Posted by Rear Admiral Sarah Hemenway (Presidential Candidate) in Question to the Candidate - Sarah Hemenway

Posted by Kate O’Neill in Question to the Candidate - Sarah Hemenway
This question is for Sarah Hemenway only.

In your last term as elected President, August 1st, 2006 to March 28th, 2008 you suddenly resigned and quit the club in the middle of the presidency. ( Edict 72 https://www.star-fleet.com/prez/edicts/hemenway/ You were gone for about ten years and have only been back this time since the Spring of 2019.

1). What has changed that can assure us that your sudden departure in 2008 and the ten-year hiatus won’t happen again with this term?

There’s no way for me to foresee the future and say that there is nothing that will happen that would result in my need to step down over the next eight months. I’ve never committed to anything in the club without the intent of finishing it 100%. My sudden departure in 2008 was the result of a combination of events that’s unlikely to occur again. Joe assures me that we will not be replacing Exodus this term. :) Frankly, I had been President for 20 consecutive months. That’s a long time. It’s the longest time someone has ever been President in STF, whether consecutively or in total since the move to WeBB.

Whoops – see, this is why I shouldn’t do date math before coffee. Jim Midyette was President for longer, in total. It’s so neat that the club was able to flesh out the history before the move off of Prodigy! I corrected my statement above; my apologies. :) Thanks to whomever pointed it out!

2). Members come and go in STF however only a few have unbroken membership that lasts years. In your resignation edict, you mentioned that “this club my home for the past three years (and the number of years before that).” How many hiatus’ have you taken since joining STF in 2001? How many actual years have you participated in the club as an active member since 2001 excluding all time from your hiatuses?

Before I was Prez, I’d taken two fairly short breaks from the club due to college. I was consistently active from January 2001 to September 2003. I came back a couple of months later, mostly to take a CO position that a close friend vacated in a bad personal situation. I held that position from December 2003 to April 2004. I returned in either late 2004 or early 2005 and then remained in the club until my departure in 2008. So, um, I guess that comes out to around seven years active, total, in the club? Sorry, pre-coffee!

3.) And do you think being back for only fifteen months after being gone for so long, during this most recent hiatus, helps you or hinders you in understanding how the club and its members have changed in your absence?

~ Kate O’Neill

I think it offers a unique perspective. I’m sensitive to not being one of the old folks coming back waving my hands saying “we did it so much better in the olden days!” but at the same time, I also have a very “before” and “after” perspective and that can make it easy to see the changes to the club, whether for the better or the worse. Rob is an excellent teammate because he’s been here and involved for a lot of what I missed. :) I’ve surrounded myself with people who can update me on the intent and the discussions that I missed and now that we have the archives accessible for both effWeBB and WeBBspace, I can review those discussions myself. That said, the fundamental role of the club as a Star Trek roleplaying club has not changed and that’s one thing I’m super grateful for!

Sarah

Sarah