2013 Address

			Member Resources

State of the Federation Address StarBase 118 Group History 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2009 2008 2004 2003 2002 2001 Edit this nav 2013 State of the Federation Address Stardate: 239003.10 (10th March 2013) Valued friends and fleet-mates, Later this year, our community will turn 19 years old. For nearly two decades we have been a creative outlet for writers everywhere, and a place where people can come together under the umbrella of peace and exploration that Gene Roddenberry dreamed of. With each year our organization becomes stronger and more sustainable. It is great to look back at where we were when each of us joined, and where we are now. We never stop paving the way for others to follow. May we all continue to blaze the trail for decades to come. - Fleet Captain Andrus Jaxx A Look Back at 2012 Each year the members of our fleet look for ways to improve. Each Captain and Team Facilitator set goals for the upcoming year, and reflect on the goals set in the previous year. This had always served to keep those goals updated and in the forefront of our minds. Over the past couple of years there has been a push for higher expectations. Each year, the members of our fleet work to meet and sometimes exceed those expectations. When looking at our vessels, this year was rock solid. We began with eight ships in our fleet. In the SOTFA last year, we commented on how each ship was new, as well as the new CO’s in command of some of them. This year, there have only been a few changes. The crew of the USS Mercury welcomed a new CO, Captain Aron Kells. The crew of StarBase 118 Ops transitioned to the command of Captain Kali Nicholotti. Volunteers from around the fleet were taken to launch the USS Apollo under Fleet Captain Andrus Jaxx. The crew of the USS Drake welcomed a new CO, former XO Captain William Rogers. Volunteers from around the fleet were taken to launch the USS Vigilant under Captain Diego Herrera(formerly known as Tallis Rhul) We were able to launch the USS Vigilant, meeting our goal of nine total ships/installations. Simming was again, much stronger in 2012 than it was the previous year, despite a slight dip at the end of the year. As a whole, participation is quite good across the board: A continuing goal is to get 60% of our First Officers to the rank of Commander. Unfortunately we were unable to sustain this goal due to various circumstances. Currently two of nine First Officers are at the rank of Commander or above. This will be a continuing goal as we look forward to 2013. Last year we talked about how we have worked to increase our exposure and search engine rankings. This was a goal to move our community to the “A-list.” We accomplished amazing things in 2011, and we are happy to report that 2012 was even better. We were able to accomplish the following: Continued to increase our rankings with the search engines. As a result, we have destroyed last years improvement in visitors, with an increase of 319% for unique visitors. Overall traffic has increased by 277% for all visitors. StarBase 118 Ops won the Simming League’s “Excellence in Prolificness” in the Tournament of Simulations. Captain Diego Herrera won The Simming Encyclopedia’s “Simming Prize.” This has been a combined effort by many teams in our fleet. The Publicity Team has done a great job of promoting our community. The News Team has done a great job at keeping the content on our site fresh and continuously flowing. The Podcast Team has re-launched and done a great job at getting our name out to a broader group of people. And once they are in the door, the Training Team has continued to excel in ushering new members into our community. As a result of all the hard work of these Teams, he have done the following: In 2011 we saw 147 applications to join our fleet. In 2012 our goal was a 5% increase for a total of 154 applications. We crushed that by hitting an even 200 applications. The Training Team has the goal of a 50% pass rate. Through the hard work of our trainers, we were able to beat this goal by attaining a pass rate of 66%, with 132 graduates. This is two consecutive years of beating this goal. Ships in the fleet received an average of 14.66 new ensigns over the course of the year, as follows: StarBase 118 Ops: 24 Tiger-A: 21 Apollo: 18 (Launched in February) Discovery-C: 16 Embassy: 15 Mercury: 15 Avandar: 11 Drake: 9 Vigilant: 3 (Launched in December) Retention: A tracking system was put in place for 2012. It is still not as detailed as we would like, but has improved in 2012. From the members placed in 2012 our ships have been able to retain the following: Vigilant: 3 of 3 (100%) Apollo: 10 out of 18 (55.5%) Avandar: 5 of 11 (45.4%) Drake: 4 of 9 (44.4%) Tiger-A: 9 of 21 (42.8%) Mercury: 5 of 15 (33.3%) Discovery-C: 5 of 16 (31.2%) StarBase 118 Ops: 7 of 24 (29.1%) Embassy: 3 of 15 (20%) Publicity Team: The 2012 goal was to increase our application rate by 5% for a goal of 154. This was shattered with 200 total applications. We did increase the number of members on the team to 12. (Special thanks to Captain Nicholotti for her continued work on our search engine rankings.) Training Team: The 2012 goal was to maintain a 50% pass rate in the academy. The pass rate for 2012 came in at 66% of cadets that entered. The leadership of the team was also restructured in 2012 to accommodate a training officer feedback and evaluation system with the addition of a second Deputy Commandant(Fleet Captain Andrus Jaxx). Command Exam Refit: In 2012 the written exams and process to reach Commander were amended to increase the quality of our command officers. A committee was formed to look at revamping the process from Commander to Captain. It is being examined by the Executive Council. Placement Speed: We have a goal set to decrease the amount of time new ensigns have to wait between graduation and placement on their vessel. In 2011 the process was still taking 36-48 hours. In 2012 we are still right where we were, and will continue to work toward lowering the amount of time our new officers are in limbo. Mentoring Program: By now all ships have implemented a mentoring program on their vessel. Species Development Committee: We hit the goal for 2012 to introduce six original species for play; introducing nine new original species, and twenty-eight profile rewrites for the Intelligent Lifeform Index. Top Sims Contest: We implemented a new judging system that starts in 2013. This will ease concerns of ballot stuffing and will hopefully increase participation fleet-wide. Writing Challenge: Participation for 2012 increased over the previous year. News Team: Part time contributors were added to help boost the flow of news to our main site. Podcast Team: The team relaunched in July of 2012 and produced 5 full length segments and one special segment for the launching of the USS Vigilant. Blazing the Trail in 2013 As we look forward to 2013, we are happy to announce that the Executive Council has been staffed to its full capacity once more with the addition of Fleet Captain Andrus Jaxx. He joined at the end of 2012 and is the fifth member of the EC, vacating the position of Captain’s Council Magistrate. Captain Della Vetri (female character, male writer) remains the Captain At Large into 2013. With the year end addition of the USS Vigilant, we look forward to 2013 and set a goal of launching two ships. This would bring our total to 11 vessels. This is a bold goal, but with increased application flow and a focus on retention, it is a very realistic one. Retention will continue to be a key focus of the fleet. As applications and visitors to our site grow, we can only do the same if we are able to retain our current members. Each command staff of our vessels will keep an eye out on this goal throughout the course of the year. The sequel to J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, will be hitting theaters this spring. When the first reboot came out we saw a huge jump in applications and members. We expect the same for this May. With us looking at 2013 we hope to hit the following recruiting goals: Publicity Team: Increase our application rate another 10% over 2012′s projection to 170 applications. Training Team: Maintain a pass rate of 60% or higher. Each team in our community has submitted a set of goals for 2013. Their top goals are listed below: News Team: Refocus on our “news cycle” — which is inward-focused on group events and occurrences — while ensuring that feature articles and columns are primarily about StarBase 118 members and events. Increase our number of regular columns to three for each month. Writing Challenge: Create a process for opening the challenge to non-members, and create a plan for finding participants beyond our group. Species Development Committee: Write another five entries to the ILI, and update another 20 species profiles. Publicity Team: Increase team membership to five dedicated members. Increase social media skills of team members and work on social media channels for recruitment. The (Image) Collective: Create a bank of Facebook images so that we always have at least three images available for posting, and at least one posted a week. Monthly IRC Chats: Track basic stats of chats each month, and increase number of participants — on average — 20% from March to December. Training Team: Ensure each training team member who has not completed their requirements gets at least one CO report every six months. Featured Bio Team: Continue to streamline the process of the contest so that we minimize “lag time” between rounds to 2 weeks or less. Department of Veteran Affairs: Create wiki page for the team and three new articles to help address common issues faced by members. Podcast Team: Eliminate scripted hosting for a more natural flow, and deploy at least eight more podcasts before the end of the year. The command staff of each ship around the fleet also submit their goals for the year. While there are some ships with many goals, the main areas of focus in 2013 will be: Moving quality candidates into command roles Increasing sim quality and quantity Increasing involvement in the Top Sims Contest and Writing Challenge Retaining new members In 2012 we set a goal to regularly check in with both Commanding Officers and facilitators of each group, to see how they are progressing with their goals. We were unable to consistently do this last year. For 2013 we will again look at checking in at various points throughout the year with each team and ship to see how they are progressing in the pursuit of their goals and offer any guidance or assistance we can. With the continued popularity of Star Trek Online, and the new movie only a couple months away, we expect another stellar year in 2013. We have already built up a great momentum as we approach the release date. We hope to be able to ride the successes of the movie to strengthen our fleet. Whenever we face a movie release it will inevitably increase traffic and membership. We will continue to work toward hitting our goals and adding quality members to our community, and keeping them. As we close this year’s State of the Federation Address, the Executive Council would like to thank everyone for their continued participation and contributions to our community. We have always been lucky enough to share something really special. As we overcome many challenges, new ones pop up on our radar. Never stop aspiring to improve. Together we will continue to be the best Star Trek community on the internet. Thank you, everyone, for all you do for us, as well as yourselves. We would not be who we are without great members like you. As always, we look forward to another great year of simming and friendship! - The UFOP: StarBase 118 Executive Council Fleet Stats At present, the fleet consists of the following vessels: USS Apollo, Achilles Class: Fleet Captain Andrus Jaxx USS Avandar, Luna Class: Captain Della Vetri USS Discovery-C, Sovereign Class: Captain Tyr Waltas USS Drake, Miranda Class: Captain William Rogers Duronis II Embassy, Planet-based Embassy: Fleet Captain Toni Turner USS Mercury, Oracle Class: Captain Aron Kells USS Tiger-A, Prometheus Class: Fleet Captain Sidney Riley StarBase 118 Operations, Trojan Class: Captain Kalianna Nicholotti USS Vigilant, Intrepid Class: Captain Diego Herrera The Executive Council: Fleet Admiral Tristan Wolf – Magistrate Fleet Captain Idril Mar – Senior Member Fleet Captain Sidney Riley – Junior Member Fleet Captain Toni Turner – Junior Member Fleet Captain Andrus Jaxx – Junior Member Captain Della Vetri – Captain At Large The Captain’s Council: Captain Kalianna Nicholotti – Magistrate, Active CO Fleet Captain Sidney Riley – Active CO Fleet Captain Toni Turner – Active CO Fleet Captain Andrus Jaxx – Active CO Captain Della Vetri – Active CO Captain Aron Kells – Active CO Captain Diego Herrera – Active CO Captain William Rogers – Active CO Captain Tyr Waltas – Active CO Fleet Captain Idril Mar – Retired CO Captain Mal Avatar – Retired CO Captain Ben Walker – Retired CO Captain Samuel Perkins – Retired CO Captain Quinn Reynolds – Retired CO Captain’s Council Non-Voting Observers: Commander Tal Tel-ar Commander Arden Cain Commander Liam Frost Lt. Colonel David Whale LtCmdr. Leo Handley-Page LtCmdr. Darius Clack LtCmdr. Marcus Dickens LtCmdr. Raj Blueheart LtCmdr. Alucard Vess LtCmdr. Viktor Lanius LtCmdr. Velana

	REV SD 239111.28