BABYL OPTIONS: -*- rmail -*- Version: 5 Labels: Note: This is the header of an rmail file. Note: If you are seeing it in rmail, Note: it means the file has no messages in it.  1,, Mail-from: From popserver Sat Jul 21 01:58:59 GMT 1995 X-POP3-Rcpt: paradis@netrail Return-Path: Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:33:40 -0400 From: Msmith7735@aol.com To: Subject: IC Report 1 of 5 *** EOOH *** X-POP3-Rcpt: paradis@netrail Return-Path: Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:33:40 -0400 From: Msmith7735@aol.com To: Subject: IC Report 1 of 5 To: All Region 7 Commanding Officers Subject: Report on International Conference Greetings to all. I trust that this letter finds all of you in good health and enjoying the summer. As many of you know, I represented Region 7 at the International Conference (IC) held recently at DragonCon/NASFIC in Atlanta, Georgia. Folks, I'll be blunt. It was pretty bad. STARFLEET took what I personally believe to be a few steps backward this weekend. However, I'll touch on that in just a few moments. I'd first like to take the time to thank several individuals without, whom without their presence, I don't know if I would have survived the weekend, both emotionally and spiritually. Fleet Captain Sashi German (Thagard), Captain Shirley Weaver (Alpha Centauri), Commanders Lisa Paradis-Berkenbilt (Athena), Beth and Steve Mauch (Thagard), Michael Klufas (Avenger) and Lieutenant Commander Rhonda Green (Thagard), helped me tremendously over the weekend, and I thank them for their friendship, support and counsel over the long and arduous weekend. Region 7 service Commendations will be issued to all the aforementioned. I was originally going to take the notes from Fleet Captain German, who attended the Admiralty Board meetings under her office as Deputy Chief of Staff, Region 7 and my official note-taker, condense her notes, and produce the report for the region. However, after reading her notes, and taking into account her background as a network news journalist, I've decided to take her final notes and forward them to you for your use. Please read them, pass them on to your crews, and if you have any questions, feel free to forward them to me. What I am going to do is forward some of my personal opinions on the actions taken during the weekend. Please take the time to read through Fleet Captain German's notes before coming back to this section of the letter. This way, you will have a clearer reference to my thoughts in the matter. I will be trying my best to stay in the order Fleet Captain German presented her report to me. Firstly, the IC definitely had a great deal of tension in the air. I met up with many of my friends in Region 12, and we all agreed that we might be on opposite sides of the "political fence," but that we're all friends first. It was nice to see that. During the first short meeting of the Admiralty Board that Friday evening, things went pretty smoothly. It was just basically a prep meeting for the rest of the weekend, handing out of the Admiralty Board agenda booklet, chit-chatting amongst ourselves, and discussing with the Fleet Admiral and Vice Fleet Admiral what committees that various Regional Coordinators would like to serve on. Several of us did not like the "Gag Order" that was put in place around the Admiralty Board and their staffs for the weekend. I did not agree with it personally, although I could definitely see where the Fleet Admiral was going with it. The ListServ run by Gord Goldberg is a great tool; however, it does tend to get out of control on occasion, and I do think it was better to wait until after the weekend to discuss what was going on. Better to get the facts from those members of the ListServ who were actually there, and get the information from the horses mouth, so to speak. During my short talk with the Fleet Admiral and Vice Fleet Admiral, we discussed what role Commodore Vosseller would serve STARFLEET as far as the Admiralty Board committees went. I felt confident in my  1,, Mail-from: From popserver Sat Jul 21 01:58:57 GMT 1995 X-POP3-Rcpt: paradis@netrail Return-Path: From: Msmith7735@aol.com Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:31:13 -0400 To: Subject: IC Report 2 of 5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable *** EOOH *** X-POP3-Rcpt: paradis@netrail Return-Path: From: Msmith7735@aol.com Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:31:13 -0400 To: Subject: IC Report 2 of 5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable knowledge of Commodore Vosseller to choose that he either sit on the Membership or Scholarship Committees. My request was duly noted, and I was dismissed. = During the Saturday Admiralty Board meeting was when things started to get a little heated. We began to talk about the various committees, and when the motion to carry these committees began, was when the representatives of the Regions calling for the removal of the entire Executive Committee made it plain that we felt that the Questar issue should be dealt with first. The affected representatives went on pubic record, and I commented that it was the opinion of Region 7 Command that we would abstain from voting on issues until the Questar issue was brought up. Bob, Shirley and I felt that would be what Region 7's members wanted, as you so forcefully supported the removal of the Executive Committee. Region 7 then cast active abstentions for the length of the afternoon meeting in protest. = I was quite disturbed when the issue was just so totally ignored by the Fleet Admiral and the Admiralty Board members that supported him. It then became quite clear to me that we were going to have absolutely no impact on what Dan was going to do. Dan was going to do whatever he wanted, and the Admiralty Board was going to ratify whatever he wanted. It was truly hurtful and depressing for me to see someone whom I truly believed was going to work for the best interests of the membership of STARFLEET so totally ignore a significant segment of that membership. = The Admiralty Board then passed an amendment to be forwarded to the membership for approval that would allow for the establishment of the Committees: Finance, Scholarship and Corporate with 5 members, and the Membership Committee with 6 members. The initial terms for the members would be 2 years for members of even Regions and 1 year for members with odd Regions, and thereafter each term would be 2 years. The Regional Coordinator position itself is what holds the Committeeship and not the person. = The only issue that I had with the family membership section was in the actual policing of who is trying to cheat the organization. We are not in that business. Unless the violation is blatant, it was my feeling that we had to take applications on an honor system. = We then moved to the Lifetime and Honorary Memberships. As I agreed with what was being said, I didn't comment on either matter, but did abstain from the vote. It was agreed that Honorary memberships to the stars of any Star Trek series or movie would be given to all, but Communiqu=82s would be given only to those that expressed an interest in reading them. George Takei was an example of one star who does read them. It was also moved that lifetime memberships are granted only to the Commander, STARFLEET after his/her term is over, and only after a simple majority of the Admiralty Board so passes the motion. In addition, the resolution also granted lifetime membership to all the past Commanders, STARFLEET and that no future Admiralty Board could revoke any lifetime membership issued to a former Commander, STARFLEET. = We briefly touched on the Student Membership Program proposal, and it was quickly tabled to the Membership Committee for review and suggestions. = At this time we stopped for the afternoon, as the Executive Committee had a "Fireside Chat" session scheduled. We agreed to meet again at 8pm for further discussion. During the 8pm meeting, we agreed to limit the discussion time on issues to 10 minutes, in order to help speed things along. At this point, I did start to cast votes on behalf of Region 7 again. I attempted to contact Commodore Bob for approval to do so, but was unable to. Fleet Captain German and I had a conversation later that weekend where she related to me her disagreement with me in regards to countermanding Commodore Bob's order. =  1,, Mail-from: From popserver Sat Jul 21 01:58:56 GMT 1995 X-POP3-Rcpt: paradis@netrail Return-Path: From: Msmith7735@aol.com Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:31:22 -0400 To: Subject: IC Report 3 of 5 *** EOOH *** X-POP3-Rcpt: paradis@netrail Return-Path: From: Msmith7735@aol.com Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:31:22 -0400 To: Subject: IC Report 3 of 5 Let me touch on that for just a moment. Firefighting has what is called Incident Command. It's a command system that allows for issuing orders on the fire ground.. Bob is what would be known as the Incident Commander. It's his job to evaluate and process all the things going on around the fire ground, and to give orders that reflect the ever-changing fire ground environment. For the officers inside the building (Interior Command) that's burning though, they have to balance what the Incident Commander has ordered against what they see on the scene. Sometimes they have to change or countermand an order to ensure the safety of all the firefighters fighting the blaze. It was (as the Interior Command for Region 7) my considered opinion that the active abstentions that I cast in the afternoon session had delivered loud and clear the feelings of the membership of Region 7 in the matter of the Fleet Admiral's refusal to discuss the Questar issue. Between the solid voting block that the Fleet Admiral had, and the fact that there were some issues coming up that I knew the membership of Region 7 were going to express their total disgust with, it was time to start to vote on the Region's behalf. I discussed this choice later with Commodore Bob, and he concurred with my decision. With that out of the way, let me continue with the evening's meeting agenda. We proceeded to discuss the modification of the membership packet. The proposal was to change how the packet is sent. STARFLEET would send the membership certificate and card in the mail first class, and send the other material via bulk mail. It was suggested that we use 2nd class mailing, but the Fleet Admiral informed us that STARFLEET did not qualify for that, even under our tax exempt status. I discussed at that point the possibility that we send all initial membership packets first class, and send renewal memberships with the certificate and card going first class, and the remainder going bulk mail. It was my considered opinion that the initial memberships needed to get to the members right away. Renewal members would be less inclined to be in a hurry to get their membership materials, as they are already members. When we reached the 10 minute discussion limit, I moved to table the discussion to the Membership Committee, and it was so passed. We then moved on to discussing the distribution of membership packets to our overseas members. It really is a good idea in many cases. It was exampled that many of our Canadian members will actually wait to renew or issue initial membership applications if the exchange rates are not favorable. It is definitely something that needs to be looked into, and it was moved to Committee. I personally am strongly behind this, as long as we can do so legally. We then discussed promotion criteria for Flag rank. This is another topic of interest to both Bob and myself. We both feel very strongly that all members need to be recognized for their service, but that there be a Fleetwide standard set. I commented to Dan that the Regional Coordinator should definitely be in the Flag Promotion process. We on the Regional level know more about the work done by members locally then the Executive Committee does. We are in a better position to help promote deserving Regional members, and Dan agrees that the Regional Coordinator's recommendation does go a long way to help promote someone that none of the Executive Committee knows. As a matter of fact, the promotion of Avenger Executive Officer Carlos Maldonado was cited as one of the promotions carried through the Executive Committee because of the strong recommendation of the Regional Coordinator. The item was then sent to Committee. We then got to another of the very sore spots for many, and that was the criteria for filling vacancies on the Executive Committee or Regional Coordinator levels. I feel very strongly that no Fleet Admiral has no right to tell the membership of any Region who will serve them. The Commanding Officers, representing their chapters, are the ones that need to make that determination. They know who will best serve them and their needs. However the motion was passed that Executive Committee members shall be nominated by the Fleet Admiral,  1,, Mail-from: From popserver Sat Jul 21 01:58:55 GMT 1995 X-POP3-Rcpt: paradis@netrail Return-Path: From: Msmith7735@aol.com Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:31:21 -0400 To: Subject: IC Report 4 of 5 *** EOOH *** X-POP3-Rcpt: paradis@netrail Return-Path: From: Msmith7735@aol.com Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:31:21 -0400 To: Subject: IC Report 4 of 5 and shall be confirmed by the Admiralty Board. It also further states that any Regional Coordinator appointment through the voice of the affected Region can be overturned by the Fleet Admiral, who can then nominate whomever it pleases him/her to nominate. Folks, I feel very strongly about this one. This is one of the issues that requires an amendment to the Constitution to put into law. I personally urge each and every one of you to vote "NO" when it comes to this amendment. The representative of every Region is the right of every Region to chose, not just one person. This smacks directly of stacking the deck in any Fleet Admiral's favor, by allowing him/her to place a "Yes" person into the position, even if the Region doesn't want that person in place. We then moved to the Chapter Charter program. It was passed that each chapter effective the beginning of the year will be assessed $12 ($1 per month) yearly in order to help cover such administrative costs as the Command Status Report, the distribution of new updated master forms of flyers and such, and the annual STARFLEET monetary audit. I don't believe that we needed to raise the cost of anything at the present time, and I voted against the charge. It might not be that bad, but I didn't feel it was necessary. There were two proposals by Region 5 Regional Coordinator Robert Hilton to change facets of the membership handbook. As per the notes, you can see that there were many ambiguities there, and I felt that we needed clearer language in the changes so that everyone would understand them. We did vote to allow the Admiralty Board to ratify any future changes to the Membership handbook, using the current new handbook issued by the McGinnis Administration as the template. We took a short break, and continued with the meeting. The question of the compositions of regions came up, which was discussed and then tabled. We codified the City of Charter resolution that was passed at last year's IC. Basically stated, it says that a chapter Commanding Officer must live within a reasonable geographical distance from the chapter's declared city of charter, and that the determination of what reasonable was falls into the purview of the Regional Coordinator. We then broke the meeting until Sunday morning. Sunday morning was when the fireworks really hit. As you can see via the notes, Janis Moore and Alan Ravitch were fired by the Executive Committee, and those decisions were asked to be signed off on by the Admiralty Board. Region 7 voted no on the motion to fire Janis, as Bob and I had already discussed this issue. On the issue of the Ravitch removal, I was to be honest, quite torn. I firmly believe that Alan Ravitch needed to be removed as Region 15's Regional Coordinator. However, I felt that it was in the best interests of Region 7 for that voice to come directly from Commodore Bob. Alan and I don't get along; I don't like him. I think he has too many personal agendas going on, and I've told him so. I even warned him, for his own good, several months ago, that he needed to calm down and lay low, but he refused. Region 7 abstained from the voting on the Ravitch issue. After these issues, a lot of people in the room vented their spleens, as it were. People vented anger, frustration, etc., professed their love for the organization, et al. As I've seen stated, you had to have been there. It was a very cathartic experience, and one that I think many needed. Unfortunately, it didn't solve any of STARFLEET's problems. We took a much needed break, and we then moved on to table the rest of the Admiralty Board agenda for the weekend. It was decided that we had bled enough for the weekend, and that we all needed to get out and try to salvage some of the weekend's events. We did pass Admiralty Board 95-0019 as listed in Fleet Captain German's notes.  1, filed,, Mail-from: From popserver Sat Jul 21 01:58:50 GMT 1995 X-POP3-Rcpt: paradis@netrail Return-Path: Received: from emout04.mail.aol.com by netrail.net with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.29.1 #4) id m0sZ61X-000lVEC; Thu, 20 Jul 95 20:33 EDT Received: by emout04.mail.aol.com (1.37.109.11/16.2) id AA162766478; Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:27:58 -0400 Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:27:58 -0400 From: Msmith7735@aol.com Message-Id: <950720202756_119407224@aol.com> To: Subject: IC Report 5 of 5 *** EOOH *** X-POP3-Rcpt: paradis@netrail Return-Path: Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 20:27:58 -0400 From: Msmith7735@aol.com To: Subject: IC Report 5 of 5 Internet: msmith7735@aol.com 07.20.95 2 And that's about it as far as the Admiralty Board meetings went. I'll be honest once again, folks. Whatever Dan wanted over the weekend is what he got. Plan and simple. And he even more easily secured the process to ensure that this trend would continue and grow stronger as the term progresses, if he so chooses to further clean the house of Admiralty Board members who are not willing to toe the proverbial line. That kind of "my way or the highway" attitude really concerns me, coming from someone who professes he's trying to bring STARFLEET back to the membership. Many of you question who is the Treasurer of STARFLEET. Well, we could never get an answer on that issue. However, let me quote a passage out of the Admiralty Board booklet: The organization's designated treasurer withdrew from the position after various inquiries from members disrupted her office environment. Given that no payment for services was made/billed, she does not consider herself to have been the organization's treasurer. In a recent conversation with Ms. Lindsey, she feels the scope of our association and the role that she was to have played in our financial plan was not consistent with her original understanding of our relationship and prefers that we select another firm to handle this role. So, there's part of an answer. In addition, the booklet also confirms my statements regarding the accounts of STARFLEET at Shore Leave, and that there are indeed TWO accounts, a general account and a scholarship account. General Operating Account (Interest Bearing Checking Account) Purpose: holds sufficient funds to pay the regular expenses of the organization. All deposits of membership, quartermaster, donations, etc., are made into this account. Deposits are made on a daily basis containing the previous day's receipts. Scholarship Trust Account (Interest Bearing Checking Account) Purpose: holds scholarship fund received on a daily basis. All deposits of scholarship contributions are made directly into this account on a daily basis. Excess contributions will be added to the scholarship CD upon maturity. Monthly interest from the Scholarship CD is deposited into this account Scholarship CD (renews on 08/12/95 - earning 4.75 percent) Purpose: the certificate of deposit currently holds $!0,000 of the scholarship trust money. The CD will mature on Aug. 12 95 and is subject to renewal at that time. Reserve Account (Money Market checking - variable interest) Purpose: this account was created in June 1995 to hold any money from the general operating account that is excessive for normal expenditures. This account requires limited check writing in a month, but offers a higher rate of interest for the money. There is more information in the booklet that will be shared with you shortly; however we need the time and money to actually get the copies made and printed and sent to you. We feel that you need to see the most vital information right now and the other things that are definitely of interest can be sent within a two week or so time span. To touch very quickly on a few points of the general meeting: It must have been very interesting to be a fly on the wall during the closed Executive Committee meetings. There were a few, from what I know. Cindy Krell got a lot more applause than anyone else on the Executive Committee or any of the Regional Coordinators got. I must wonder how that made the Fleet Admiral feel. I must wonder if he really cares about the general membership anymore, either. To say I am worried about the future of STARFLEET as it currently stands now is an understatement. However, what we all need to do is to sit back, let the waters settle, and make informed decision based on the evidence presented, not in the heat of the moment. Talks are already starting by some regarding choosing new Executive Committees to run against the current administration in the next election. Region 7 Command recommends that everyone just take a few deep breaths and a few steps back for the moment. Nothing good will be decided by making rash judgments in the heat of the moment. Region 7 Command is preparing to more fully discuss this issue at the Region 7 Conference, so it is imperative that as many of you and your crews as possible can attend. I leave you with the thoughts I touched upon at Shore Leave. Stay together, stay focused, and vote `em out next year. As always, you know where to find me if you need any questions answered. In Service to Region 7, Michael D. Smith Vice Regional Coordinator