You may notice that we have made some changes to our Guide CyberClub.
For the past several years, we have had regular weekly chat sessions at 8pm Friday evenings and at 4pm Sabbath afternoon. These times are for Central time, as is local for Dallas, Texas and such locations. Over the past few months, there have often been few or no participants and sometimes after the chat room has been opened for ten minutes and nobody has shown up, the chat room has been closed. Other times, there has been perhaps one who wanted to come online to chat with other Guide readers, and found the disappointment of having only "Uncle Andy" to chat with. Yes, I like to think that I am not such a bad guy to chat with, but the chat session IS a lot more fun and interesting when we have more participants.
Beginning as soon as we have the calendar updated, instead of having the two weekly sessions, we will have potential times. As a CyberClub member, you can watch the web site to see when a chat session is only potential, when it becomes confirmed to happen, and even when there are enough committed to have a rather nice session. You can suggest other times that may work better for you. If we have an adult moderator and sufficient CLT Officers committing to the time, we can have such other times also. You can questions you would like to discuss in a session. The calendar will be posted on the GuideCyberClub.org web site and it will also be made available for you to share so you can keep up with all chat sessions in the time zone where you are. You can invite others who you think would enjoy the chat to come online, and you can show them also how to tell when a potential chat session is confirmed to happen. I am thinking tentatively to show all potential sessions, whether at a regular time or some other time suggested with a gray color. With a minimum of one adult moderator and three CLT Officers committed to being online for the session, we will change the color of the event to green. With at least five CLT Officers committed, the color will be changed to red.
Also for the past several years, we have had members designated as Junior Moderator or Teen Moderator. This is indicating a member who is probably not old enough to serve as an adult moderator, but has volunteered not only to follow the CyberClub rules, but to actively try to make the chat session a pleasant experience for anyone who chooses to come on. As anyone who has just turned 13 can tell you, they ARE a Teen at that point. Yet, Teen Moderator is a designation that is for members who are at least 15 years old. Why that? It is just seeking to differentiate between members that are still part of our target age group (10-14) from those who are a bit older.
These designations of Junior and Teen Moderator are going to disappear. We are replacing them with the designation of CLT Officer. CLT stands for "Chat Launch Team," and each CLT Officer has an important part to play in making a good chat session happen. We are not limiting anyone from being a CLT Officer by age, but at some time we may like to perhaps indicate age or gender by a color. To start with, we can show CLT Officers in black or if they prefer, it can be yellow.
What are CLT Officers like? We need CLT Officers to be very special people. There are a few qualifications: 1) a CLT Officer must commit to following the CyberClub Rules. Yes, some of the safety rules may seem like restrictions that we don't like, such as not being able to share web sites, email addresses, and certain personal information; but for safety reasons, we must follow these rules. All chat participants need to agree to follow these rules, but it is even more important that CLT Officers set a good example. 2) a CLT Officer must be dependable. When you commit to do something, such as to be on to participate in a particular session, it is important that you will actually be present. Sometimes things come up that are out of our control, but if that happens too much, it destroys the dependability that we need to have in our CLT Officers. 3) a CLT Officer must try to see that other chat members have a pleasant time and even more important, that what is happening in the chat room is a reflection of the fact that our chat room is dedicated to Jesus. As for age, we are not going to worry about that. If you happen to be less than 10 years old, but are able to participate like this, you are welcome. If you are older than 14, or even older than 18, that is OK too. Just remember that the kids this chat room is designed for are ages 10-14 and do your best to make and keep it nice and safe for them.
What do CLT Officers do? As indicated by the name, they are an important part of launching the chat session. Look at the suggested chat times on the web site and ask yourself if any of those times are such that you could commit to being online to participate. If so, make the commitment to being online. If you can only say, "maybe," then it is not time to commit, but you are still encouraged to be online at the time. It is nice to have more participants. By having CLT Officers who commit to being online, we can let anyone who wants to come on at a particular time expect that there will be that many on .... at least.
We will have the possibility of having discussion questions posted ahead of time. You can make a suggestion... or two ... or three. Perhaps a suggestion of an activity in the chat room, like a Bible Trivia game, a nature nugget, You have ideas that might just make the chat session nicer. Share your imagination.
How hard is it to become a CLT Officer? If you can make the commitment and be honest and dependable, that is all that is required. There are a few things that might say we should remove someone from being a CLT Officer. 1) Failure to be a good example. If you have a problem following our club rules for safety and keeping the chat a positive experience, you really cannot be a CLT Officer. If it becomes necessary, we will remove people having such problems from being CLT Officers. Perhaps for a few weeks or a month, perhaps longer. 2) Undependability. When you commit to being online to participate in a session, we need to be able to count on you. If it happens too often that you commit to being online, and are not (whether showing up late, leaving early, or just missing) there is a problem. Maybe it is something you can control, or maybe it is not. If you cannot be dependable in this way, we are still very happy to have you on to participate when you can be, but maybe not as a CLT Officer. Probably there may never be a need to remove a CLT Officer designation from a member, but we do need commitment and dependability from our CLT team, and accordingly we have a few situations described where removing the designation may be best.
This writeup is to give you an idea of what the plan is and this article will be updated as we get closer to launch. For example, when the calendar is ready to post, when the application to be a CLT Officer is posted, and the like. Hopefully the changes will help the Guide CyberClub be something nice for you.