Recruiting new members, whether for a shuttle or an established chapter, is about gaining a sufficient number of members to adequately share the responsibilities of the group, and about gaining the benefit of those members' skills, experience and enthusiasm. Someone's good at coordinating charity efforts, someone else is good at creating flyers or newsletters. Sometimes the members of your group will eagerly volunteer for a duty; and sometimes they won't.

But offering duties as one of the benefits of membership?

No, it's not as easy as saying "Join our ship, our captain's tired of wrestling with Frontpage." But there are ways of playing up participation in Fleet to show members how valuable it can be to them.

To give you an example of this value, I'm gonna reach back to my college years, long before I joined Fleet. Along with the usual academic and social life, I also got involved with campus events, helping plan and run concerts, lectures, festivals, and conferences. Sure it was fun, and a great way to meet the famous to boot, but it was also a great way to learn all the steps of producing an event. I was an absolute beginner, that had to learn on the fly how to produce flyers and newspaper ads, work with agencies, delegate work to a committee, and stick to a schedule (and budget.) All of those skills were useful to me in future years, but it was the advertising and desktop publishing experience that really piqued my interest. I loved learning Photoshop and Pagemaker, moving from flyers to print ads to brochures and calendars. In 1995, when everyone and everything had to have a Web site, I tried my hand at producing a site for our events calendar. And over time that site grew larger and more sophisticated, as I kept adding new skills to my repertoire.

As you can imagine, given my current duties in Fleet and my choice of profession, that interest has endured. The point is, if that were a professional setting and not a volunteer setting, I would have a basic skill set that I would be expected to stick to, and tasks outside that area, barring extreme emergency, would be assigned to another person. There are not many opportunities to really explore outside one's own field of expertise in the working world, and often such opportunities to gain such skills are under extreme pressure, such as filling in for a missing employee in a pinch.

So where is one going to get those skills? In a setting where not only are there fewer individuals expected to share the responsibility, but there is no money riding on one's ability to carry out the task: a volunteer organization.

When I graduated and started job-hunting, my volunteer experience provided me with a few portfolio examples, as well as a resume full of skills ranging from coordinating ad campaigns, creating press releases, designing a few Web sites, and creating annual calendars. Many people just entering the design field have few or no real marketing campaigns on their resume, I had two years' worth, as well as a broad range of skills and software experience. I'm sure our fine volunteers at that fabulous IC in Kansas City can boast similar experience.

By the time I joined Fleet, I'd been in the Web design field for 3 years, and was looking to go freelance. I'd done a few sites, but was looking to flesh out my portfolio, and try new techniques and ideas. I joined Fleet to meet fellow Trekkers; I never thought it could help my career. But as with campus activities, Fleet had much to offer me.

If there's one thing you notice about Fleet, it's that it has a overwhelming number of subdivisions to it: departments, regions, chapters. And so many of them have, or are developing, a Web presence. It wasn't long before I was eager to apply my skills to Fleet web sites, and it was not long after that that I was granted a minor Web site project in Fleet. I put all my effort into it, and before I knew it, I was getting requests from all over Fleet to work on other projects. And with each project, I was able to apply new skills, experiment, go a little overboard (hey, Trek fans like elaborate effects, right?) in a way that would not be practical in my day job.

And not only did my design skills improve, but my portfolio grew by leaps and bounds, filled with a healthy variety of intriguing and innovative designs. I was starting to build my list of freelance clients, and was getting more reactions for my bold Fleet designs than for my larger and more technical, but more practical and "safe" business sites.

I can name plenty of Fleeters that have managed to turn their experience as amateurs into professional pursuits, as graphic designers, web designers, editors, animators, etc. And those are just the folks I know on the Avenger! There are many more of us who've benefited greatly in doing their duties for Fleet, whether or not they already practiced those skills professionally upon taking on those duties on a volunteer basis. The CQ staff for example (who probably deserve Purple Hearts too) or the committees that give up valuable goofing-off time at regional and international conferences to make sure their fellow Fleeters have a first-rate experience. Or the countless hundreds of us who create the newsletters, Web sites, events, promotional materials, or just help manage the massive, complex structure that is Starfleet International.

So how does this translate into your chapter, and your existing and potential members?

Not only does this activity help the individual, and prove attractive to the potential member. It can be very beneficial to the health of an existing chapter as well. Some benefits include:

We all know that a volunteer organization requires a lot of hard work to keep running, especially when you're as large and far-flung as Starfleet. And sure, there are times when you feel like you are constantly giving all you can in your duties, whether it's just in your own chapter, or region or fleetwide. But it is important to keep in mind just what you're gaining from the experience. Not only the obvious stuff, like the opportunity to create a great event, or to spend time with people whose company you enjoy. But the real experience in skill that comes in getting something done, in dealing with the ordinary hassles and setbacks of a project, in having something that you can show off and say "Hey, I did that." Those college projects served me in later years, as well as any course I took. And nowadays, my Fleet projects are proving as educational as any program the Academy could offer. It isn't just about rising in rank or nabbing cool titles, it's also about the satisfaction of bring part of something huge, and the satisfaction of accomplishment.