“Clans work best when you have a lot of involvement from the members”

It is pretty hard to argue with that statement, and far to often team leaders and the upper hierarchy fail to provide a means. When people join a new clan they are looking forward to an opportunity to not only play and get to know everybody, but they are looking to have an EXPERIENCE. They want to be involved in something special and earn the right to be respected by the other team members.

By far, the easiest way to accomplish this is with a developed training program. There are several ways to build and operate a program, and I am just going to touch on the basics here. I will also touch on some problems you may be having if you have a program and it is not working. Let’s get started…

the Meet.

Young clans, or teams just starting with a training program may want to begin with this option. The meet is just a tentative time and date for learning. The goal here should be to provide  Q & A, provide some tips, and STAY LOOSE. It may look something like this:

- Training Meets on Wednesdays & Fridays @ 9PM (Not Mandatory)

We will be playing map 1, map 2, and map 6 and showing off our hiding places and methods!

Then simply change up your itinerary from week to week as necessary and have fun with it.

Skill Training.

Here is an idea that stays pretty low key, but adds a bit more to the program than just meeting up for information trading. With skill training you want to focus on the various flexibility of your members and provide them an opportunity to step outside of their comfort zone. This could include the use of ALL of the weapons or vehicles of the game, perhaps work on stationary aspects of the game, or other areas within the game that most people are not “well-rounded” on. It may look something like this:

- Skill Training Camp on Fridays @ 9PM (Not Mandatory)

We will be covering the use of artillery and grenades, as well as sniper rifles.

Basic Combat Training.

Probably the strongest method of building your training program comes when you are ready to build a basic training program. Depending on how technical you want to get, you may need some help from your members. I would advise against using the old cliche of screaming at people and calling them names and focus on the ritual and learning experience of the event. This kind of a program should include a variety of the very basic skills of playing your game, and should end with a ceremony of sorts that recognizes your graduating members of their accomplishment.

I’ll cover this a bit deeper latter on, but the most important things you will get out of this is the pride from your members and the prestige of being a team that runs this sort of program. It is not terribly important if you have a member who does not grasp a concept well or goofs off a bit in comparison to building unity and pride within the team.

The Broken Program.

It may be that you have a program and it is not working, or you are not getting much involvement. If this is the case, than you should certainly shake it up a bit. I’ll run through a few scenarios here…

- You have a program that includes Basic, but no one is interested in attending.

First, check your time & dates, maybe no one CAN attend because it is a bad time for them. Next look at the complexity, perhaps you would better serve your team with a lesser more flexible training program. Final thought, add some incentive by providing an “award” for completing the teams Basic program.

- You have a simple program, but nothing ever happens at the meets because we get side tracked.

If you are ambitious enough to consider that unacceptable, try this; gather the assistance of a few members to train on something that is not very important. If all works well, it will be over fast, everyone will have a good time, and it should help to promote your next training item with a feeling of “Well, we had fun last time…”

- You have a fun and care-free team and you are afraid a training program may hurt the team.

Some teams are simply not built for seriousness, but you can still benefit from this concept. Try putting together a program that puts heavy stock in reward. Call it the monthly Hoopla and promote it as an event or festival instead of a rigorous activity. If your team enjoys goofing off most, then train on how to goof-off! lol.

- Hedge

© 2009 tribehaven