Posted by Daniel Lerner in Question to candidates - Jerome and James
Okay, I guess I’ll take a stab at the first round of questions stemming from Jerome and James’s platform post.

1) The biggest issue any President faces is finding sufficiently qualified people to fill cabinet spots. I believe every President would agree this is the biggest struggle they face. I can also indicate that for the last three terms, one of the PDept’s priorities has just been to try to bring more people in to increase the number of people who have the knowledge and skills to run the department - with limited results. Yet your platform would will drastically reduce the already limited number of people by adding term limits to serving on the cabinet and identify three senior club members who cannot serve in any cabinet role. How does that make any sense?

PDept has been one of the bright points in the leadership vacuum and I applaud their accomplishments. However, I feel my platform forces us to move into a more inclusive community where leadership is brought up instead of passed around a limited circle. With as many members as we have, we should be encouraging juniors to move up and not hold leadership opportunities to a smaller group. That, Daniel, is my platform in a nutshell. To diversify leadership throughout the club at all levels and allow for a new generation to rise under the careful advising of the Flag Officers

2) From your campaign post: “With the exception of TECH, Cabinet members shall only serve two consecutive terms before taking a mandatory cooling off term.” Do you believe TECH is part of the cabinet? Why do you think that?

I wanted to make clear that I had no intention of placing similar restrictions on TECH, not that I felt that TECH specifically was a cabinet post… which it is not

3) The Board of Admiralty. So we identify three senior members of the club, whose only job is to give advice to the president and cabinet. Which doesn’t necessarily have to be listened to (unless this is just to duplicate EGO?). And because they give advice, they aren’t allowed to have any other administrative role in the government? What’s the logic of that?

The Board allows Flag Officers to remain involved in an advisory capacity while not having the stress of direct governmental duties. They would also be available to EGO, giving a broader knowledge base addressing issues brought before EGO

4) The EGO bylaw states: “This body exists for the purpose of retaining a sense of institutional memory and ensuring the political stability of STF. EGO is tasked with overseeing the actions of the President pursuant to the conditions and procedures laid out in this edict.” How exactly is that purpose accomplished by eliminated anyone with the rank of Rear Admiral or higher serving on it, and opening it up to Captains? Don’t you need those senior and experienced members for that very institutional memory? I have to ask if this is because you haven’t won an EGO election yet, and you want to stack the deck, so to speak.

My lack of winning an EGO election has nothing to do with wanting to split the institutional oversight and collective institutional memory into two bodies. EGO has an incredibly important role, in an oversight capacity. The Board, on the other hand, allows for the experienced leaders to move into a solely advisory capacity and let the leaders most affected by the President’s actions to have more say. The Board would still advise the EGO while being able to look at problems through a different lens. What do you find troubling about a shift like that?

5) The promotion to Commander. Huh?

Above Commander. Sorry for not being clear in this point.

6) How does any of this help actual membership retention. The primary point of membership attrition is in the first two weeks, and then the big drop at the 2-3 month mark. How does any of you platform actually help?

As I address in my Mentoring comment below, the primary point of attrition has less to do with mentoring and more to do with our collective failure to build the kind of community that would make Gene proud. I didn’t feel at the time I was putting together my highlights that incorporating a cultural shift in the club would necessarily be a platform point. This is because such a shift has let to do with me, or James, or you, or Sarah… it has to do with being a warm and inviting place that we all want to be a part of and share our love of RP, creative writing and of Trek. I want to be a champion for that, but as with any leader here… I might be gone in a year and if the “platform” of such a culture isn’t important to my successor, the progress would be lost. I would rather my administration encourage others to feel they have a home here from day one and that that home makes them feel important and loved.

7) You indicate in your post these will be the primary platform of your campaign. So shall we assume you have no plans for mentorship, the emerging GM disaster, the problem in actually finding qualified FComms and QDirs (your response is to, in fact, limit that I guess), ongoing partnerships with TECH over site development, or anything else the President needs to actually focus on for the next 8 months?

-Daniel Lerner

While I have focal points, I have no intention of running the club from a cave.

1) Mentorship has always been an issue for as long as I can remember. That said, one of the other problems is community within the club. We, as a community should be reaching out to new members because we want to… not because of some policy. We are here because we love Trek and the ideals Gene dreamed about yet fall shorter every year in creating that Microcosm of a community here! In my administration, I will push for more organic connections being built with new members because it is clear that just relying on policy-centered mentoring is not enough.

2) GM issues are nothing new to the club but have gotten worse in recent years. I would love to see a more robust GM development program put in place that focuses on the fun of being a GM because for many, the current process is so intimidating that many don’t even try.

3) We don’t have enough qualified leaders because we aren’t bringing up new leaders. We spend too much time rotating through incredibly experienced COs that we don’t take the time to foster new leaders. Nothing can kill an organization faster than a drought of fresh blood and fresh ideas. In my administration, we will focus on engagement of younger members and encouraging Flag officers to step aside and let younger members get their hands dirty in the affairs of the club.

4) Site development and improvement is very important for an organization like ours and I look forward to seeing how it can continue to be improved in the near future.

5) What other areas do you think are important that I have missed as I would like to address those concerns as well.

Thanks,
Jerome