Here is our problem.... or ignorance .  Is there a way to create a channel in Lotro ie SMrecruit so members of SM could easily recognize and/or chat with recruits.  Or, in my regard I am a horrible person with multi tasking just can't do it.  I can move the combat tab away from general but not the IM, and missed a chance to chat with Sparkyle.  Can the IM tab be moved?

You're right, you don't seem to be able to separate the IMS tab from the General tab. However, I, personally, rarely use the IMS tab. Individual preference, I hope. Either that, or not being an officer, I just don't need it so much

To create a new tab: right click on an existing tab, and select "Create new tab".
To create a new window: drag a tab away from the window it's on, and drop somewhere else.
To change what shows in a tab: right click on the tab, and pick filter.

I normally run with a second chat window above the default one, and have one tab on it, with filters set to Kinship, Fellowship and Raid.
I've just looked, and there is a filter for "tell", so I can add tells to the pile, and they won't get scrolled away by normal events happening (as those are "Standard", and stay in the default window).

Of course, you might want to clear the filters on the original window as well, or you'll get the messages appearing in multiple places

We could, potentially, have an SMrecruit channel. It's the usual routine of /joinchannel SMrecruit, noting the channel number, enabling the filters, and then using /<channelnumber> to use it. I suspect, for many people, that it's easier to just filter the "Fellowing" panel And for the people where they know what they're doing there's the old argument of "I'm using all four channels already". Anyway: not my call