How does one create an effective group description?

This may help. for the welcome message always remember the KISS principle (Keep it simple stupid).Start by making your site look sharp. Choose custom colors a good photo and welcoming message. Click edit beside description on your cover page, scroll down and you will find where to do all that. Send an email to all your friends and relatives with the URL pasted in explaining the group and inviting them to join and asking them to forward the message to their friends and relatives asking the same. Periodically post a message asking the members reminding them that new members are always welcome and ask your members for suggestions. Do not allow members access to the member's list, if you do and a member gets annoyed at you they could try and get them to join another group or spam the members Add moderators as your group grows and ask them for more input. HTML links to other sites which are pertinent to your group add color and interest to your cover so add them by pasting the codes in just below your welcome message and email their webmasters asking them to do the same. You can also add a hit counter to your cover page. To find them just do a search for “free hit counters”, there are lots available. Put first posts on moderation that way you won’t get spammers. If a member’s first post is spam, ban them right there and then. also if a member is causing problems ban them fast you don't need the aggravation.One thing to keep in mind it isn’t necessarily the number of members your group has but the participation which makes a group interesting. Good luck, take your time and it will grow,