[ZZII 527]

Making new members feel welcome is one of the experienced team members' most important responsibilities. Build season is an extremely busy time and often the experienced members want to get right down to business and do the tasks that they already know how to do. New members left with nothing to do (or relegated to filing duty) will not be happy. Give them a meaninful project. Ask them what aspect of the competition interests them most and if they know, let them work on that. If they don't know, show them some choices. When you are working on your particular task, have a new member working with you and teach them how to do it. If they feel engaged and useful, they will be more happy and dedicated. Somebody in another thread mentioned showing old competition videos to grab the interest of new members and show them what all this work is for. Make sure you keep them in the loops: add their names to your email lists, give them important dates and information, etc. It may even be a good idea to have one person in charge of "rookie affairs" making sure that all the new members are involved and happy. As a middle/high-school competition, FIRST teams will undergo complete turnovers every few years. When you graduate and move on, you should be satisfied that you passed on everything you learned to a new member who can fill your shoes.