Posted by Nathan Miller in Question for the Candidates
Right now, of course, there is only one ticket, but I open this to any future candidates as well.

Both Jack and Steve have long histories with the club. I’d like to tap into that a little.

Hi Nathan,

• In what ways do you think the club has changed over the years/since you joined?
• In what ways has it changed for the better?
• In what ways has it changed for the worse?

I’ll start with the worse bits first. One of the things that has struck me the most since returning is the reduction in what I would describe as a core identity. At the moment, the club feels a bit like a collection of ships, with a few departments that are doing good stuff, but perhaps in isolation. I don’t think that’s down to any particular policy change, but more down to the fact we’ve reduced in size. Going back 20 years, we had some really strong characters that got involved in discussions across the club, and so we had that connective tissue that almost forced us to ensure we were aligned on the issues of the day. The volunteer pool back then allowed us to simultaneously debate Academy and GMDept rules, establish the Library, pass ship specs, and set up the bylaw system. Today, we lack that capacity, so we need to be really honest with ourselves about our ability to make progress, and adapt to our membership size. That means we need to function as cohesive team across the club, increase member involvement in discussions, and empower members to champion the club.

On the positive side, I do feel we’ve become more inclusive as a club, and more supportive of the differences between us. Whilst we may disagree with each other, it feels like we are now doing it in a manner that is supportive, and allows people to feel comfortable with being able to put forward an opinion that runs contrary to the majority. We were pretty bad at that 20 years ago, and the club suffered from it as we lost members to groups splintering off.

• What is something you miss from your early days in the club?

I do miss the debates in Command. I would say we had a golden era where the club moved on in strides… although perhaps too much of a golden era, as I think we have created a bit of a monster when it comes to running the club for the size it is today. That allowed us to get different views on how we needed to develop the club, and allow us to put changes into practice. I remember authoring CADET, and enjoying having a dynamic discussion about it in the Academy HQ, with probably about half a dozen contributors. The fact that most of the bylaws have not significantly changed is probably testament to the debate that went into them at the time, but also the difficulty we have in having those debates today.

• What is something you don’t miss from your early days in the club?

Perversely, I also don’t miss the debates in Command… but only because sometimes they got down right hostile and personal. Someone once told me that you can look at organisational culture through the lens of safety versus certainty. Certainty is about how familiar a task or challenge is; the more certain it is, the less thought that needs to go into it. Safety is about how safe you feel about tackling that task or challenge. So, as crude examples, safe-certain is like sitting on the sofa, watching Netflix… you feel safe, but it doesn’t actually progress anything. Unsafe-uncertain is where you feel unsupported in a hostile environment, and have a really knotty issue that requires a lot of thinking, which you might not known the right answer to. Ideally we should be at safe-uncertain, where people feel supported in working through a challenge to improve the club. We didn’t get that right back then, but I feel are getting it right now.

• What is something you wish the club did differently, regardless of whether you plan on changing that? Whether that be policy, implementation, roleplay style - anything to do with STF.

We need to recognise that the club no longer has the capacity to be able to evolve in individual government silos. If we are going to make lasting improvements, we must start to pull together across government as a single team to ensure focus, otherwise we run the risk of expending effort on multiple projects that never get completed. Steve and I had some ideas for this, which we will be sharing with you in the next day or so.

Nathan

Thanks for the questions; they made me remember the good/not-so-good ol’ days!

Jack

Jack & Steve

Together, Shaping STF’s Future.