Bravo Fleet
To all the members of Bravo Fleet:
Since my last report, it was another really good month in Bravo Fleet! The theme of that report was how well we’ve been doing over the past year since we embarked on our new journey — changes, statistics, how we’re already being emulated (“writing contests”, lulz), and the reception to what we’re doing within Bravo Fleet itself which really is the metric that is most important to us. This report will be more about some changes being made to reflect how we go into the future. This past weekend, Slagar tendered his resignation as Bravo Fleet Chief of Staff so that he can better focus on other projects he has going on! We’re sad to see him leave the position, but have no doubt he’ll be back on staff somewhere in the future and he will still be around as an active member.
Office of the Chief of Staff
In the interim, I will be stepping in as Chief of Staff. The system we have in place requires a lot of knowledge of the said system that very few people in the fleet currently have. At some point, I expect applications will open to fill the vacant Chief of Staff position.
Over the past week, Minnow, the Deputy Chief of Staff, and I have spoken with Bravo Fleet Command, specifically the task force staff, to see how the OCS can better serve them. The two big takeaways were that some things subjectively worded and not clearly explained and that some of the OCS Policy docs needed to be improved upon. The first thing I did was to rewrite a large portion of the OCS Policy to beef up descriptions, explain things better, add in some things that weren’t explained very well in general, and overall improvements. The second thing I did was to create a calculator which I have provided to BFC which better equates activity to awards. I hope that these two things will help strengthen the understanding of the system and seems to have so far. In the next few weeks I also plan to audit all awards and ranks to look at criteria, need, and possibly filling any gaps we have.
Additionally, I want to bring on another staff member or two. As I mentioned above, the system we have in place has a lot of moving parts and I feel having one or two more people with advanced knowledge of those parts will be key moving forward. Especially once I am no longer the interim Chief of Staff and it has been handed off to another qualified individual. This has the added benefit of having members in the OCS taking their knowledge back to their task forces! If the OCS office is something you think you may be interested in, please apply here. I will be taking applications until May 16th.
Current Competitions
Speaking of knowledge of our rank and promotions system, did you know that even participating in competitions counts towards promotions and awards? Well, you do now! Each task force has been running little themed weeks for a while now to give people that opportunity for those who aren’t particularly keen on writing. Today is the last day for the TF86 competitions currently running:
and next up is Task Force 93 with these three:
And our very own Trumpetmaster is running two really neat Borg themed competitions which are running for a few more weeks:
And last but not least, STO players who created Delta Recruits should definitely keep submitting their screenshots for the STO Delta Recruit Event competition.
Archanis Campaign
The Archanis Campaign, if you didn’t read the recent report on its ending, was a huge success. Just as a highlight, you guys wrote a quarter of a million words. That is huge! That is a lot of writing! A huge thank you to everyone who participated. It may be a while until the next one, but I’m really looking forward to the next campaign! As the Archanis report states, everyone who participated in the campaign and earned at least 5 Service Ribbons, as a result, received the one-time-only Archanis Campaign Badge. Much like Fleet Action Challenge Coins (see Raptor’s Wing Challenge Coin), Campaign Badges are only given for those who specifically participate in the Campaign and are never given again. Just another way we want to thank our members who participate in very unique opportunities we present to them!
Conclusion
In conclusion, I want to commend everyone on a great first quarter for Bravo Fleet. Tons of writing, tons of competitions, tons of gaming. Bravo Fleet is easily the most measurably active Star Trek group out there. Keep it up, gang! I firmly believe that Bravo Fleet is a team effort, and that team work makes the dream work. I will leave you all with the knowledge that the early planning stages for Bravo Fleet’s next Fleet Action (we did The Raptor’s Wings last year!) are underway with a tentative launch date around mid to end July. We’ve finished the early drafts of the Fleet Action storyline, and I think you will all really enjoy it. Ω
