Before the site switchover, a conversation was held in Command regarding the Marketing-Advertising Coordinator and what its role is and should be in the club. It was a productive conversation, with lots of good contributors. As part of this, I wrote a long analysis covering every MAC Report I could find in several years. It was probably my most-researched post, and unfortunately, I didn’t save a copy (but I have my notes). Without recounting everything that the discussion covered, I’ll outline what this ticket believes should happen.

Firstly, it’s important to both of us that we continue the actual discussion. Largely, the discussion concluded with Daniel empowering the MAC with some of the abilities discussed in the topic - such as event coordination, community building activities, jurisdiction over Ten Forward, and some other things. That’s a great place to start, but we need to take a further view of the MAC bylaw and actually codify our expectations.

One of the continuing issues throughout STF is the problem that occurs around election season. STF has a very poor “continuity of governance” - in that administrations tend to vary wildly as to what they prioritize and the manner in which they work. I think that is apparent in this election as well. The MAC, as an Executive Assistant, is somewhat insulated to this. However, if we rely on these changes persisting through nothing but word of mouth, it’s likely that they will be lost to time. As my previous post in that discussion highlighted, the MAC is highly open to interpretation because the bylaw is very grey. We should seek to make the position more focused and modern, and empower it to work from an “if you build it, they will come” framework rather than recruitment-as-primary objective.

Linds’ recent MAC report is reflective of her efforts in this. She has already hosted several events, done some live-posting to social media, and is working on strengthening our ties to outside organizations like Ongoing Worlds. I believe that events and workshops hold a lot of potential. We have the current STF Awards, the Short Story Contest, and some other sporadic events that come and go. We can strengthen ourselves by regularizing these, and Discord helps facilitate this.

Another thing we should investigate is Workshops. “Training” is one of the most common tentpoles of an STF Campaign, but our goal isn’t to advocate for a mandated training program that, in reality, will probably not manifest. Community Workshops can be varied and creative. Writers Workshops, Species Workshops, Engineering Workshops, etc. A Community Organizer could coordinate with other club members to set up small-scale workshops in the #events channel on Discord, focused on writing, character development, and engineering. The courses do a great job of familiarizing people with roles through exams, but workshops held by someone with many years of writing a certain kind of character could be great.

The best part of these is that they are relatively painless to coordinate in comparison to something like the Awards. They’re casual and focused on a few people sharing their experiences in writing here at STF. It’s also a way for us to recognize those who do a truly great job of writing brilliant characters.

To summarize, we plan to continue the MAC/Community Organizer discussion with the intent on broadening the MAC’s role in internal community events, codifying those changes, and helping the MAC adapt to anything new. I hope that helps to clarify our stance, and I’m happy to answer any questions that come up!

-Thomas
Adam W / Thomas B