Thanks to the pandemic, STF has an influx of excited new members right now, more than the club has seen in a long time. They are creative, competent, and interested in getting involved in all aspects of the club.

Many of us who have been around for years on end forget what it’s like to be an excitable newbie who just started out as a Cadet or an Ensign. For senior members, our characters being promoted at the end of the sim is a whole communication about whether or not that’s where we want the character to go and then a bio entry to cover it. We take an XO spot because it’s fun to work with the person who’s a CO or we can help mentor them. We take a new government role because it’s routine and we know how to do it.

For a new member, being promoted is potentially an entirely new member rank and, while STF is fantastic at not restricting people’s participation, this can still be important. For example, we require a rank of Lieutenant to be a GM. Becoming an XO or a CO is a huge step filled with excitement and anticipation. Finding a spot to contribute in government in an informed manner is flat out tough when a club has been running for almost 30 years.

Now, it’s important to remember that not every member in STF is interested in being President. Some people are just here to role-play their favorite junior officer character and that’s all they want to do and do well – and that is a perfectly valid way of participating in STF that should be honored! But, for the purpose of this platform post, let’s look at those who want to do more in the club.

Action Items:

• Work with FComms, who will then work with COs, to ensure that OOC and IC promotions are happening in a timely fashion for dedicated new members.
• Work with FComms, who will then work with COs, on prioritizing new members for opportunities like DH positions and command-level vacancies. While it can be a lot easier to have experienced members in these roles, these awesome new contributors deserve an opportunity to succeed at them as well, with proper support. It can be disheartening to see the same people having several DH positions when that feels like an unobtainable step and we’d like to see if we can tackle this so that new members get those opportunities and older members don’t end up feeling burned out by the sheer quantity of IC and OOC work demanded.
• Create a list of needed OOC tasks that are accessible to new members that would like to begin to learn about government and what it takes to keep STF running. The PDept has done an exemplary job of this over the last few terms, leveraging new members to conduct page reviews and learn about ship placement procedures.
• Reform the ship vacancies process to ensure that COs are regularly updating their vacancies and that these vacancies are easily viewable. As our membership numbers slowly increase, there will be a greater demand for players wanting to know where they can add second or third characters or try out a new position. Having this information easily updatable and accessible bridges the communication gap between command staff and newbies, particularly when one or both sides may not be active in Discord.

• Codify a plan for a recommendations system.

• Sarah & Rob