Dominant+Discussion

I received a note today from some unspecified dominants. Read the note below and the explanation and clarification offered. You are encouraged to open a Discussion about the points raised here under the Discussion tab. Be sure to read any existing Discussions posted by others and weigh in on those too.

I can summarize the note today and answer on 5 main points:
 * 1) Trainers, some of whom are Toy Slaves, have more powers than the Dominants
 * 2) Trainers have their own group?
 * 3) Slaves are being moved on to Dominant too quickly... (ed.) too easily?
 * 4) Dominants are uncertain about their role
 * 5) Where do the dominants stand now?

> The trainers were given the ability to invite to three groups, in Waiting, Training and Toys. This was necessary because one of the most common problems we have is with the group lagging at an inopportune time making Masive (our group inviter bot) fail to send the invite. We have no idea how many girls are stopped and not able to proceed because they cannot take the next step without the group. They don't usually ask, they just say the automated system is broken, get frustrated and leave. > Previously only Madame Aprille, Madame Narina, Madame Jenna and myself had this ability. Even officers in the group were excluded from this. Madame Aprille was not keen to change this piece, but, I thought it was important that more than 2 or 3 people be able to solve this training bottleneck.The training team does not use this ability to randomly invite passersby to the main group. If you think they have done this let me know.
 * 1) The training unit was laid out by Madame way back in October when she rolled out the solutions to the Issues project we completed in late Summer. In it, she said that the training unit would have both subs and dominants. The reasons are really pretty simple. New girls might open up more to a sister as opposed to a dominant and at the same time the level of knowledge is probably similar between Dominant and Toy Slave. In multiple notices in group, I encouraged people interested in the Training team to join. No one was turned away. The wiki page @Training Team says simply to put your name on the list. Members are expected to know the training material thoroughly, they commit to that and to helping girls, nothing much else. I have asked for their input on a project about the initial training in the Houses. I asked the same of the rest of the group and frankly, I received no input from anyone. I put it together myself. I do, however, having asked for input and not receiving any, expect people to follow the suggestions as a bare minimum. @Initial House Training ideas
 * 1) The trainers do not have their own group, they use the existing Toys Training for communication. It's not ideal but it exists and we don't really have many secrets, we're just trying to help girls who are stuck or handling situations that a Dominant refers to us to help them with.
 * 2) We promote, from within, girls who wish to try the Dominant position. The reason are multitudinous. Some girls find that they are not as well suited to the submissive role as they thought. Others see it as a promotion while still others simply want to try it. Surely in our supportive family atmosphere this should be safe. The houses provide an even better opportunity to provide training in the style of Domination that the girl wants to pursue. This is an advantage of the houses, we already see new dominants (and slaves) being mentored much more effectively than in the old system which was more hit and miss than anything else. Another issue we have to deal with is the sheer volume of girls who are joining us and the availability of dominants to work with them in the club and inside the houses. We are doing better, there are dominants spending a good deal of time in the club helping, but there are, through no fault of their own, at times, still too few. Tonight, I looked around to find 17 girls online and 10 of them in the club. This provided an excellent opportunity for that one on one interaction the girls crave, simply put a dominant to take them to the house and play with them. Against this backdrop of 10 or 17 girls, we had 6 dominants available; remember, we ask the dominants to make Toys their primary activity in SL, but Madame recognizes their need for downtime, especially if they are completing the expected work with the girls not only inside but outside the club. So, in fact there were only 3 dominants available and all were busy, one was dancing, another was working hard with two girls on the bondage crosses and the third was hampered by being on a text client, but still working away. As I said, the number of girls online and in the club made this an excellent opportunity to take them to a house, but, there just weren't enough dominants online and free to do it. The solution to this seems to be to have more dominants and the houses provide the opporunity for you to finally have control over getting them trained properly.What would you do?
 * 3) As for what the dominants do, we are discussing more responsibilities for the dominants. You might see something on this as early as this week or next; it is, however, still in the discussion stage. There are things the dominants could do better. The houses provide an opportunity to give the girls the BDSM experience they crave. I think we are getting better at it, but, there is still work to be done. It is work that the dominants should participate in. I am frustrated that even with the volume of stuff I have put on the wiki and in notices, begging and pleading for feedback, that there has been hardly any. Many of the posts and discussions don't even show enough visits to have been seen by all of the dominants. This is important stuff that we all need to know to involve everyone and move forward in a consistent way. It's about applying things and solving problems.
 * 4) Finally, if the dominants have some idea about their role, they should communicate it in a reasoned way, with suggestions and proposed solutions. I do not think we should have to go through the exercise of identifying issues, gathering information and formulating a plan every 4 or 5 months...we completed the last such exercise with a proposal set out by Madame in October. What I receive now are notes telling me that an unspecified number of unidentified dommes are unhappy. My suggestion is, and has been for a month now, that everyone put some thought into the kind of house they want and build the idea even more than the physical structure, That's where the BDSM experience and the chance to satisfy the girls who come looking for an experience lies.

The club experience and management in the club is described in a proposal on the wiki. @Dominant to Dominant Interactions These things are only proposals for a week or so, then we have to move forward. In other words, they get put into place, as is, because there have been no recommendations for changes or opposition to them going forward.

Madame Trix