| Revision History | |
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| Revision 1 | 8 March 2006 |
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Added to the Library. |
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Table of Contents
Jen Herr
Ryan Harper
Larry Garfield (Librarian)
John Robert Lucas
Jack Dipper (Academy Commandant
Colin Wyers
Geoff Joosten (AFComm-5)
Brandon Irvine (AFComm-3)
Amanda Noon
Catherine Potterton
Andrew Robinson (FComm-5
AQSG approached me with this idea. I spoke with Ryan through email first, and he told me a lot about his club. Then we got together on IM and discussed this idea, and more about our clubs. Though the two clubs have their differences, I believe we share a similar approach to Star Trek role playing.
While looking through their site, I was impressed with how good it looked. It is well maintained and easy to navigate, which means to me that they care about their club and take pride in their role playing.
Our membership numbers have decreased over the past few years. Though the cause is hard to determine, it is clear that we need to advertise and bring in more members if we want to keep our current number of role playing environments.
STF is very good at what it does (bulletin board RPGs), but we have no experience in offering other types of role playing environments. Through previous discussion, it was decided that being able to offer such environments would boost our club's value, but we would rather partner with a club that specializes in other environments than start up new ones ourselves.
The leader of another role playing club emailed me about two weeks ago with an interesting proposal that I would like us to seriously consider. I will address his club more specifically in the Discussion section.
The proposal is to form an alliance of some sort between our two groups. We would call it something like "Starfleet Alliance" or "Star Trek Simming Alliance". Both groups would be members of this Alliance. Each group remains completely individual within themselves... that is, we both retain our identies, our governments, our way of doing things... the only thing that changes is that we're forming an Alliance with this other group, which includes a governing body of its own.
The suggestion for this governing body was that each group sends a certain number of reps that would form a council or senate, and they would basically oversee this Alliance. Any decisions that the council wants to make would fall to the leaderships of the individual groups to be voted on or decided on with whatever process we decide. Anything that affects the Alliance would need to pass all three bodies to be approved. Either group could propose something to the Alliance as well, and the process would be the same, requiring all three bodies to agree before it passes.
There are obviously many things to consider about this proposal. Why is it necessary? What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks? What about this group?
I believe this would address the problems listed in the Problem section. The club is mostly Play by Email. It is well established (started in the mid 90s) with 200-300 members. They operate on a similar fleet system that we do, though their government operates differently. However, with an Alliance with this group, I believe we only stand to gain members, while being able to offer a service that many of our members may appreciate.
Aside from the member benefits, and the benefits we gain by being able to be more flexible and offer more services to our members, I believe the idea itself offers potential benefits. If the Alliance works out, we could look to expand it and include other types of role playing groups. Such expansion would again help advertise us and bring in new members from different types of role playing systems.
We could discuss sharing resources between our two groups, which has the potential to create stronger resources with a larger membership pool helping out to maintain and create them.
Since we would be a founding member of the Alliance, we would have a large say in how it is moulded and developed. We help shape it to be what we want it to be, instead of just joining another Alliance for these same benefits.
A potential drawback I see is that this Alliance might become too political. The LAST thing I want to do is create more political red tape for this club. I think that if we keep this in mind though, we can avoid this in the founding of the Alliance.
The group itself is here: http://www.aqsg.org/index.html
I am not advertising for them, but I'm showing you who is interested in partnering with us. They pride themselves on strong role playing, and seem to be a straight forward group from what I can tell. They have seven fleets which include star bases and ships, and a budding Star gate sim. Their government is composed of the seven fleet commanders, which I think is lead by the three senior most. Their political process is far less complicated than ours though, and I believe COs have the majority of the legislative rights over their ships.
I've spoken with their leader for a few hours, and he would be happy to answer any questions we might have about this idea, or his club. If anyone would like to speak with him directly let me know and I'll set you in contact.
I know there are probably 1000 things that I haven't thought of in regards to this idea, so please, discuss away! I look forward to hearing the thoughts of the club.
Introduced himself as part of the Alpha Quadrant Sim Group. He discussed his views on the possible problems (mentioned in Jens post) which could arise and volunteered himself to answer any questions members had. He later replied to the idea of a banner exchange by commenting on his clubs past experiences with Banner exchanges that haven't worked out. He expressed that there are many different views of ' Alliance' and it would be an agreement both clubs decided the terms on however banner exchange and sister clubs were a little too informal. He again responded to elaborate on what the alliance would entail as he saw it and explained how each club in-fact would remain separate but unified at the same time.
His initial reaction was; "a governmental alliance with another organization is premature." And suggested that rather than beginning with an Alliance to start with a banner exchange. Said that it was better to get to know each other first before committing to anything. Also asked what sort of proposals? What sorts of things would require this "Trek Club UN"?
Agreed with Larry's banner exchange idea and suggested re-visiting the alliance a few months later after seeing how the exchange went. He pointed out in a later post that the Alliance seemed premature and emphasised once again that the exchange idea was better.
Again agreed with Larry and suggested that the two clubs should work up a relationship before agreeing to merge/share resources on a trial basis of a couple of months then goes on from there.
Pointed out that what Jack suggested first was in-fact what was the intended course of action however in a more organised manner.
Acknowledged Jen's response.
Agrees with Jack.
Responds to Larry's and Jack's concerns, saying there are different types of alliances.
Provides some tips about posting.
Posted a few questions on the Alliance idea in order to clarify certain points before he offered any other opinions.
Expresses concern about an alliance becoming political.
Responds to Colin that AQSG approached her with the idea of an alliance.
Interested in what the other club has to offer.
Expresses a desire to move slowly and provides more posting tips. Requests what problem we're trying to solve.
“"I thought we had agreed to try a banner exchange with other clubs first. Wasn't that why we developed a new Logo?"”
Expresses concern about sharing resources and member ranks.
Elaborates on Cat's questions about the mechanics of the alliance and why we're entering into it.
Agrees with Jack.
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Alliance, proposed final comments Well Command surely seems in favour of taking things slowly, and though I might personally disagree, I realize that it is probably in our best interests to follow popular demand on this subject. So if it pleases the club, we will enter a banner exchange with Ryan's group and revisit the topic of an Alliance at a later date... at least a month from now, but before the end of the term, depending on how things go. I would like to thank everyone who expressed their views. This discussion has remained civil and polite and I'm sure I'm not the only one who appreciates that. ;) I'd also like to thank Ryan for taking the time to come in and share his side of the idea. Feel free to answer the questions that still remain of course, and if anyone has any other questions for him, let me know and I can give you his contact information! |
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| --Jen Herr | ||
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