Thanks to Matt Baillie and Abe Smith. They have volunteered to serve as editors and moderators of STARFLEET Fail in case I get hit by a bus or something. They will be keeping an eye on things. I’ll still be here, my job is starting to settle in and my workload will be lightening up soon.

I work as the sole I.T. guy in a small call center, and we are ramping up and adding reps to the sales floor. I have been busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest, getting workstations deployed and servers installed. Once we get to full strength, it should be just a matter of fighting evil, entropy, and boredom. Then I can get back to the important things I do at work, like reading Slashdot and posting on Fail.

One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is the sheer amount of noise in STARFLEET at pretty much every level. As I remarked to a friend, it’s starting to become a ‘third generation’ organization. It started as a Star Trek fan club. Then it became a STARFLEET fan club. Now it’s a Lizard Administration Argument Society. It’s a pretty bad scene. Moreover, this doesn’t show any sign of stopping.

During the election, I talked a lot about new ideas and how we could use technology to ‘flatten’ the organization. Trying to think around the problem and put less focus on a centralized organization and more on a community and node-building metaphor. In the process, eliminate a lot of positions that aren’t necessary and (if at all possible) reduce the sheer amount of mind-boggling paperwork. The STARFLEET Membership Handbook and Constitution is forty-six pages long! Bureaucracy? You’re soaking in it!

The answers are far from clear on an organizational level. Sal won’t resign, so if you want to get rid of him, you’ll have to start that petition. Getting that petition around means politics, and is assigned a membership loss number. Combine that membership loss number with the egregious amounts of spending that have been happening and add it to an already-precarious financial situation of spending more than is brought in, and you’ve got a fantastic recipe for disaster. It leaves very few positive directions for a concerned member to turn.

Or does it? I think the general idea is to connect Star Trek (and sci-fi) fans together as efficiently as possible. Maybe use the ‘STARFLEET’ metaphor of starships and gallant crews, but eliminate the paperwork and requirements. Additionally, since the idea is to be efficient, then there should be no cost passed down to the ‘member.’ And what the hell is a member, anyway? When you eliminate the cost, you’ve eliminated the bureaucracy and with it, an awful lot of hand-wringing and angry screeds. Eliminating the cost also has another advantage: When you make it free, you also eliminate competition. There’s no reason why another model cannot flourish.

I think that it may be possible to reboot by taking a look outside of the STARFLEET hegemony and looking at fandom organization from the point of view of an open-source project. Manage through communication, with many hands making light work for the enjoyment of all. I have a very, very ‘alpha’ proof-of-concept that I’m working on right now, and while it’s not very pretty, it’s functional. If you’re interested in lending a hand, drop me a line.

Emmett Plant
http://www.trekfan.org

For some reason, WordPress stopped sending comments. In three weeks, I received three comments via email. I was convinced that it was quiet because I have not been here to provide proper care and feeding to this site.

Boy, was I wrong. I missed a lot, it seems, and I am trying to catch up.

I have resolved this issue.  I am still looking for a couple volunteers to serve as editors and comment moderators. Won’t be too much work, we have really needed very little moderation or editing here. But with my work schedule being as hectic as it has been, another pair of eyes is a Good Thing™.  Let me know if anyone is interested.

What if STARFLEET were just limited to North Americans, and those in other countries can just have “diplomatic” ties with STARFLEET N.A.? That way, we wouldn’t have to worry about internatilonal mailings and turf wars like R8 and R9 and R20?

I’m pretty happy to work for STARFLEET. I offer up web-space by the truckload, and ‘Thirty Days’ is doing a really good job of using that space to host copies of chapter handbooks, regional handbooks, chapter and marine unit newsletters and things like that. The ‘Thirty Days’ book project has sent out a huge pile of Trek books to STARFLEET chapters, and will continue to do so. Lots of good things are happening, and STARFLEET and its members benefit.

There’s an important thing to mention here: STARFLEET isn’t doing it. It’s not a STARFLEET project. It’s my little project that I’ve put together with the help of a lot of people. There is zero support for any of it from the STARFLEET administration in any capacity, and I’m grateful for that. Here’s why:

“Until my term ends or I get impeached, I’m not quitting STARFLEET and I’m not going to let the malcontents who lost the election make everyone else suffer.” — Sal Lizard

I lost the election — So did five other folks. Joost Ueffing, Dixie Halber, Wade Olson, Sandy Berenberg and Will Devine. Those were the names on the ballots, and from what I can tell none of us are making STARFLEET members suffer. I think Wade is still active with the SFMC, Joost is working as part of DTS; Will has recently taken over as the CO of the USS Accord. I’m still running the USS Blackheart in addition to all the ‘Thirty Days’ stuff.

I’ve recently been contacted to help on a STARFLEET project, and I have responded that I will not do so. I’m not willing to work for any department of this administration after that kind of unbelievable attack. I can’t bring myself to do it. I would like nothing more than to volunteer my time and effort working toward making things better from the core — If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have run for CS last year and I wouldn’t have applied for VCS this year.

I don’t mean to come off as overbearingly arrogant, but I think we’ve done more with ‘Thirty Days’ in the past few weeks than STARFLEET’s been able to put together since last January. Since we’ve been very careful about money, we’ve been able to send out hundreds of ‘Star Trek’ books to chapters and troops overseas for less than 5% of what STARFLEET has spent on attorneys. We’ve got a ton of bandwidth — Enough to give every member of STARFLEET over 50M of webspace for a decade — And it cost us less than 8% of what STARFLEET has spent on attorneys.

We’re getting things done. STARFLEET seems unable to do so, and to make things worse the administration takes a point-of-view that encourages talented and capable people to run screaming. It’s a really bad situation, and I don’t know the solution.

So we’ve identified that Starfleet as we know it is broken.  We’ve indentified that people who want the titles and yet not the duties that go with the titles migrate into positions of authority. We’ve identified that the reason Starfleet was necessary 35 years ago, is not the reason fan’s need Starfleet today.

So then what do we do?

First Identify what Starfleet has to offer today.  Starfleet’s motif where each chapter is a variant of Kirk’s/Picard’s/Archer’s Enterprise with a crew (membership) working together for an accepted common goal is as valid today as it was 35 years ago.  Starfleet’s existance as umbrella organization that makes it easier for chapters to coalesce, grow, and continue is easier today than it was then, because of both the Internet and the greater acceptance of being a Star Trek fan.  Members join because they want to play Star Trek.  They don’t want to play Starfleet, they don’ want to deal with Politics, they don’t want to be bogged down in work and/or paperwork.  THEY WANT TO PLAY STAR TREK.

Thus it becomes clear, that Starfleet’s Offering should exist ONLY and for no other reason to help the Chapters enable and enhance the MEMBERS PLAYING STAR TREK.

By playing Star Trek, I mean a very broad definition of whatever Star Trek based experience (with other Genres included in a greater or lesser degree) the member is enjoying.

Starfleet then, and its administrative sub-units known as Regions then exist not to serve themselves, not to make some great combined contribtution to Fandom, or Charity, or Community life, but they exist to serve the Chapters and Members. Period, that is it, close the book we’re done.

Sal talks about members mattering, but he’s still thinking in the paradigm of Starfleet First, Chapters Second, Members Third.  When his supporters on the AB and EC and elsewhere, say that he is the Boss, and we are followers, you can see this misguided thinking.  A better example would be when a CEO of a real corporation, is the Boss of the PAID Employees, but he is employed BY the Board of Directors,  who are selected by the Shareholders (for us that would be the CS - AB and the Member’s Chapter Presidents).

So here is what I would recommend.

That Starfleet move forward with separating the AB into two bodies.  One a governing Board of Twelve Directors selected by ALL of the Membership in staggered three year terms (The Initial vote will have the top four vote getters getting a three year term, the next four a two year term, the next four a year term), there after every year, in an online election administered through the database four Directors will be elected for three year terms.  These Directors will select a Board Leader (titles are not as important as their duties) who will be be responsible for all of the “back office” responsibilities of the organization, finances, membership processessing, publishing and distributing hard copy materials.  They will also select a Commander Starfleet who will be responsible for the FUN part of Star Fleet, ie the Star Trek portion.  The regions then will no longer be led by politicians, but will be led by Regional Commanders appointed by the Commander Starfleet.  In addition the regional boundaries will be readily and easily shifted per the needs of the chapters therein, not on the needs of political necessity.

More to come

Scott

As some of you may remember from my Live Journal, I am reading a book called “Kicking Habits” by Thomas G. Bandy.  In this book he talks about the declining church.  Much of what he says about the declining church and the revived-growing church has also a lot to say about the declining fandom and the revived-growing fandom.  What this books says, and what it has to say to us as fandom is very important, and deep down a lot of us know it already, while others, much like the old church geezer/geezerette, will never understand, don’t want to understand, and will do everything in their power to punish and expel those who want a newer, more active, more bountiful fandom.  Sounds familiar? I think so.

For four years now I’ve been saying that Starfleet has no purpose, no focus, no mission.  We’ve become more about Starfleet, than about Star Trek.  We’re more about rules, on top of rules, on top of rules.  CQ after CQ after CQ glorifies members, chapters, and the organization but fails to mention that thing called Star Trek.

In the not so distant past Starfleet served as a medium where like minded fans could get together, hang out with other geeks, and play Captain Kirk, or Mr. Spock with friends without some dumb jock calling them nerds and giving them wedgies.  It was a way we could network, gather and enjoy Star Trek more fully.

But somewhere we’ve lost that, just about everything about Starfleet, except for the Motif, is about Starfleet, Recruiting just to have numbers, Conferences just to have conferences or to conduct business. Positions at all levels exist either to justify the position, or serve the Organization, not to celebrate Star Trek, not to enhance anyones enjoyment of Star Trek, and not to enhance anyones Star Trek experience.

If someone wants to roleplay being an Admiral (playing Star Trek), they have to achieve a position of responsibility within the organization and serve the membership.  However the vast majority of these people didn’t join Starfleet to work and serve, they joined to play and hangout.  SO what happens, people who want titles, don’t do the work needed, people get angry, feelings get hurt, rancor exists. Fingers get pointed, people become bitter, manipulators take advantage and gain ‘power’ in a fan club.

If someone wants to write a short story about Star Trek and get it published, they hear wails of how we will be sued by Paramount, they get rejections that their story is badly written, they get attacks for having a different vision of the Star Trek universe than our geezer/geezerette have.  Ask the SFMC, they’ve experienced this for two decades.

If someone wants to wear their uniform, or use their rank, or just say “I LOVE STAR TREK”, they are told not to embarras the rest of us, that Homeland Security will come after them, stop impersonating the real military, do charity work so the mundanes don’t make fun of us.  Celebrate Starfleet, not Star Trek.

What then do we do to break this cycle, to return to being a Star Trek Club, instead of being a Starfleet Club?

Tune in tomorrow, when I lay out my suggestions in the second part of this series.

Scott

Screw them all. SFI-L, in this members opinion, has thirty days of life left to it. Rolando Gomez is up to his usual asshattery and ass kissing. Now he’s freely moderating folks and sending any appeals directly to Matt Moyer.

Yeah, ok. Matt Moyer will respond in 48 hours. Yeah, he can’t update SFI.ORG in 48 days. I’m sure he has loads of time to listen to Rolando whine.

SFI-L is on the way out guys. Mark my words. Let’s go to the map.

Marlene Miller, basically, says “tsk, tsk, tsk” and wags her finger at anyone that does not swallow the load that the Commander, STARFLEET is shooting. Add to that the rest of the Academy Bitty Brigade jumping up and down that we are all “just mean people” and need to STFU.

Questions are still going unanswered. Jon Lane asks us all “why are you angry?” and then the moderators shut down any replies we present to him as “finger pointing and name calling.”

In disgust, Rich Jolitz has resigned as Senior Moderator of SFI-L. It was a thankless job. He caught large amounts of shit for volunteering. Some of it was from me. People called him a “Sal Pal” at best, “Judas Iscariot” at worst and I am sure plenty of “colorful metaphors” in between. But, through it all, Rich was the glue holding that list together.

In other news, Rob Kitson resigned as Vice Chief of Communications. I have locked horns with Rob a few times on SFI-L and here on this site. I will hand him a little credit, he gets shit done. And he has busted his ass under Jon Lane. And apparently he’s over it as well.

And, finally, Commodore Jon Lane has become a first class Salpologist. He has alleged that STARFLEET Fail has caused “real world damage” to Sal Lizard. Sources tell me that Sal lost a possible job this holiday season as a store Santa because of what was posted on STARFLEET Fail. Oh, and Jon is “furious” about it, which really makes it even more stupid.

Sorry, I have to call “bullshit” on that one. Sal is a “public figure” as the leader of STARFLEET and he is subject to the heat from that kitchen. STARFLEET Fail is proud to be holding the matches. We ask tough questions here, and we pull no punches. If he feels he’s been libelled, then I welcome contact from his attorney.

That would be Sal Lizard’s attorney. Not on STARFLEET’s dime. We already have played that tune and Sal lost.

As a test of this allegation of his, I googled “Sal Lizard” and came up with a few hits from this site. Nothing too bad, we basically have indicated here quite thoroughly that we do nto believe Sal is a good leader for STARFLEET. I had an attorney (Martin Lessem) look over STARFLEET Fail back in July when I was served with Sal’s “cease and desist” email. Just to see if there was anything that could “gotcha” me back then. We did not find anything, and it was later proven STARFLEET did not have a legal leg to stad on in its case against me. You know, the same thing THEIR ATTORNEY told them in July and  that was the same advice the attorney billed STARFLEET $330 for.

But I dug a little deeper on Google and came up with a few more hits. These articles  talk about Sal in the “dark ages” of Fidonet, and how he pioneered satellite mail gateways back in the BBS days. Commendable stuff, I respect that. I, too, was a Fidonet SYSOP back in the day.

I found other articles on Google that were more disturbing. Articles and opinions that call Sal a liar, a cheat, and the owner of an Internet company, “Weblizard,” a known “spamhaus.” There was all sorts of dirt about his web hosting company being blacklisted for harboring spammers and malware.

Gee… which is more damning? Being an alleged asshat in STARFLEET? Or being an alleged spammer and alleged crook?

Yeah, whatever, Jon Lane. Believe another lie of Sal’s. I am sure Sal has some beach front property for you in Arizona. Have another glass of Kool-Aid, man, you’ll need it. You work up a powerful thirst apologizing for Sal.

So, SFI-L has thirty days. STARFLEET probably not much beyond that. It’s really circling the drain. And I am no longer convinced that this is a bad thing. I have decided to concentrate my energies on my new job in the Corps as DCOINFOCOM and my current job as Region Two webmaster. I can insure with my hard work that those entities stay afloat.

What’s the real story with Richard Jolitz’s stepping down as an senior moderator of the “official” list, SFI-L, as revealed earlier today?

Hey guys, I hate to do this, especially since I’m one of the main targets of this administration’s vicious assaults.

However, while the Constitution & Bylaws does provide for unfettered access to Starfleet’s Programs

Namely through SECTION 02:05 - MEMBERSHIP RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES of the MHB which states such things as (not a complete list)

Right to participate in Chapter, Regional, and International functions to the fullest extent wished.

Right to participate in STARFLEET Academy to the extent wished.

Right to due process.

Right for all sides in an issue to be heard before judgment is passed.

Right to appeal all judgmental decisions.

Right to be considered for participation in any STARFLEET program.

Right to voice your opinion at any level of STARFLEET.

However, the  By-Laws contain provisions to take away these rights, AND IF, AND ONLY IF these provisions are followed, can they be taken away.  Namely:

SECTION 02:07 - GRIEVANCES AND DUE PROCESS (Paragraph 5)

All members of STARFLEET are reminded of their right of due process, which guarantees the right to a full investigation into any allegation; the opportunity for both sides of an issue to be fully heard before any judgment is passed; the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty; and the right to appeal any decision up to the Admiralty Board, whose decision is considered final.

Further, the Admiralty Board has the sole authority to interpret these rules, so as to accept policies for disciplinary action, under Article 3, Section 2, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution clearly states: The Admiralty Board shall be the final authority in the interpretation of this Constitution and of the policies and procedures of the organization.”

The Cheating Policy had been in effect at least since I was Commandant, what Peg has finally done here, after what we have been told was a torturous process, was put in writing both the policy for discipline and the process of appeal of same, which is what is required of Due Process, thus what is required by our By-Laws.

The biggest problem was, and is, the failure to abide by the Due Process portion of the rules.  Simply saying, I don’t like you, hence you are guilty, I’m cutting you off, kicking you out, etc, is that THAT violates our rules, not the punishment portion, but the unproven accusations portion.  IF we don’t require proof and due process and appeals, Sal can and will kick out every member that does not matter, i.e. voted for him, and he will finally stop being so angry. But if we do require proof, and due process and appeals, than Fleet will be the kinder gentler place Sal promised to the membership even though he never intended to even attempt to provide such a place.

Scott

This past Sunday Shakedown Chief Warren Price made a comment on the SFI Announcement List on Sunday about the ShoC Websites.

This is the yet another Pass the Buck statement in my opinion concerning things never getting done because of some such reason or another.

First off Warren states the SFI website is not current, no it isn’t (even though it SHOULD be!) and hasn’t been in such a very long time.  2nd, he then comments about an alternative site that IS updated!  Wonderful right?  Not quite…

Updated?  I would NOT call a site updated if things that are EIGHT MONTHS OLD are still listed!

 I am not sure what rock Warren is under, but that is ludicrous. I understand it is a work in progress, but he does all the Shakedown Ships and Shakedown Regional Chiefs an injustice by not giving an accurate statement to those that expected an updated site, as he states it is.

Let’s see we have the SFI site not having been updated in ages either and no SFI department wants to own up to the fact it HAS to be worked on. No they would rather just PASS THE BUCK yet again.

How long, just how long does it take for this administration to update all the pertinent web sites with current and useful information? How long will it take from one department to STOP passing the buck to another and then back again?  I would really like to now.

I have Shakedown ships that have been in the program now for 6-8 months now and STILL are not listed as a Shakedown Ship on EITHER site!  C’mon now, that is really bad for a technology heavy group such as we are.

I just don’t know what to think about this administration any longer, except it really needs to get their butts in gear and actually get work done and stop PASSING THE BUCK!

Thanks for letting me vent,

Mike

–
Adm Mike Henigan
CO – USS Atlanta NCC-79434
…a Commissioned Ship for 7 months…not according to the SHoC Website though!
Region 2 - Chief of Shakedown Op’s
mikehenigan@comcast.net


——————–
From: Warren Price <shoc@sfi.org>
Date: Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 8:23 PM
Subject: [Sfi-Announce-L] ShOC Websites

I wanted to let everyone know that we, at this time, have two ShOC web
sites. The site that is linked from the ShOC page of the SFI site
http://www.sfi.org/shoc/ has not been updated and the members will be
notified when it is. Now with that said, our other site at
http://home.pcisys.net/~biff/  has been updated and is still in
construction mode. I would recommend all Chapters in Training, and anyone
else, to visit this site.

Our webmaster will be working on both sites and should get the site on
sfi.org <http://sfi.org/>  updated in the next few months.

Thanks for your time.

Rear Admiral Warren Price, CO, USS Providence NCC-71796
Chief of Shakedown Operations, SFI R1, E-Mail shoc@sfi.org 

25 years ago today, at 6:20 am local, a suicide bomber following a perverted interpretation of the Quran, rammed a truck filled with explosives and gas enhancement into the Marine Barracks in Beirut Lebanon, killing 241 American Serviceman.  Two minutes later another truck hit the French Paratrooper Barracks across town, killing 58 French Soldiers.

299 Peacekeepers died that day at the hands of madmen, their reward for putting their lives on the line to protect the thousands of innocent civilians put in harms way by a five way sectarian war, and the first of many western victims in what is become as Samuel P. Huntington calls the Clash of Civilizations. 

No matter how you feel about the current geopolitical nightmare, or the 4 presidents we have had since then, please stop for a moment and remember those who gave their lives trying to protect others.

“No greater love have a man, who gives his life for another” paraphrased John 15:13

With the announcement of Dave Blaser of Region 13, as the new Vice Commander Starfleet designate, this is a good time to step back and look at life with a different focus, namely what difference can we make as individuals. 

The following first came to me back in February of 2004, shortly before I took my job with Cubic Defense down at Ft. Irwin in California, while still serving as part of the Malotte Executive Committee.

An old man was walking down the beach, tired and worn out from a life of toil and struggle.

As he trods through the wet sand on a gray morning, he sees ahead a young boy, throwing things into the water.

Splash

Throw

Splash

Throw

Splash

As he nears the boy and sees him throwing Starfish, as far out into the waves as he can.

The man asks, “Young man, what do you think you are doing?”

The boy smiles up at the old man, “Well sir, these starfish were washed up by the tide, if they don’t get back in the water, they’ll die.”

The man looks around, the whole beach is littered with hundreds if not thousands of Starfish.  He looks down at the boy and sadly says, “There are too many for you to save, what difference can you make?”

The boy smiles again, and throws another into the sea.

Splash

“I made a difference to that one.”

Throw

Splash

The man smiles, for the first time in a long time, and began to walk a little lighter next to the boy.

Throw, Throw

Splash, Splash

Throw, Throw

Splash, Splash

Scott

With the US election season in full swing, I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate General Colin Powell for endorsing Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential race. General Powell was the only Republican I would ever consider voting for, yet he never seemed to get up the stones to run himself. It’s nice to see he has decided to not toe the party line and endorsed Obama.

The photo was from the news, PhotoShopped, and submitted to me by Mike Black. Excellent! Thanks, Mike!

George Orwell said it succintly: In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.   While we spend time trying to reason with the current regime with logical arguments, we refuse to accept that this adminstration does not care about the membership, or the rules, or responsible leadership and stewardship.

This adminstration has lied to the membership, time and time and time again, it does not even matter if telling the truth would be in their best interest, they still lie.  They do not care how many members quit, Sal himself said that a ten percent membership loss is unimportant and insignificant, does anybody else know where the term “decimation” came from? The administration’s campaign promises are not only unmet, they weren’t ever intended to be met, look no further than Mr. Swart’s repudiation of the importance of those promises.

This adminsitration, a continuation of the last elected adminstration, has lied, cheated, stolen, blackmailed, and worse to get into power, and when caught in their action, have destroyed lives, marriages, reputations and then laughed

LAUGHED at each and everyone of us.

And now they say, oh its ok, it happened last year, forgive us, forget our crimes, do not pay attention to the man behind the red curtain.

Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.
Pastor Martin Niemöller

Here is part of the exchange I had with the esteemed Chief of Staff for the Commander, STARFLEET, VADM Sam Black, regarding my application and interview for Vice Commander, STARFLEET.

———-
From: VAdm. Sam Black <cs-cos@sfi.org>
Date: Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 10:01 PM
To: Dave Lowe <dave@davedorm.com>
Cc: cs@sfi.org, VADM Garrick Halverson <vcs@sfi.org>, vcs-cos@sfi.org

Hi, Dave.

Sal asked me to let you know that we have scheduled your interview for 7PM Eastern Thursday evening.

We will be using a free conference call system in order to accommodate more than just two people in a call and this will allow us to record the call for the record.

If you have any technical difficulties or questions/problems, please contact me as quickly as possible either via email or at 806-789-1501.

Well, I emailed back that I was not comfortable being recorded. To be honest, I was under the impression that Sal also did not desire to be recorded in any phone conversations as well.

———-
From: Dave Lowe <dave@davedorm.com>
Date: Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 11:09 PM
To: Sam Black <cs-cos@sfi.org>

There is currently a question of personal information being divulged by members of the current EC about me.   This was done via the Vic’sLounge blog, which I’m sure you are aware of.  I’m sure you can understand my concern about this interview now being recorded, which was not mentioned when the request for interested parties was sent to the announcements list.

I do have some questions I require answers to:

• Who gets a copy of this interview?
• Who will be involved in this interview?
• Will you be keeping a copy of this recorded interview once the decision for VCS has been made?
• On what date will all recorded interviews be destroyed?
• How long after the interview will I be provided with a digital copy of the complete, unedited interview?

Thank you for your prompt response in advance.

Note the timestamp. I got this from Sam mere minutes before my designated interview time:

———-
From: VAdm. Sam Black <cs-cos@sfi.org>
Date: Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 6:49 PM
To: Dave Lowe <dave@davedorm.com>
Cc: cs@sfi.org, VADM Garrick Halverson <vcs@sfi.org>, vcs-cos@sfi.org

Dave,

Your email required me to speak with Sal about some of your concerns.

He asked me to convey a few things to you about your concerns.

First and foremost, all of the interviews are being recorded for Sal’s benefit in case he needs to review any of the conversations for specific details as well as each candidate’s ensuring that no one goes away making accusations about the content of the call.

Next, implicit trust is imperative between each member of the EC.  Your concerns about having the interview recorded demonstrates you’re not willing to make that leap.

Additionally, you are currently running for R2 RC as well as just taking on the role of Deputy InfoCom for the SFMC.  These actions indicate that you are not fully committed to taking on the position of VCS as you would not be able to keep any of the other titles you are currently holding or immediately seeking outside of your chapter.

Since there are many more applicants who have had no issues with any of our requests, Sal wanted me to thank you for your application but to let you know that we will be going in a different direction to fill the role of Vice Commander, STARFLEET.

I’m pretty much not going to comment further at this time. Except to state the obvious. “Members matter…”

sanctioned, The Official STARFLEET Business Discussion List. You know, where the corporation’s officers (namely YOU, Jon Lane) can
be held liable and culpable for things said in the voice of the Corporation.

Twice in one day, I have been libeled.

1. I am “ilk.” Thanks, Rob!
2. I caused some “real world damage” with STARFLEET FAIL.

I demand you back that up, sir.

You want to talk about “real world damage,” Jon? Please have your Inspector General contact me, now that Mr. Hoover has been “tasked” to investigate the “Vic’s Lounge” anonymous cyberbully fiasco. I’ll give some real examples of “real world damage” that “Vic Fontaine” has caused in my life.

You know, we do really need to lighten up sometimes. We have to remember it’s only a fan club. We’re not really on a starship. We are not really at “RED ALERT” flying towards certain peril. It’s supposed to be fun. So here’s the Graph of the Day:

Shamelessly ripped off from GraphJam

We’re four days away from the end of the first ‘Thirty Days’ project,
and we could use your help! Please distribute this message as far and
wide as possible.

Star Trek Book Reviews:

This isn’t turning out as popular as I’d hoped, so I’ve switched gears
and started working on a project to make it even easier for folks to
participate. I’ve started buying up big lots of Trek books on eBay,
and if you’re interested in reviewing Trek books, I’m happy to send
you a few of them absolutely free of charge. Here’s an additional
bonus: For every box of Trek books I send out for review, I will also
be sending a box of Trek books to troops serving overseas. You get
Trek books, the troops get Trek books, and you send in reviews of the
books you read for the entire ‘fleet to enjoy.

If you’re a chapter CO and you’d like your chapter to take part in
this as a chapter, please let me know — I’ll send you a big box of
Trek books to distribute to your crew. I’ll also send a big box to the
troops, and then send you a certificate (and a picture!) documenting
your chapter’s donation of books to send overseas. How cool is that?

Handbooks and Newsletters:

If you have a chapter handbook and/or chapter newsletters that are
free for the taking, please send them to me so that we can put them on
the ‘Thirty Days’ site. We have a ton of material already, but more is
always better. It’s amazing to see even the small amount of
information we have right now — It’s turning into a really nice
resource for dipping into the well of STARFLEET’s combined content!

That’s all for now, another update comes in four days! Thanks to
everyone for their help!

Back when Sal first won the election, he created a personal log on LiveJournal where he promised to write frequently. He said once he transitioned, that a link would be placed on SFI.ORG, or the blog would move there and he would continue to be open and communicative.

That blog went silent just two weeks into his term as Commander, STARFLEET.

There is a discussion on the Official Sanitized STARFLEET Business List (SFI-L) about “hats” and who wears them and how many. The new STARFLEET Alumni Outreach Program is a great idea. But the position should have been opened to applicants, not just have some one cherry picked for the job.

I do not know George Ann Wheeler, but from what I have read she should do an excellent job here. Rob Kitson, while annoying as hell, has one thing going for him. He’s a go-getter. He gets stuff done. But he is already Vice Chief of Communications and Content Editor for the CQ.

Back to Sal’s blog. There was even mention by Sal that he would like to rotate the staff positions with new folks periodically, keep “new blood” in there and allow more people in STARFLEET the opportunity to serve.

Sal wrote on 01 December 2007 @ 11:50 pm :

I also think that every position on the EC (including the department heads and their vice chiefs need to be monitored and evaluated to> ensure that the work is being done, as promised, to the membership and that all jobs below the vice-chief level need to be opened for application, perhaps on a two-year rotation, to give every member a chance to apply for the HQ positions,  It seems fair. 

Sal did not retain the services of Chrissy Killian, who pulled double duty as the Regional Coordinator for Region Four and also as the head of the Member Processing arm of STARFLEET CompOps. Chrissy was awesome in that job, easily reached by email or even on IRC, and stuff got done. I can count a few snafus with our own chapter already since Matt Ingles took over in January. I am not saying Matt is doing a bad job, I am just convinced Chrissy could easily have worn both hats and done both jobs with room to spare. Chrissy gets stuff done.

It’s a double standard. And double standards are really not fair to anyone, and they are not fair to STARFLEET. If “Members Matter” then this administration needs to find “the stones” as our esteemed Fleet Admiral would say, and do what they said they woudl do.