OOC: January 2020 Membership Meeting Minutes

—

by

Will
in

Hi all,

This is a summary of what was discussed at the Zodiac Fleet Membership Meeting earlier this month. In the very near future we will be having a vote regarding these ideas, until then here is a brief overview:

  1. We are planning on establishing a system of Fleet Awards for our players and community partners. What is important about these awards is they are for a player(s) and not the characters that are played. Some of the proposed commendations are:
    1. Christopher Pike Medal of Valor: The Christopher Pike Medal of Valor is an award granted to a member of the 16th Fleet for meritorious conduct or by providing exceptional leadership within the 16th Fleet. This award is provided to only one player per year and is awarded by the Fleet Commander in December after consideration of actions taken by all players within the year.
    2. Starfleet Medal of Commendation: The Starfleet Medal of Commendation is selected from the players awarded the Starfleet Medal of Achievement and is issued to 1 player for exceptional service within the year. The collected group of Game Masters of the 16th Fleet will review the recipients of the Starfleet Medal of Achievement and award this decoration in December of each year.
    3. Starfleet Medal of Achievement: The Starfleet Medal of Achievement is awarded to 1 player for exceptional service within the quarter. Recipients are nominated by a Game Master and will be discussed and voted upon by the collected group of Game Masters of the 16th Fleet. This award is issued in March, June, September, and December.
    4. Starfleet Gold Palm: The Starfleet Gold Palm is selected from the players awarded the Starfleet Silver Palm and is issued to the player who wrote what is considered the best post of the year. The collected group of Game Masters of the 16th Fleet will review the recipients of the Starfleet Gold Palm and will award this decoration in December of each year.
    5. Starfleet Silver Palm: The Starfleet Silver Palm is awarded to the player who wrote what is considered the best post of the quarter. Recipients are nominated by anyone and will be discussed and voted upon by the collected group of Game Masters of the 16th Fleet. This award is issued in March, June, September, and December.
    6. Presidential Unit Commendation: The Presidential Unit Commendation is selected from the games awarded the Unit Commendation and is issued to 1 game each year for exceptional activity, dedication to its players, and dedication to the mission of the 16th Fleet. The collected group of Game Masters of the 16th Fleet will review the recipients of the Unit Commendation and award this decoration in December of each year.
    7. Unit Commendation: The Unit Commendation is awarded to 1 game for exceptional activity, dedication to its players, and dedication to the mission of the 16th Fleet within the quarter. Recipients are nominated by a Game Master and will be discussed and voted upon by the collected group of Game Masters of the 16th Fleet. This award is issued in March, June, September, and December.
    8. Starfleet Medal of Honor: The Starfleet Medal of Honor is awarded to a player who has made a distinctive contribution to the community of the 16th Fleet by helping to build and/or strengthen the 16th Fleet community. Any player may be nominated for this award by another player. Nominations will be reviewed by the collective group of Game Masters for consideration.
    9. Starfleet Purple Star: The Starfleet Purple Star is awarded to a player who is no longer affiliated with the 16th Fleet for contributions made to the group prior to their departure. This award is also issued to any player whom has passed away while a member of the 16th Fleet.
    10. Starfleet Star Cross: The Starfleet Star Cross is awarded to a player who has made a distinctive contribution to the 16th fleet by marketing 16th Fleet games and services. Any player may be nominated for this award by another player. Nominations will be reviewed by the collective group of Game Masters for consideration.
    11. Service Ribbon(s): Service Ribbons are awarded to players for a specific amount of time. The proposed Service Ribbons are:
      1. 6 Month
      2. 1 Year
      3. 5 Years
      4. 10 Years
      5. 15 Years
      6. 20 Years
      7. 25 Years
    12. If these are voted in, the first group will be in March 2020.
  2. Zodiac Fleet is officially announcing a logo contest to begin on February 1, 2020. The logo contest will be in place to design a new logo representing the future of our organization under our new name: Zodiac Fleet.
    1. The official guidelines of the award are as follows:
      1. An entrant must be a current Player, Assistant Game Master, or Game Master of a Zodiac Fleet Game.
      2. Individuals or Teams may submit up to five (5) entries for consideration.
      3. The submitted entry must be original and should avoid copyrighted or trademarked images (excluding derivatives from the Star Trek Universe – i.e. Starfleet Logo, UFP Logo – or genres of play for Zodiac Fleet) and adult/inappropriate content.
      4. An entry submission into this contest constitutes permission to use the winner’s name in acknowledgment of their efforts. Entrant accepts that there will be no financial compensation for the submission when submitting an entry.
      5. All submissions become property of Zodiac Fleet and may be used and/or altered as needed for promotional need.
    2. The contest goes into effect on Feburary 1, 2020.
  3. Zodiac Fleet has primarily two timeframes for RPG Groups. We would like to rename them to the following:
    1. The 24th Century Task Group, currently known as Continuing Mission, would be renamed Task Group Phoenix.
    2. The 25th Century Task Group, currently known as Continuing Voyages, would be renamed Task Group Titan.
    3. Each Task Group would have a Task Group Mentor to help with leadership and development over the Task Group. The Task Group Mentor will have the following responsibilities:
      1. Work with the Fleet Commander to develop a positive simming experience for participants of the Task Group.
      2. Work with the Task Group Game Masters to develop quality storylines including crossovers.
      3. Work with the Task Group Game Masters to resolve problems that may develop requiring an outside third party.
      4. The Task Group Mentor will be selected from within the Task Group he/she represents and will be nominated from the Game Masters within the Task Group.
        1. If he/she accepts nomination a vote will take place on the Zodiac Fleet Discord to last one week to appoint the Mentor for 1 year.
          1. The nominee has the right to refuse nomination.
          2. In the event of a tie the Fleet Commander will cast the tie breaking vote.
        2. A candidate must be nominated by someone else and will not, under normal circumstances, be permitted to nominate his/herself.
          1. In the event of no nominations after one week a person may nominate his/herself.
          2. If no nominee if found the Fleet Commander will appoint a Task Group Mentor.
        3. It has been recommended that the Mentor not hold a leadership role in another Simming Organization to avoid conflict of interest.
  4. Based upon discussion it has been recommended that Zodiac Fleet establish basic standards of participation for its member simulations.
    1. The proposed minimum standards will be:
      1. 5 Active Players.
      2. A minimum of 2 unique posts a month.
    2. Games not meeting this threshold will be marked as “Under Development” or “Inactive” after discussion with the Game Master responsible for the Game.
  5. Although Zodiac Fleet is looking to grow, we want to have quality games within our group. Until all of the existing sims are Active, we will be circumspect in bringing new sims into the Fleet. As of our meeting date a moratorium is now in effect on acceptance of new games until our existing simulations are active.
    1. Games that are currently in discussion to join Zodiac Fleet and/or were under development at the time of the meeting are exempt for this and may still join if interested.
    2. The Fleet Commander will be changing our user profile with our Webhost Service to allow for unlimited subdomains and databases when our contract is renewed in March 2020.
  6. It has been proposed that Fleet Membership Meetings move from Monthly to Bimonthly meetings with the following schedule:
    1. March 14, 2020
    2. May 9, 2020
    3. July 11, 2020
    4. September 12, 2020
    5. November 14, 2020

We will bring these items to a vote in the near future on the Zodiac Fleet Discord.