Posted by Commodore Steven Sigle (FComm, Meridian Fleet) in Discussion on the MAC w/ Suggested Changes

Posted by Sidney Parker in Discussion on the MAC w/ Suggested Changes

Posted by Fleet Captain Adam W. (Current Ruler of the Club) in Discussion on the MAC w/ Suggested Changes
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

Hi guys. I wanted to jump in to provide some historical context about the awards that might be important to your discussion.

Finally, a historical note about the Awards: the Awards have never been an official thing. According to the oral tradition I received from a certain person familiar with how they came about, they started because one member in particular thought the club was going through an especially tedious and boring period, and this person wanted to do something fun on their own to get people’s spirits up. So they just did it, and didn’t ask permission from anyone. They weren’t in the government at the time, if I remember correctly. I think being able to do things like that completely independently of the club government is very important and not something we should be infringing upon, even unintentionally.

This is actually an important point more than many of the others. I’ll explain below.

Daniel posted a link to the edict regarding the Awards and noting them specifically as being the President’s responsibility. https://www.star-fleet.com/prez/edicts/hemenway/#e18 I’m not sure how much more official they could be. Personally, I don’t think they should be the President’s responsibility, because Presidents forget about them more often than not, so if they’re going to exist at all “officially” as they currently do, they are best administered by the CMM.

-Thomas

Well, before there was an edict calling them the “STF Awards” by Sarah they were referred to as the “Emma Awards” because they were created by Emma Rouse-Deane without any official sanction, and operated that way for some time. That’s part of the reason we still call them the Emmas today and why some people get offended when they are referred to as the STF Awards.

Just a note that, these are historical events I was not in the club to witness myself. I could have all sorts of details wrong.

Joe

Yes, the edict for the awards came far after the awards were a very popular and fun “thing”. I don’t think Emma started them though, I think it might have been one of her friends like Stuart Coll. Anyway, they became known as the Emmas because one year she won so many of them people decided that was the thing to do, in jest, but it caught on. Emma remained very popular and continued winning awards during most of the awards ceremonies that she was in the club, so it stuck until the institutional memory about them left. Sarah renaming them didn’t help.

The part that might be relevant to the discussion is about how “official” or not that they were. When they were unofficial, they were run by the PDept, and we did it whenever we felt like the club needed a morale boost. Back in those days the morale wasn’t as bad, and there were way more members, so it worked out to be once a year. Back in the Day, the PDept had a pretty good pulse on the club in that way because we tended to be the most active role players and IRC members, and since we were constantly looking at ship activity, we knew when that was at a lull too. Also back in the day, there was major infighting between two different ideological groups. Around the time that the awards got their edict, Sarah and her group were in power. They were opposed to Emma’s group, of which I was a part. There was a pretty big argument in command about the awards edict. We wanted to keep it informal, because we thought that was more fun. We thought that by making rules about the awards it would make them less fun. To note, Sarah and her crew are also the people who introduced all the awards about government contribution against our objections to keep it strictly about role playing.

Did the awards become less fun by being in edict? In part, I think so. As someone up there noted, the president usually forgets about them, and I think that’s a mix of because it began feeling like a chore, and some of our presents have been absent. I have no idea if it still feels like a chore to you guys or if your presidents are still absent and not on top of things, but it makes sense for this not to be an office of the president thing. It never should have been. I don’t know if they’re still a political popularity party too, but when they were I think that too was in part because they were an official office of the president thing. It reminded me a lot about those tyrannical governments that are in control of culture as well… generally doesn’t go well.

It does sound like a perfect thing for the hybrid position you’re making now, which is great. My one recommendation is that you take away the requirement for it to happen once a term. There are pros and cons to doing so, but I still believe it’s more fun when it’s spontaneous, and 8 month terms are weird. If you said something like “It has to be done at least once a year by the MAC (I forget what you’ve renamed it), but not during election season.” That gives the MAC the discretion to pick a time that isn’t busy but might have a morale lull, or a time when they are low on activities, but still keeps the regulation to make sure they keep going. Or you can take the requirement for doing them completely out and leave it up to the MAC to determine if they’re necessary. A forced awards ceremony just because it has to fit into a timeline isn’t fun. That was the original argument anyway. :)

One final note about this stuff… Mike has been pretty quiet on this point but I’m pretty sure he used to help run the STF newsletter… Those are a fun read in the archives and I always wanted to see it come back. Joe Fahey made a valiant effort at one point but it’s a hard thing to do by yourself. It seemed like great fun though, so maybe that’s something the new MAC would be interested in looking at doing as part of the community building thing. I’d say email Mike about that one and pick his brain. Sorry to throw you under the bus Mike!

Also, sorry this is late. Last week when I tried to post I had to get an account, then the site was down.

Take care all,

Jen

I personally still call them the Emmas, but hey that’s me. Back when I was MAC I worked closely with everyone else and it was a collective effort to bring on the awards it wasn’t just any one individual saying lets do it. It was time and we discussed when to have them. Back then it was Russell that was the point-runner on this subject. Now I think having them once a term is a bit silly as well. I believe that we should collectively chose a month when most people are active to have it. That way it would be something to look forward to. Say if we had it every November then it’s predictable and not forgotten, and you would have the month to plan and have the awards.

But that’s my two cents.
Robert “Ducky” Thompson

As long as we have people enjoying the Awards and as long as we have those who are willing to do the work to pull them off, I see no need to make the Awards less frequent than it is currently specified to be by the edict. Community-wide events are good for strengthening the community. The Awards in particular sometimes draw in newer members who’ve never been on the chat before or former members.

I’ll agree with the suggestion that the Awards should be for the CMM to oversee.

Adam W.

I’m not sure how the whole feels about it and that would be important to know. However personally I prefer Jen’s interpretation. I remember them being referred to as the Emmas and had no idea why. Now I feel they can be rote and obligatory. I know they are not but that is the feeling I get. I like a less set model that is open to the when time frame. I don’t feel like the 8 month term should be the criteria of the when other than it might seem to be more standardized.

Sidney

As of right now Kate O’Neill and myself are going to be doing the awards again, which Adam and Lindsay have agreed to let us keep it rolling. This will make my fifth time doing these awards in a row and each time we are trying to add and incorporate more fun and entertaining aspects to them. With that said we are always up to more ideas, we had a survey earlier this year trying to get ideas and thoughts and while some people replied, overall there just wasn’t as many thoughts or ideas we could use. This was either due to just time restraints the awards put on the presenters, feasibility to pull off suggestions, or just just lack of knowledge of how the Awards work in general.

Now Kate and myself are trying to work more on the last part and make things more and more transparent, but ourselves… we are willing to help and work on them as long as people want us to. We have both been enjoying expanding and trying to bring more life and more variety to the awards themselves. Now this doesn’t mean we will always be doing them, but our ultimate hope is regardless if we do them or not a foundation can be made to help new people and educate others on how the awards work as well as make them bigger and better.

~Steven Sigle

I organised them a long time ago. Various people complained about the way they were organised/ran, so I handed them on to others to run and do a better job on them.

While I did enjoy the … two/three times I did them … the complaining got old quickly. :P

Doing them once a year would be a way of getting them untied to them being done once an STF electoral term … though of course, they’d probably have to be run in a month that is free of STF Presidential Elections. :P And those do run 8 monthly, so 3 months out each year (if the idea is going to be have them run in the same month each year).

5 times in a row, that’s impressive, Tadpole.

Tribble