A Sugestion..

I think at the moment that we (bristol) need to re think the entire server and session hosting idea. The server itself works for most people, however it does not encouarage new members to actually go onto it...

If I was a normal Gamespy User, that had never heard of bristol before, and went onto an open session, and joined on the website, I'd be very surprised and disappointed to find out that you have to join this server to get onto sessions. I would therefore probably not go on as I would think it not worth the hassle. For you, as a member, you know what bristol is like and so you would make the effort to join any session however you could. But the server is not advertising bristol well, and it doesn't seem to draw in members like maybe Gamespy did.


Another major flaw that I've noticed, is that there appears to be no major information for new pilots in the how to join us section that states clearly that all our secure sessions are on a server.

OK. So at the moment levels of people on the server are quite low. Already the PEF has been scrapped, which is a good move, but maybe, just maybe, people should consider reverting to Gamespy. Purely because it has the largest member base...

Honestly, I think the server is quite nice. I see no problem with using both. Gamespy to recruit and the server to use for more serious sessions. I have been recruiting as quite vigoresly and my "recruits" have even joined the server (me walking them through each step). They have yet to fly another session. I will be trying to get to the reason, but I suspect (from some comments I have heard already) is that Bristol can be somewhat intimidating and off-putting. I know no one at Bristol means to be this way, but I have heard this from more than one source.

I think the solution is to have, perhaps, a liason (sp?). Someone who will take newbees under their wing and shepherd them through the processes and to follow up on their progress. This person can even try to find out why they are no longer interested in flying with Bristol.

I suggest this because I completely believe in Bristol and find this group to be one of the best around. If I thought Bristol was complete rubbish, I wouldn't bother, but I feel we can grow and retain members better then the others. We just have to constantly work on improvements.

I may be completely off, but there you have it.

Thats a very good idea. I agree with you when you say that people get intimidated to fly with BATC. However a normal member may not want to have to talk on skype to you etc just so they can get flying. (nothing personal lol!) If anything they may even feel more intimidated if they didn't know you...

However even maybe by email or something, just to say 'Hello, welcome to bristol, this is what you do next'. If somebody keeps chasing them up to continue with setting things up, then it may work.

P.S Frank, have you seen the Mentor section on the forum? I'm now a mentor! - you should ask steve to become one too.