Suggestions for a name for my new welcoming committee appreciated

Started by fallen_angel, June 12, 2008, 09:34:11 AM

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fallen_angel

Last year when I was trying to come up with a new and interesting variation on the standard rank names, you guys were great at supplying some much needed inspiration to get me thinking...so I'm here again... :D

I've just set up a new "welcoming committee" for my main forum to welcome new forum members, to encourage newly signed up members to join in and post, and really just to welcome them to the community. We've already got a reputation for being a friendly forum and welcoming new members, but we do have a fair few non-posting members and people who sign up but then never post. Obviously there's a whole host of reasons why that might be, but on another forum I joined earlier this year they have an official "welcoming committee" where established members PM new members to welcome them and offer any assistance required finding their way around the forum and figuring out how the forum works. Within a few hours of me signing up there I'd been contacted by a number of members welcoming me, and it really made a difference making me less nervous about posting there - something I think a lot of people often feel, no matter how used to using forums they are, when it seems as though everyone already knows everyone else and conversations are in full flow.

Anyhow, I've just started recruiting my own "welcoming committee", but "welcoming committee" sounds a bit formal, and it'll work a lot more informally than that with no rota for people contacting new members or anything, just if they notice someone new's signed up, they'll drop them a quick PM welcoming them, and infact I mentioned the idea to my moderators a few weeks ago, and a couple of them are already do it, and over the past week we've had a few nervous new members posting after they've been contacted by mods.

So, my dilemma is, what to call this new "welcoming committee", which as I said sounds a bit formal. Background to the forum is that there's around 1000 members, mainly women. It's a medical support community for a neurological condition (mainly tends to affect women, hence most of the members are female, and I'm hoping to get some of our few male members on the welcoming committee too, as we do have a problem getting the guys to join in, though setting them their own board on the forum up so they're more "visible" has helped). We offer support and advice on day to day living matters, but not medical advice, and I'm trying to steer the forum away from the medical emphasis so much, which can be rather depressing, and try and concentrate on the community building a bit more.

I did think of something perhaps with a medical connection, but with trying to steer the emphasis away from being solely on the medical aspect, I'm not sure about that. Any suggestions anyone?
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