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.

Wait, so are you calling me old???? Just because I’ve been here for a few years….
Ahem. I mean. Thank you for the question.

• 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?

The club has definitely changed since I joined. Long gone are the days of jello fights, and day drinking in IRC.

One thing that I feel has changed for the better is that it feels like we are tighter nit group now. That may be because we are smaller these days, and yes we do still have our debates and arguments. But as Jack mentioned we are also overall more inclusive of our membership these days. And as part of that, we are able to work through any fights or disagreements so that they are actually resolved.

• In what ways has it changed for the worse?

I’d have to go with the government bloat we’ve had over the last 20ish years. At a time when we were 200+ members, and we had more collective free time, adding more spots was a great way to get more people involved. 30 government positions out of 200 people, we are only looking for about 15% of the club to step forward to volunteer. But as the club has continued to shrink, we’ve never really adjusted how we operate to change with that shrinkage. It’s the same as if they fired someone at your job and just spread out the work instead of hiring a replacement. Now we are sitting at 60 members, so we are needing 50% of the membership to step forward to do some sort of administrative work, on top of the role playing that they came here for. Eventually there is a point that you get burnt out, and just leave.

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

Something I miss from my early days of the club… I would have to go with the spontaneous extra role playing events that would come up. Multi-ship simms, we even had a ball at one point back in Fleet 2. And who remembers the Fleet 7 shuttle races???? These were just more ways to be creative as a writer with a whole bunch of people you don’t normally write with, and that is what we all joined STF for in the first place. To help write some fun Trek.

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

What don’t I miss? The chaos. When I joined, Challenger was the only Academy ship, and we had no mentor program. From day 1 I had to figure out how the system worked, stumble through it on my own. Add in the fact that they had just blown up the USS Arleigh Burke and were transitioning to Outpost 45, well it was chaos.

These days, with the way we’ve revamped the new member process, and help people make the transition in, it’s been a major change for the better in my opinion.

• 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.

The biggest change I’d like to make is our attitude to clinging onto our past. Don’t get me wrong, history is important, and we have a lot of history here. But we have also let it stand in our way of making change. As an example, do we really need to try and save a ship that is showing many signs of failing? Yes, there is going to be a sentimental value to that simm to someone, but at what point do we have to say goodbye? Just remember the great times we’ve had on the ship, instead of dragging it along just for posterity. I’m not saying that we just cut ships indiscriminately, but perhaps letting this one ship go will give a new idea a chance to come up.

Jack and I have put together a plan that will help address some of these exact issues, really help streamline the club. We look forward to telling you more about it as we move forward!

Nathan

Thanks again for the questions!

Steve

Jack & Steve
Together, Shaping STF’s Future.