The Articles of Organization

a proposed constitution for STF.

Article III, Ranks and Recruiting.

Section A, Ranks, Promotions and Demotions.
This section details the ranks available for advancement in STF and the procedure for changing an officer's rank. Note that all changes in rank must be reported to the Personnel Director as soon as possible. The abbreviations given here are just one STF standard, and are not exclusively "official."

p1. Cadet (Cadt).: All new Academy students are immediately given the rank of Cadet, which they keep until graduation from the Academy.
p2. Ensign (Ens).: Ensign is the lowest rank held by a crewman on a ship or starbase. All new recruits are immediately promoted to Ensign simply by registering with the Personnel Director and reporting for duty on their new ship.
p3. Lieutenant Junior-Grade (LtJG).: Any CO can promote an Ensign to Lieutenant Junior-Grade, subject to veto by the Fleet Commander. In addition, all Cadets are automatically promoted to Lieutenant Junior-Grade by the Academy Commandant upon graduation from the Academy (see Article V, Section E).
p4. Lieutenant (Lt).: Lieutenant is the rank immediately above Lieutenant Junior-Grade. Any CO can promote any Lieutenant Junior-Grade under his command to Lieutenant, subject to veto by the Fleet Commander.
p5. Lieutenant-Commander (LtC).: Lieutenant-Commander follows Lieutenant on the rank scale. The rules for promotion are the same as those for Lieutenant.
p6. Commander (Cmdr).: Any CO can promote a Lieutenant-Commander to Commander with the approval of the FComm.
p7. Captain (Capt).: A superior in the specific chain of command holding the ranks of Commodore or Admiral can promote a Commander to a Captain, subject to veto by the President or Vice-President.
p8. Fleet Captain (FCpt).: Any Admiral superior in the specific chain of command can promote a Captain to Fleet Captain, subject to veto by the Vice-President or President.
p9. Commodore (Cdre).: Commodore is the lowest rank in the "Admiralty" and only the President may promote a Fleet Captain to Commodore, and normally with the counsel of the others in the Admiralty.
p10. Admiral (Adm).: Admiral is the highest regular rank in STF. Only the President may promote Commodores to Admiral.
p11. Fleet Admiral (FA) and Vice-Fleet Admiral (VFA).: FA is the rank, used only for RPG purposes, bestowed upon the sitting President for the duration of his rule; Vice-Fleet Admiral, VFA, is the corresponding rank for the Vice-President. These ranks are only used in clubwide RPGs or when giving orders to STF RPG characters in an RPG context.
p12. Out-of-Sequence Promotions.: All officers' promotions must follow the order listed above. Exception: The President of the Club may skip ranks in promoting an officer (e.g. promoting an Ensign to Commander) if there is good cause (e.g., the Ensign is an experienced officer in another club who has applied for membership and the President thinks the Ensign's strengths would be best utilized at a higher level of command). Additionally, no officer may be promoted twice within one six-week timespan.
p13. Demotions.: A "demotion" is the opposite of a "promotion"; only the President may strip a member of any rank, and only with good cause. If the President feels it is necessary, he may skip ranks (an out-of-sequence Demotion) and demote an officer all the way down to Ensign. No officer shall be demoted to cadet unless that officer gives up RPG duties and becomes a full-time Academy student.
p14. Dismissals.: If a member is acting extremely rude or malicious, the President may, with the support of every superior officer to the member, dismiss that member from STF. (Example of "every superior officer": If an Eng-1 is acting up, the Prez must have the approval of the VP, the FComm, the AFComm, the CO, the XO, and the CE assigned to that Eng-1's ship. If it's a CO who's acting up, the Prez only needs approval of the Vice-President, Fleet Commander, and Assistant Fleet Commander.)

Section B, Admission of New Members and Readmission of Old Members.
This section details the admission and readmission protocols within the club, to be administered by the Personnel Department.

p1. Recruiting.: The Personnel Department shall be responsible for conducting all recruiting activity (i.e. advertising the club elsewhere on Prodigy, the Internet, or any other media).
p2. Admission of New Members.: The Personnel Department shall maintain a subject in STF Command for new recruits to voice their desire to join the club. The Personnel Department, though use of its Personnel Listings, shall assign all new recruits to a position on a ship (with the rank of Ensign) or, if the recruit so desires, a class at the Academy (with the rank of Cadet).
p3. Readmission of Retired Members.: Any retired member with a rank equal to or lesser than Commander shall be allowed to re-join STF at the same rank at which he left. Members who retired with ranks of Captain or Fleet Captain shall be readmitted at the rank of Commander. Members who retired with the ranks of Commodore or Admiral shall be readmitted as Captains.
p4. Readmission of Nonretired Former Members.: Members who went AWOL are considered "nonretired" and becuase they failed to notify STF of their resignations, the readmission procedure for Retired Members is followed but with a one-rank penalty. Thus, if a member left STF as a Commander or Captain, he would re-enter as a Lieutenant-Commander. If he left as an Admiral, he would be granted the rank of Commander upon re-enlistment.

Section C, Commissioning and Decommissioning Ships.
This section lays out the procedure for commissioning new ships and retiring from the service old ones. Both procedures are duties of the President, although he may delegate these powers to the Vice-President on a case-by-case basis if he so desires.

p1. Commissioning New Ships.: No new ship shall be commissioned, nor any old ship recommissioned, if in the same fleet as the commissioning there are less than six positions filled in any ship. The President has the final say, within Constitutional limit, on when new ships are commissioned, but the President must consider commissioning a new ship if "Dash-Twos" are employed in more than one department in a fleet.
p2. Classes of New Ships.: All new ships in STF shall be of classes designed by STF members. Thus: ships from the Star Trek TV series are not acceptable. The Engineering Department is in charge of drawing up new ship plans. It is the President's decision which classes should be used on new ships, but he must decide on a class already approved by the ED.
p3. Names of New Ships.: It is the President's duty to name all ships being commissioned for RPG use. In order to maintain a "motif" in the naming of ships, a ship designer may submit through the ED a list of ship names appropriate to his class (as with other ED matters, this is subject to veto by the ED leadership). The President must choose from this list, if one exists.
p4. Decommissioning Ships.: It is the President's responsibility to decommission ships if the membership is spread thin as a result of membership losses. In the event that this becomes necessary, the following rules apply: The President may not decommission any ship with more than five active members. The President is required to decommission one of the three least-active ships in the club. No ship may be decommissioned within one month of the commissioning of another ship in that fleet.