Hello everyone!

Firstly, thank you to Matt and Amdirgol for nominating me. I am pleased to announce that Steve Johnson has very kindly agreed to run with me as the vice president candidate. Before we get into some of the detail of our campaign, I thought I would do a quick introduction, following which Steve will also introduce himself.

For those who I haven’t yet properly met, I’m Jack. I have always loved Star Trek, having watched TOS as a child, including the TOS movies - which are still my go-to’s for when I want to watch something familiar. I also caught bits of TNG, DS9 and VOY whilst at school, but it wasn’t until university that I got around to watching the entire series from the start. It was then, back in 2003, that I joined STF. It would go on to be something that played a significant role in shaping my life, whether that was providing me an outlet to play around with web development, being a source of continuity when I was on deployment, or by helping me understand myself better by being able to talk about various RL things with those who I still consider friends.

I decided to take a significant break from STF back in 2015. This was actually quite hard for me to do, but I felt back then, and still feel now, that it was the right thing for me to do. I had fallen out of love with role playing and, to a point, the club. Things that I really should have known better about managed to irritate me, and I let them cloud my judgment. I would go as far as saying that, on occasion, I acted uncivilly and I regret doing so. A lot has changed since then, most notably that I’m far more at ease with who I am. I’ve also learnt more about my leadership style and how I work best with people, having led teams of up to 150 people. I would like to think that over the past 10 years I have become a better, more thoughtful, person.

Why we are running.

So, you may be asking why Steve and I are running. For me, STF still has a place in my heart, and I would love to see it continue to prosper for another 33 years and beyond. However, we need to recognise that the structures of the club were developed when the club was three to four times the size it is today, and when there were a great number of volunteers. Both Steve and I agree that the club needs to adapt to our membership size, moving away from a collection of government silos, and function as a cohesive team, adopting a cross-government approach to tackling the club’s challenges that brings in the wider membership. We need to increase member involvement, by making government more accessible to members or those who can only volunteer a small amount of their time. We must also develop future club leaders by giving everyone the opportunity to have a go at leading on various projects, whilst supporting them as they do so. Finally, we need to value the diversity we get from the variety of backgrounds of members in the club, making sure that members ideas and suggestions are listened to. There is still a need for decisions to be made at times, and they may not be exactly what some members want, but ultimately we must make sure that members have been included as part of that decision process.

What are we going to do.

So how are we going to do that? Well, we have some specific ideas that we will be sharing with you over the next few weeks. I refer to them as ideas, as we would very much like your views on them, both during the election and in Command when we discuss them; and we may not have the right answer. For now, we will leave you with the five main principles that we want to work toward this term:

1. Clear and Open Communication. Clear and open communication is essential in ensuring everyone in the club feels part of the team. We commit to keeping every member informed with regular updates on club activities, decisions and plans.

2. Inclusivity. No one person has the monopoly on good ideas, and the best ideas come about when they are developed through the diverse perspectives of members. We are committed to ensuring every member is able to participate and contribute, and that their opinion will be listened to.

3. Empowering COs. We want to empower COs better, by providing the necessary training, tools and permissions to enable them to take responsibility for the management of their ships, whilst ensuring the government takes action on their insight and concerns.

4. Empowering members. It’s essential that every member feels they have a stake in the club, regardless of their role or relationship with the Presidential team. We will ensure that non-government members have the opportunity to engage in and influence the running of the club.

5. Adapt to our size. As I said earlier, the club has reduced in size which has reduced the number of people who can dedicate time to running the club. We need to align our ambitions with our current resources. This means being realistic about what we can achieve and ensuring that our activities provide genuine value to the club and membership.

Steve and I look forward to discussing our platform further with you, but for the time being I’ll let Steve do his introduction!

Yours aye,

Jack

Jack & Steve

Together, Shaping STF’s Future.