Posted by Fleet Captain Adam W. (Former Ruler of the Club) in Question regarding the requirements to serve as Fcomm or AFcomm

Posted by Fleet Captain Geoff Joosten (Gamemaster Director) in Question regarding the requirements to serve as Fcomm or AFcomm

Posted by Vice Fleet Admiral James Sinclair (Vice President / FComm, Foremost Fleet) in Question regarding the requirements to serve as Fcomm or AFcomm
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Purely based on conversations with a couple of people and observation over the last little while I have a question regarding the current requirements for FComm and AFComm appointments.

Currently it is a requirement that the Fcomm and Afcomm be either current or ex COs or XOs of a ship In the fleet in question. Now that has been the case for a number of years. Yet with the mergers of fleets and movement of ships over the past few years it’s seems like that rule is no longer fit for purpose as many people in the club today can effectively fill the requirements as a pervious XO or CO of a ship that has moved into a new fleet.

This has brought two separate thoughts to mind, one that is pertinent to this post and one that isn’t (do our fleet structures need a revamp).

The pertinent one is honestly do we need this requirement as it is worded at all now or should it change to simply be a current or ex XO or CO in the club as this is what we effectively have in practice or something else.

Cale
Ponderous Panda

I think the expectation that Fleet Commanders would create culture was exactly backwards; “culture” tends be more successful when it emerges bottom-up instead of being imposed top down. The other reason for doing it, that you’d know about people in fleets that you’re actively serving (or served) in, I think is moot because I suspect the vast majority of Fleet Commanders don’t understand that it’s implicitly expected that they and their assistant between them read every single post in every ship in their fleet and be familiar with it (which is something we should emphasize and maybe make an explicit requirement, but that’s another discussion).

That said, if we are going to change the rule to eliminate the prior fleet experience requirement, I think it is a poor idea to merely let any ex-CO or ex-XO become a Fleet Commander or Assistant Fleet Commander.

There are many former COs and former XOs in the club, and the way the vast majority of them become “former” is that their life changes and they are rendered unable to commit time required to do the job properly. Usually this means they leave for a while (where “a while” can be months or years), and then eventually come back. The problem is, many people who do come back make the mistake of assuming that they can jump right into the same level of commitment that they had right before they left, and what ends up happening is that they quit the club again or scale back their involvement after only being here a month or two. So we end up creating a new staffing problem in response to trying to solve a staffing problem (because we wouldn’t be looking at an ex-CO or ex-XO unless we had some kind of shortage, right? Passing over people who are active and present would be kind of a bad idea because we’d be losing opportunities to develop those people further, unless there actually was a shortage).

So, I suggest that, if we go down this road of removing the fleet requirement, we also add an additional rule that regardless of what positions the FComm/AFComm candidate holds currently, their membership must have been active for the last 6 months. That’s a generally good rule for any position of significant authority, actually, and it’s one that I started using when I was President because I was tired of having returning members flake out of CO spots.

– Joe

So, any current CO or XO or any ex CO or XO who has had active membership for the last 6 months?

Cale

Correct.

Joe

I agree that the rule is outdated and does not do anything save make the selection process a bit more convoluted than necessary. And I think the idea of a mandated time-frame of consistent activity within the club is a solid one; and I think six months is a good place to start the discussion, at the minimum.

James

I agree with a lot of this. Once “The Purge” happened the provenance and pedigree of ships go convoluted. Right now I don’t believe that I am eligible to serve as an FComm or AFComm in any of the main fleets despite having done it for several terms. The Endy was my ship in 5, she was decommissioned then recommissioned later in the academy. I was XO on SB-202 which was decommissioned. Luckily 5 was kept mostly intact as Meridian so maybe I can? I am not sure. I would need an otherwise competent authority to decide on that....

Anyway I think that as our membership has shrunk some, and fleet identity isn’t as important as it once ways, I would say CO or XO in the fleet should be given preference, followed by former COs or XOs. I would just encourage some sort of wording that excludes former COs or XOs that were removed for cause.

Geoff

Geoff, you haven’t lost any eligibility that you once had. If you were a CO at one point in Fleet 5, you’re still eligible there. It doesn’t matter what happened to the ship since.

I don’t believe I have any objection to Joe’s suggestion. I would however object to wording excluding CO’s and XO’s who were removed for cause. There’s a lot of different situations where people lose positions. In my opinion such a rule would exclude some who should not be excluded.

Adam

We could add an exception clause to the wording. That would at least give those you are referring to, Adam, a route to petition for exception to the rule. But I do think we need to ensure that those who were found to be too challenged (in whatever form or fashion) in a CO / XO role don’t find themselves in a similar situation where it could effect an entire fleet.

James