Quick Charter Updates

June 3, 2020

Hello Bravo Fleet!

We’ve mentioned before that the BFA is now a year out reviewing our Charter (yes, we’re just a few short days from a year since I took back over as BFCO!). We’ve been doing a close review of what works, what hasn’t, and what needs some updates and improvement. As part of that, and what I expect will be the last major changes for a good while, are two small updates.

The first is a robust update to what defines the Conservatorship, what the Conservatorship means, and who represents it. The BFA also wanted to make clear what assets were being held by Conservators, what the sitting BFCOs role was, and means for removal if necessary. The spirit of the Conservatorship is still the same: an apolitical body that holds Bravo Fleet’s assets, ensures the bills are paid, and that the fleet will continue to exist. Article III, Section 3 has been completely rewritten to now say:

  • The Bravo Fleet Conservatorship is an apolitical oversight body of Bravo Fleet, exclusively made up of persons who have formerly held the position of Bravo Fleet Commanding Officer, and are in good standing within Bravo Fleet. The Conservatorship is charged with safeguarding Bravo Fleet’s long term security as guardians of the real world digital infrastructure (“assets”) of the organization.
    • Members of the Conservatorship are specifically tasked with holding the real-world assets of Bravo Fleet including, but not limited to: the domain(s), fleet and/or sim hosting, donation Paypal account, and Discord ownership.
    • Members of the Conservatorship lose good standing when one of the following occurs:
      • The member fails to respond to Conservatorship communications within 72 hours via escalating means (Discord, then email, then telephone), when a response is required, and is not otherwise accounted for (e.g.: LOA);
      • The member is convicted by a Magistrate proceeding;
      • The member is removed from the Bravo Fleet Admiralty, which includes resigning once a removal discussion begins;
      • The member holds office in a competing Star Trek organization’s voting leadership;
      • A unanimous vote by the Conservatorship can override any or all of the above, and return a member to good standing.
  • The incumbent Bravo Fleet Commanding Officer sits on the Conservatorship as a representative of the Bravo Fleet Admiralty, but does not have a vote within the Conservatorship itself.
  • The Conservatorship may, as needed and by unanimous vote, temporarily add other members of the fleet to help facilitate its duties including, but not limited to: technical expertise on digital assets, legal counsel, interpretation of the Charter, etc.
  • No member of the Conservatorship will hold more than one real-world asset at once, except in extreme circumstances or unanimous agreement. Members of the Conservatorship who are appointed to the Bravo Fleet Admiralty must temporarily vacate the Conservatorship during their Bravo Fleet Admiralty terms.

Big changes to highlight: the assets being held are specifically listed, there are removal guidelines, and clarified that the sitting BFCO is merely a representative. We also made it so that removals require a choice by the Conservator: choosing to go AWOL, choosing to be naughty, choosing to return to the BFA and be naughty, or choosing leadership in another group over Bravo Fleet. There is a choice involved in every scenario that removes a Conservator. The BFA also built in a self-policing so that someone who is removed in this fashion can be returned to the Conservatorship immediately. The BFA also had an adjoining vote with this, and unanimously decided to make these conditions retroactive for all the people it would apply to, back to the beginning of Bravo Fleet; a true rarity in our group, but one that we hope highlights how strongly we feel that the Conservatorship should be the best of us with the best intentions of the fleet in mind.

The next change we made was to Article I, Section I under “Rights of the Membership”, where the following has now been added:

  • Every member, administrator, and owner of Bravo Fleet’s digital infrastructure has the right to be protected from legal liability. Members who violate the Bravo Fleet Legal Policy forfeit their membership in perpetuity. Violation of the Legal Policy includes but is not limited to: threatening real world legal action, repeated copyright infractions, or failure to comply with the Bravo Fleet Intellectual Property Policy.
    • When a member is removed in this fashion, the BFCO must immediately report it to the Magistrate for review. If the Magistrate concurs, no further action is taken. If the Magistrate disagrees, the removal is overturned.

This is essentially just putting into the Charter what we’ve been doing by practice for the past year. Over the past year, and the main driver for this addition is that we’ve been threatened to be sued, either as a group or the Admiralty or individual members, by former members who felt aggrieved for actions of one or more members of Bravo Fleet. We want to be clear: this is a legal liability that the Admiralty is not willing to take on itself, not willing to let the Conservatorship take on for simply holding our assets, or allow any member of the organization to suffer. The punishment is that we separate ourselves from you indefinitely in the only way we know how to. Bravo Fleet is a Star Trek club where our members come to have fun, not be threatened with some real-world legal action against them.

Hopefully, these are the last two changes we make to the Charter for a while, and as always if anyone has any questions do not hesitate to ask!