Greetings, All! As you all know, we’ve been doing some reorganizing in an effort to make the club run more smoothly, and trying to do away with redundancies. At the end of June, all department chiefs were released, and applications were taken throughout June and July. Some of our chiefs are new, some are returning, and I’m happy to have all of them.

John Barnes – Civilians
Brandee Burke – Ops (social media)
Richard C Luke – Medical (emergency preparedness)
Julia Nielson – Engineering (merchandising)
Brad Jacobs – Science (photo album & archives)
Damon Ricks – Conn (Newsletter & crew anniversaries)
Sarah Podwys – Communications (Newsletter & crew birthdays)
Annie Stephens – Security (ship’s library)
Troy L. Oldham – Klingons (Sub-Department)
Ivan Podwys – Tactical (gaming)

Those of you that have not yet reached the rank of Lieutenant junior grade will have the title of “Acting” department chief, until such time as you reach Lt. (jg), or you decide to step down.

Congratulations! I hope all of you are ready for a challenge, because some of these departments have been left to languish, so are going to need a good deal of work to rebuild.

Please remember that it is your job as chief to get and keep your department running. Dave and I can help out, but we can’t build your department for you.

The duties of a department chief are as follows:

1 – Have fun! If you’re not having fun, what are you doing here?
2- Make certain department members are having fun.
3- Making progress on moving up the ranks.
4- Assist department members to move up the ranks.
5- Commit to attending both general ship’s meeting each month, AND the monthly senior officers’ meeting. Be prepared with departmental reports.
6- Commit to calling all members in your department once a month, keeping them informed of activities and any changes (because life happens!) Also, collecting any needed RSVPs from your department members and passing that information on to the XO and Captain in a timely manner.
7- Coordinate departmental activities – at least one a year, though more is fine.
8- Coordinate one ship activity each year. (This can be combined with #7.)
9- Gather and track the following information on department members: years of service and earned medals; and make certain the XO has that information.

Becoming a department chief is a serious commitment of time and energy, and the club will no longer tolerate CINOs (chiefs in name only). We all understand that sometimes life happens, and that the club is not real life. However, that is no excuse for neglecting the agreed-to duties for months on end because someone is “too busy” or “forgot”.

Department chiefs can select assistants. Assistant department chiefs must be willing to make the same time and energy commitments as the chief, and be willing and able to step in and take over when needed.

As with all voluntary positions, if something is a priority, you will find a way to do it. If it’s not a priority, you’ll find excuses.

On to the changes in the departmental duties! The main thing we wanted to do was to make things easier, and to eliminate jobs that were no longer relevant.

For example: back in the day, it was the job of Communications to assemble the newsletter, and the job of Conn to distribute the newsletter. Nowadays, that is unnecessary, because they are all available to anyone who wants one, with the click of a button. But, because assembling the newsletter is the second-biggest job in the club (biggest is the XO’s job of keeping track of points, and keeping on top of rank advancements). Now, the newsletter will be a tag team effort between Communications and Conn, so the job doesn’t fall on one set of shoulders.

For Medical, we felt it would be a good idea to have a department to help us make certain we are prepared for any eventuality. Living along the Wasatch Front, there is always the specter of a major earthquake. Then we have the regular occurrences of power outages caused by harsh weather; flooding is a thing that happens; and you never know when the zombie apocalypse is going to start!

To Science, we moved the twin jobs of keeping the photo album and archive/scrapbook updated. It just didn’t make sense to have those duties split between two different departments. (It resulted in no one knowing where these things were currently located.)

Security now has the duty of curating the ship’s library. If you’re looking for a Star Trek book to borrow, there’s a good chance our library has it.

Operations has the duty of staying on top of the club’s social media accounts:
Facebook Twitter Instagram Tumblr USS Ticonderoga-A on Snapchat

Engineering hasn’t changed – it’s still all about the merch! Hats, shirts, badges, bags, thongs, whatever!

Tactical is another that stayed the same. Tactical is all about the games – board games, card games, RPGs, tabletop, video, etc.

Klingons are a sub department. In other words, in addition to his regular duties as a member of the Security department, the chief of the Klingon department educates us on Klingon culture and language, among other things.

The Civilian department is where crew members go who aren’t really interested in gaining rank – they just want to come and have fun. But, they still need to be kept in the loop regarding events and activities. The Civilian chief greets all newcomers, making them feel welcome, (and making sure the Captain and XO are aware of said newcomer.)

As a side note, if anyone wants to change departments, you are more than welcome to do so. Just make sure the XO and I know about it.

Also, department chiefs can step down at any time. Again, just please be sure to let the XO and I know.

Whew! That’s a lot of information to take in, but I believe it will make the club better in the long run. Thanks for sticking around for all of it!