Bravo Fleet
Happy Halloween Bravo Fleeters!
This is personally my favorite holiday, so this is a good day to announce some changes in the fleet! Recently, our Comms Office put out requests for our members, both new and experienced, to fill out an optional survey. We got a bunch of responses that the BFA then parsed through to see what changes we could make in response to the surveys. Many of the comments in the survey were helpful and extremely constructive for ways we could improve our product. Today we are enacting some changes based directly on that feedback…
Task Forces & Fleet Structure
Two of the recurring pieces of feedback we received were things that the BFA has seen as symptoms driven by many of the same problems. The first being that Bravo Fleet can be confusing to navigate for members, especially when it came to reconciling a member’s Task Force membership vs the Task Force any game (sim) they were a member of was located in. The second was our high staff turnover rate at the Task Force staff level. Turnover has been higher than we would like for a variety of factors – some within our control, and some completely outside our control – and so we have looked to solve those issues that are within our power to solve.
After discussing the issues with the Bravo Fleet Staff it was decided that our first change should be to move games out of the individual task forces. In our new system, games are just one of the many things that Bravo Fleet members can consume as activities, much like fiction, gaming in STO, or entering competitions. None of these other activities were things we expected our Task Force staff alone to manage, nor are those other activities locked into the Task Force that they are happening in. Moving forward, games will be directly under the Bravo Fleet Operations Officer and their staff just as gaming is overseen by our Gaming Officer and Fiction is overseen by our Loremaster. It is our goal to both take something off of the plate of our TFCO’s and make our games more intuitive for new members by keeping things consistent across all activity types. The Operations Officer will now support and promote those games as much as possible to create fun and unique writing circles for our members. Look for updates and announcements from our Ops Officer, David, in the coming days that dig more into these changes!
Now if you run a game or are on one you are probably wondering what that means for you. In short? Probably not a whole lot. Essentially, the only major change will be in who you might be going to in order to get help or with questions. Now our Operations Officer will be a central clearing house for those issues, making sure that everyone is getting the same help and the same answers to their questions, as the more consistency we can bring to members the less confusion we sow. Beyond that, most everything else will be either streamlined or remain the same. From a site navigation standpoint, it will centralize all of our games into one area of the site which will make them all far easier to access and navigate through for someone looking to join one.
With this new organizational layout, games will also have the freedom to move throughout Bravo Fleet canon while not being tethered to a specific Task Force’s area of operations, now more so than ever before. We hope that this may also strengthen the longevity of the games we have. Speaking from personal experience, I know I’ve started games over the years where I had 2-3 solid episode/mission ideas for the Romulans or Cardassians, but once those stories were exhausted the game was still stuck in an area of operations focused on those races. Now, games have the whole galaxy as their sandbox!
In conjunction with moving games out of task forces, in order to better help support TFCOs, we’ve also agreed to shift story and canon oversight to the Lore office. Added to that, we’re looking to create more unique “theme” based task forces and less area based. In the past, Bravo Fleet task forces have almost always been locked to a certain locale. Whether it was the Delta Quadrant, the Romulan Neutral Zone, or the Raeyan Sector. Now, we want to shift more towards themes where task forces are able to spread their wings a bit, and canon is far more shared than ever before. Look for updates and announcements on this from our Loremaster, Cath, in the coming days and weeks as well as some other announcements.
These changes were both put into place to serve two goals. First, so that our Task Force staff can better serve the membership and focus on their needs. With game set up and oversight as well as canon and lore responsibilities all falling on the heads of our TFCO’s, their ability to also work with members to ensure their experience is a positive one was becoming overwhelmed. They haven’t been able to devote the kind of attention they would like towards things like creating activities for their members or ensuring that those same members are getting the medals, promotions, and other recognitions that they all deserve. Second, it was putting a large burden on those same staffers. Many of them came into Task Force positions when the expectations of a TFCO were very different, and even those that have come into those positions since our new model launched have suffered as well. This level of expected work was leading people to burn out, creating the turnover that our members have suffered through. As such, it became clear to us that we needed to make this change in order to make sure our members are best served by their Task Force leadership and that said leadership wasn’t being asked to do too much. The number one job of anyone taking on a leadership role in the fleet is to make sure they’re serving their members, and we feel that this will best position our resources to ensure that our members don’t get lost in the cracks.
Look for updates to the BFMS to reflect these changes in the next day or two.
Staff Changes
In addition to the structural revamp above, we have also made some staffing changes as well. The first is the permanent approval of the Admiralty position of Bravo Fleet Operations Officer. This position was initially proposed as a temporary trial post, and the success we have seen with it in action coupled with the changes to how we manage our games has led us to keep it on permanently. As such, David will be taking over full time as Operations officer.
That move also left us with a Task Force Commanding Officer spot to fill as well. With the changes outlined above, it was decided that the best option we have to fill his post is Tia, who will move over from Task Force 86. In her place, it gives me great pleasure to announce that Dave, our current TFXO in Task Force 9, has been appointed to the position of Task Force 86 Commanding Officer. Congratulations, Dave!
Additionally, outside of the realm of the Admiralty, a recently returned member submitted an excellent application for a staff post in our Chief of Staff’s office. Marc Davis is a veteran member, originally coming to Bravo Fleet as the commander of Starfleet Central Command when that organization joined with Bravo Fleet in 2007. His wealth of experience and the drive he brings to the table to improve Bravo Fleet made him an ideal choice, and so he has been appointed to the position of Deputy Chief of Staff. Congratulations as well!
In addition to these staff changes, a bit of an update about something that Emily and I have been talking about doing for a long time. As it is, a lot of decisions are made within the Bravo Fleet Admiralty. This works out really well and has been historically significant for Bravo Fleet; however, it can at times be an echo chamber. With that in mind, we’re finally enacting a new program of sorts where all policy discussions and proposals now go through the fleet staff level, now known as Bravo Fleet Command. Bravo Fleet Command is composed of the BFA, all TFXOs, and all department deputies, with a few other vital roles included. Our hope is that with an increasing number of voices we’re widening the berth of the fleet’s leadership body, and hopefully bringing new and more unique voices to the table. The BFA will remain, but will largely just be an administrative voting body for when votes are needed, and otherwise very quiet.
Open Positions
We still have open positions throughout the fleet, and now with Dave’s promotion to TF86CO, another TFXO spot has opened!
Task Forces
Task Force Executive Officer – Task Force 9
Task Force 9 is seeking candidates for the role of Task Force Executive Officer, with the recent promotion of Dave! This position is responsible for assisting the Task Force Commanding Officer with the day-to-day running of the task force, including helping develop canon as needed, performing functions related to awards and promotions, and serving as a mentor to other members. TF9 deals with the frontier and fringes of Federation space, so it has a unique set of canon to deal with.
If you are interested in this role, please fill out an application here or talk to David or Tia on Discord. Note: you do not need to be a member of TF9 to apply for this role. There are no minimum OOC ranks for TFXOs, however candidates who have demonstrated a strong record of success in reporting their own activity and participating in a variety of fleet activities are likely to be more successful, as those are the items that they will be helping members with.
Task Force Executive Officer – Task Force 93
Task Force 93 is seeking candidates for the role of Task Force Executive Officer, with the recent departure of Arden due to real-world time constraints. This position is responsible for assisting the Task Force Commanding Officer with the day-to-day running of the task force, including helping develop canon, performing functions related to awards and promotions, and serving as a mentor to other members. TF93 deals directly with the Romulans, so it has a fascinating chunk of canon to deal with, given that it’s the race that we’ve learned the most about in the last 18+ years of Star Trek history.
If you are interested in this role, please fill out an application here or talk to David or Thrace on Discord. Note: you do not need to be a member of TF93 to apply for this role. There are no minimum OOC ranks for TFXOs, however candidates who have demonstrated a strong record of success in reporting their own activity and participating in a variety of fleet activities are likely to be more successful, as those are the items that they will be helping members with.
Task Group Commanding Officer – All Task Forces
All five task forces are currently recruiting for Task Group Commanding Officers. The BFA envisions the new TGCO role to be one of members who are interacting with people in their task groups on a regular basis, getting people involved, getting information out to them. On the flip side, TGCOs are going to be involved with learning the ins and outs of task force management, development, and operations. The BFA sees this position as a stepping stone to leadership: one where members are elevated into a position where it’ll give them a taste of what Bravo Fleet leadership is about which allows leaders to evaluate them, but more importantly, for those TGCOs to evaluate if leadership is right for them. In this way, members can make that evaluation without being thrown to the fire, as it were.
Equivalent to Staff Assistants in the departments, these positions are for learning the ropes of task force leadership and for mentoring new members through the mechanics of the fleet once they’ve hit Ensign. If you have no experience at all but want to get more involved, this is a great way to do so, as you’ll get to see how canon creation works, what activity reporting looks like from the staff side, and generally just get a feel for whether or not volunteering to work in a task force is for you. There is no minimum OOC rank for this position, but it’s suggested that one have a strong handle on activity reporting and navigating the fleet to take on this role.
Departments
Communications Office
There are 3 positions open:
- Deputy Communications Officer
- Staff Officer: Recruitment
- Staff Officer: Social Media
As Deputy Communications Officer, you would be assisting me in the running the department and collaborating with me on communications office projects (some that have yet to be lifted off the ground). Additionally, I would like this position to be canvassing the fleet to gather great posts and content from our games to promote on our social platforms and to use in recruitment.
As the Staff Officer for Social Media, you would focus on increasing our presence on the fleet’s social media platforms, at the moment Facebook and Twitter. You would be posting information about our stories, our competitions, and our gaming accomplishments!
As the Staff Officer for Recruitment, you would be assisting with recruiting new members to our community through social media, Reddit, discord servers, list servs, etc. Your primary concern will be recruiting for the Fleet as a whole, however, you would be available to help our COs/GMs with recruitment for their own games.
If you are interested in any of these positions, please apply here today!
