Clan Schools are extensions within your training program to provide your members with extra honors and union. These schools are meant to help cement your members into your team as well as add some diversity and glamor to your unit. This extension of your training program will work wonders for member retention as well as build a foundation that will draw LOTS of new members. Here is how this works…

Requirements:

- A working and successful Basic Combat Training Program (BCT)

- Some form of a training team (Officer, Drill Sgt., etc.)

- A willingness to put some effort into design and operation

These elements are needed for the sake of traffic flow and work load. This program is not always accomplished by new teams, but if you have a few members and everyone is willing to work hard you could pull it off well. This also may not be a good idea if you want to keep your ranks thin because it will become a high selling point for new members.

Designing the Schools:

The specific schools you create will vary from clan to clan and game to game but the concept is pretty universal. You are offering additional training programs for specialized arts within your team/game. To give you an idea of how powerful this is I will run through some examples.

- Advanced Individual Training or Infantry School

(This training school could be an extension of your BCT, perhaps work on more specific tactics of game playing.)

- Specialist School

(This school could serve as very game specific instruction, perhaps a sniper, flight, or machine gunners school.)

- BNOC (Basic Non-Commissioned Officer School)

(If you use a ranking system that has military ranks this would be a good way to teach your sergeants how to work with middle level tasks and small groups of people)

- OCS (Officer Candidate School)

(Similar to above, you can cover what your ranking leaders need to know)

These are just a few examples of where you can go with this idea, and there is no limit. You can be as basic or complex with these as you choose. I would recommend keeping them pretty simple and making your schools accessible by specific requirements. Lets say, nobody can attend additional schools unless they have completed your BCT program. Maybe in order to be invited to the Sniper school you must be recommended by the clan leadership and so on. This adds credibility to your schools and makes them a bit more desirable.

A Note on Complexity:

Keeping it simple is a good thing, these programs do not have to transfer knowledge people already have, they should expand on that knowledge.

Rewarding Graduates:

The best part about these programs is the reward. You should provide a bit of a ceremony, a medal (if you use them), a public announcement, and change that persons area of responsibility (if applicable) to reflect their achievement. I would certainly suggest you publish your graduates names and dates on the website as this will show prospective recruits that people are DOING things in your team and provide a object of pride to your new graduate.

You should consider giving each school a clever name and promoting the schools as benefits to new members. This will raise your standing dramatically with any prospective new members because who wouldn’t want to attend the “Silent&Deadly School of Sniping” or make Sergent after graduating from the “ClanName Stripes Academy”

If you give your guys the opportunity to shine, that is exactly what they will do.

- Hedge

© 2009 tribehaven