Bravo Fleet
Hello, Bravo Fleet!
Each year Bravo Fleet Command makes an important decision regarding the future of our organization: the appointment, or reappointment, of a Bravo Fleet Commanding Officer. Because of how influential the position is to our community, anyone who holds the office sits for only one year at a time and is subject to renewal. This is an opportunity to assess our organization’s health and decide a path for the year ahead. This decision not only determines our next leader, but also how our community will continue to grow and expand.
Two weeks ago, Vince spoke with Bravo Fleet Command and proposed a roadmap for the next year. We carefully considered his proposal, and each member of Bravo Fleet Command had the opportunity to ask questions and discuss our future path. In addition to planning ahead, we also reflected on the past year of Bravo Fleet under Vince’s leadership. As mentioned in a previous report, Bravo Fleet’s membership grew by over 35% in the past year alone. We also introduced new activities for our members, including over 100 competitions, two fleet-wide writing events, and a new system for recognizing time spent playing video games! We’ve certainly come a long way since 2019, and all of it was factored into our decision.
I’m happy to announce that Bravo Fleet Command, as per Article IV, Section 4 of the Bravo Fleet Charter, voted to renew Vince’s term! The vote was unanimous, with eight affirmative votes and one abstention. Vince will serve out another year as Bravo Fleet Commanding Officer!
Congratulations, Vince!
Our Future
As I mentioned earlier, figuring out our plan for the next year is the most important part of this process. Below are some of the highlights from that discussion and Vince’s proposal.
The Bravo Fleet Management System
The most important thing on our short-term agenda is the next version of the Bravo Fleet Management System (BFMS). So much of our offerings hinge on a feature-rich BFMS, and we’ve been working on expanding functionality of our current system for the past two years.
Last year, we attempted to develop a brand new system outside of WordPress. Sadly, seeing this project to completion would have taken too much of our time, money, and resources. We needed a solution that would fix many of our immediate issues with the current version BFMS, and Vince and I realized that the easiest way to make this happen was to continue building upon our current system. I’ve been working, on and off, over the past few months to build the additional features we’d need – and I’m happy to say that we’re almost there! It won’t have everything we want, but it’ll certainly provide us with everything we need to streamline many of our current activities.
I’d also like to take a moment and share some previews of the new BFMS. If you are a Bravo Fleet Supporter, these will be familiar to you. If not, please consider supporting Bravo Fleet, and you’ll be the first to see some previews of our plans! Keep in mind that the mockups below aren’t final, and may change when the new version comes out. It also uses a lot of placeholder content that will chance once we release it!
We don’t have a timeframe for the release yet, but I’ll keep you updated as we get closer to a final version! Clicking on each box below will allow you to preview the full-size images.
The Next Fleet Action
Immediately after the new version of BFMS is released, we’ll launch another Fleet Action (similar to the Raptor’s Wings event we hosted last year). Drafts of the storyline are complete, and members of Bravo Fleet Command are already brainstorming ideas for competitions! Vince gave a small hint in one of his previous announcements, and it’s only fair that I get to do the same. 
Long Term Goals
While Fleet Actions are yearly fleet-wide events, there are plans to organize events on a smaller scale for each Task Force. These events would be similar to Fleet Actions, both driving canon storylines and providing activities like competitions, and would hopefully happen 2-3 times a year. Once we finish the next Flet Action, Task Force staff will start working on more events so keep an eye out for those!
We’ve also spoken, in very general terms, about expanding offerings for each user’s main character. This could include, for example, a Klingon character with a Klingon bird-of-prey fiction ship and accompanying Klingon Empire ranks! This feature is still in the early planning stages, and we have a lot of other projects to finish before we’ll be ready to tell you more!
