Posted by Robert Archer in Campaign HQ - Archer/Bongiorno - Introductions
Good evening everyone in STF! Matt and I hope you are doing well and remain safe and healthy and are having fun. It is once more that time of year where we in STF come forth to elect the president for the next 8 months. I must admit I originally was on the fence about running again but after a bit of discussions with myself I decided to go all in on it and remain a stickler for the love and abuse this club offers to those who wear the heavy mantle of President every 8 months.

So first off for introductions, my name is Robert Archer, for those of you who don’t know me or forget, I have been in STF quite literally non-stop since roughly August or so of 2006. I have in that time held a variety of jo, dh, an XO and CO positions over that time. As well as being Fleet Commander of both Foremost Fleet and Black Fleet respectfully for several terms under other presidents. I am arguably most well known for my time in the club’s Engineering Department as an assistant and later very long serving full director over the course of many many terms and years. There I worked hard to turn that cabinet department from what was felt and ‘elitist club house’ of tech fan boys of trek to something more approachable and fun to use by interested members to contribute ships and tech ideas or discussions to the club. After much hard work I did so, and in that time I not only helped mentor and train others who were my assistants, but also helped others design and get passed many of the designs in use in the club. Further it is probably true that I have contributed and gotten passed the most ship and tech submissions in the club’s 30+ year history. In addition to this I have been president twice before, once several years ago being my first, and obviously just this past term. I’ve also been vice president for several presidents, and attempted to run in past election cycles though did not get elected for one reason or another at those times. I am also the only CO/GM in the club on the Ark Angel where I’ve held the position having successful rebuilding it to what it is now many times over the years. I’ve also held many other GM roles in the past, (upwards of 12+ at one point!), but currently I’m also GM on the Bonaventure, Sentinel, and Merrimack. I also help as a GM Mentor currently with Kirt Gartner with his GMT Sim on the Chimera. In short I’ve done ALOT of things for the club since 2006, some maybe not the most successful but overall I feel my impact on the club has been for the better.

I try to be a person in the club who no matter what roles I hold, I am approachable, friendly, and fair. If someone comes to me seeking advice I help them the best I can or point them to those who know more then I. For points of discussions or debate I try to remain impartial to a discussion and work to find compromise to an issue at hand. My driving goal in the club has always been to have fun and work well with others in constructive and respectful ways. While I freely admit there has been likely times where I have failed at this in some form or another, overall I feel I am someone a person can approach and even if we disagree or don’t get along etc, I will not let my personal feelings cloud a decision I would have to make if it called for it. Aka, being president this term there have been multiple times where I had people I would consider friends have to get a bit of a kick with a boot to fix an issue on their ships, fleets, or something. I treated them just the same as if it were someone I disagreed with someone or disliked personally, aka in short I do my best not to play favorites and treat everyone equally.

This past term I worked hard to really engage all members in the club. My biggest effort to do so was in the Voice Of The Club events in Discord. My original intentions for these at the start of the term was to do them 1-2 times a month. Sadly due to my own life commitments I only got to do them all once a month, or in the case of one or so months not at all or much later then I would normally have done. I also had hoped it would have been a bigger turn out then they often did, but overall on average every event that was held got 4-6 or more people attending over the course of usually an hour or more period while I was there.

Also this term I made efforts to hold all members of the Cabinet, FComms, and Command teams on ships in fleets to the standards of expectations currently held by our community. This meant I often was communicating in email or Discord with at least my VP, and the FComms regularly as much as we all could. Given the chaos of real life though and the fact I did not want to be considered as a ‘dictator’ or such I did give some leeway to different issues that came up. By this I mean if an FComm report was late but was communicated to me why it would be I didn’t get upset or shout at my FComm teams. Same for if issues arose in Fleets regarding ships. My preference is to try to fix a ship if it can be salvaged and only if such is beyond fixing decommission. This meant I had did eventually face decommissioning several ships this term due to many various factors, which I will go into more detail once I outline plans for the coming term if I and Matt are elected.

In short, I try to be someone who can be trusted and approached by anyone in the club for help, advice, or more. I try to avoid letting grudges, or disagreements not cloud my choices I make related to the club, and always try to look to solutions and ideas which will only enhance how things happen in the club. For me the growing major issues of club numbers declining, burn out, position shortages being filled, and such is not something that is recent. If you ask me this is an issue which has been gaining steam more and more since at LEAST 2016. To me too often in these past terms, many past administrations did not hold the standards expected, in my view played favorites, or worse let their administrations agendas be such a driving focus in putting what could be termed their ‘allies’ in positions in the cabinet and such that rifts formed in the club. This process to me has only gotten worse in more recent times and become more evident.

This is not me saying though that I know it all or that I know a magic solution to fix every one of these problems. I do not think any one person or group could do so truthfully. The only way I see to ‘heal’ rather then ‘fix’ these issues is by we the club members at large, both those in the government and those who aren’t focusing on what matters above all else. That being the STF’s community purpose of having fun, enjoying star trek, and cooperative writing stories. STF still needs those things which make up the government, there is no doubt in my mind on that, but when an issue arises and their are multiple view points or opinions we need to collectively find what will work for everyone to keep to the values I mentioned above here, instead of thinking one side or another is right/wrong, we need to cooperate and find a middle ground as much as possible. Not every problem can be solved like this I know but efforts should be made if it can be done.

In closing, I will let Matt B introduce himself in a reply to this post, we will also be posting more details of what we want to do this coming term if elected over the next days. In short though they entitle four major key points, 1) Making efforts to streamline the size of the Cabinet, 2) Performing an ‘audit’ (for lack of a better term), of all ships and fleets to highlight problem areas and find ways of addressing them in some form or another, 3) Make bigger inroads to having constructive, purposeful, and productive discussions, both in Command, and in the club at large, 4) Make efforts to identify and write up common points of doing many major things in STF, primarily in the government but also in administrative sides of ships.

I’ll go into detail and break down each of these four points in further posts, for now thank you for reading, and please if you have any questions or comments for me and Matt please ask!

Robert Archer

Hello STF Community,

I hope this introductory message finds you well. I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself to those who do not know me already. My name is Matt Bongiorno and I joined STF back in February 2021. I may not share all of the STF experience as the other candidates who have served here diligently for many years, but I have continued to grow and develop myself during the 1.5 years I have been with you. Here is a list of notable positions in STF that I hold currently or have held along with previous experience:

Current Positions:

Pioneer Fleet Commander
Commanding Officer: USS Sentinel (Passed CO Examination, 9/10/21, Approved by Admiral Kat Dedul)
Executive Officer: USS Asimov

Former Positions:

Pioneer Assistant Fleet Commander
Assistant Engineering Director
Executive Officer USS Constellation
DH on many ships.

Experience Outside of STF:

Big Box Retail Store Management (10 years)
Guild Council Officer in Sokan Gaming Community - SWTOR & WoW RP Communities (3 Years)

I work in retail management for big box retail and have over a decade of leadership experience. I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Georgia and am currently finishing up my Master’s degree in Counseling. I am thinking about going all the way and getting the Ph.D., but I will keep you posted on that. I do not have any children, but I feel pets count to an extent, so I have two Great Danes and three Chinese Cresteds here at home in North Carolina.

In my free time, I enjoy traveling throughout the country. I look forward to heading to Las Vegas in August to attend and cosplay the Star Trek convention. If you plan on going, let me know, it will be a blast! I love Star Trek as a whole, with my personal favorite time period being in the 23rd Century (Strange New Worlds, The Original Series, the Original Series films, and the Kelvin timeline films).

I am honored to have the opportunity to run on the ticket as Rob’s Vice President and if elected I look forward to providing a fresh perspective and serving the community as a whole in the coming term.

Please let me know if you have any questions and feel free to reach out to me any time!

• Matt Bongiorno