Reinvigorating the Fellowship Hall

Five years and 43 days ago, I added a message board to my (now defunct) website. The board quickly became the most popular area of the site and was moved over to its own domain some time later. ((Just about three years ago, according to WHOIS information.)) That board is the Fellowship Hall Christian Forums.

For the longest time, that site was my pride & joy; I spent the majority of my time online there, getting to know people from all over the world — California, New Zealand, Canada, and Arkansas, just to name a few notables — many of whom I consider good friends even today.

For a long while now, the Hall has been very quiet. I’m partially to blame — the world of blogging now saps most of my online time — and I’m sure many of the Hallians have things going on in their lives as well.

Still, I have a lot of sentimentality for the Hall, and I want it to again be a thriving community of Christians.

Which is why I’m posting this.

I’m looking for one or two ((…or more)) new members for the Hall — a transfusion of fresh blood, so to speak, to instill some life in the ol’ board.

Now if that’s all I was looking for, this is a rather silly post; a banner ad in the sidebar would have worked just as well. I’m looking not just for people to join, post a few times, and forget all about us. Rather, I’m looking for a few choice individuals to step into the roll of moderators (or Hall monitors, if you prefer).

As far as moderation is concerned, the burden is fairly small; we don’t get much trouble at the Hall. But as moderators/monitors, I’m hoping you’ll be more willing to instill some creative juice into the Hall — not only fostering new and exciting conversations, but also sharing and implementing a variety of other ideas to reinvigorate the community.

A few vitals, if you’re interested, taken from the Hall’s admin stats. You can see that we’re really not that busy at all, and I’m hoping that can change.

• Board started: May 27, 2003
• Post #: 24311
• Topic #: 2387
• Posts per day: 13
• Topics per day: 1.28
• User #: 181 — some of whom actually post

Moderating the Hall is strictly a volunteer effort — for those who already do so, it is a labor of love and friendship which I’m sure you’ll agree with. However, you’ll get to know some great people and hopefully have a lot of fun in the process. Moderators who do an outstanding job and show a lot of zeal for the community may be promoted to administrator; it’d be great to have someone to fall back on in managing the board. :-)

Is “more posting” all I’m looking for on the Hall? Absolutely not. One of the issues noted a long time ago which is still an issue today is the Hall’s appeal to women. To be honest, aside from my wife, I can’t remember that last time one of our women members have been around. In other words, if you think you can help out in that regard, you have my attention.

I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have before volunteering (you are volunteering, right?), so just ask. If I don’t already know you, I will ask that you hang out on the Hall as an ordinary member for about a month or so just so I can get to know you and to see how serious you are about wanting to help out.