish those older hulls.
Awards / Decorations would be awesome. Might also encourage people like me to finish their masts (Suffren is missing its sternmast) so they can rig for pennants. On the other hand, I don't have a clue how to make a pennant with any sort of design to it, and I don't want to spend ship-making time on it.
Awards are a great idea. I dont mean to be critical however but awards are mostly for people who already in the hobby. Our problem is to get more people interested in it. I do like the awards idea very much. The ships would look really nice with awards flying from them.
Cut a little notch into the top of a mast and put a line through and a tie the line to both ends of the ship. In the Marines for each award we get we have a ribbon and a medal for the same award. My we could do the samething. The ribbon is awarded and flone on the ship and the captain gets the medal?
I'd love it if we got to a point where we could hand out various awards every year to both captains and ships.
Hrm, actual medals might get a bit spendy if they're given out on a regular basis, but I bet we could sculpt some up and make molds & resin cast them.
Medals would get expensive quickly. I was just thinking something simple the ship could display. Something to add a little color to our otherwise grey ships and maybe get people interested in starting their own collection of little pennants. Also as a veteran I wouldn't feel right handing out medals for our silly little games. To me a medal should be reserved for more serious work.
It wouldnt be an actual medal. It would be one we came up with just for the hobby. Something cheap that is easy to pass out. I was thinking something on sticky paper you can wrap around a piece of string. I also have some ideas for awards we can hand out. Let me know what you think. Attending Battles: (per season) 2 4 6 entire season Rookie of the year award (season) Individual Combat(per battle) Good Sportsman(per battle) Most feared ship(per battle) Winning Fleet (per battle) Confirmed Kills (per battle) Best Merchantman (per battle) (maybe, for the new people)
Those all seem good but we might want to have a few more captains if we are handing out that many awards.
Thats why all these awards and ideas are great but we are still stuck with the same problem. We need more captains so we should focus on that problem first.
you could have some other, silly awards, e.g. shiniest prop, most time spent under water, ect other funny awards, most fruit carryed( like that ship with the banana in the spring regionals video) ahhh... im alowd to post in this club section right? if not ill just delete it (not a member)
