Advice to the Amyrlin

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Author: Jayna al'Taryn

In trying to decide how to write this, I came to the conclusion that the only advice I could really offer Eleyan Sedai at TarValon.net, was to continue doing what she is already doing. She has developed great plans for her site with new goals to be met. The vision, mission and structure of TarValon.Net are geared to provide a safe place for entertainment on the Internet. Eleyan Sedai herself is a very charismatic and effective leader. Finally Eleyan Sedai has built controls into her organization to monitor usage, culture, and membership. In looking at each of these areas for some way to offer advice on improvement, I realized she was already aware of any issues and had already taken the steps to resolve them.

TarValon.Net has always had high ambitions: to take over the world for one, but also to become the number one Internet community related to the Wheel of Time (WoT). In recent months, TarValon.Net has surpassed nearly all of the direct competition, and is known in WoT circles as one of the most professional and fastest growing sites. This didn't come about by chance. Although, TarValon.Net has continuously met its goals faster than anticipated, it was not because the goals were lacking in ambition. The site is only two years old and has an active membership of over three hundred people who visit the site at least once a week if not daily. The initial idea to hold annual parties for members to get together and meet in real time have expanded from a dozen people meeting at someone's home for the weekend, to renting a campground for over seventy members, and now the site is considering reorganizing and purchasing property in order to meet the ever increasing need of space, as well as looking into advertising options to pay for the costs of maintaining service.

TarValon.Net is a well-structured playground. Rules and regulations are designed to provide the boundaries in which members can explore their own interests and needs, and yet maintain the diversity of its various members spanning the globe. The site is truly unified and diverse. Every member of TarValon.Net shares a vision based around personal relationships, cooperating together to create the largest most detailed site regarding the Wheel of Time. TarValon.Net is the central core of the organization providing the guiding influence around the smaller individual Ajahs, Companies and the City which are their own organizations, with slightly differing focuses on the goals in tasks and vision; and yet all connected by the desire to be a part of something larger than ourselves.

TarValon.Net is led by Eleyan Sedai, a charismatic and trailblazing leader with the vision to inspire others. Who by far embodies what it means to be a leader. Through her compelling vision and the urge to act upon it, she has created a culture within TarValon.Net that embraces diversity. She models and inspires all members to be self-confident, supportive, loving, helpful, courageous, honest, and respectful. She represents for most members (in my opinion) those traits they want most to find within themselves. Although most decisions are approved or denied by her, she values and utilizes member's knowledge, experience, and ideas.

TarValon.Net was built around building friendships among people who avidly followed a series of books. However built into that was a process to evaluate and reorganize and redesign as the sight changed and grew. Reports are gathered from the individual entities, as well as annual meetings to discuss the organization and evaluate where it is in relation to goals, plan for the future, and address any problems. Eleyan Sedai has repeatedly shown her willingness to break out of traditional patterns and redesign her site, experimenting with new ideas. Although the site's intent was always an Organizational vision, it also employs all the other change strategies to maintain innovation.