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**Jay Coop** · 05-13-2020, 08:01 PM

PRESS RELEASE

A LETTER FROM THE MINISTER OF REGIONAL AFFAIRS

14 May 2020

My fellow citizens of the South Pacific:

I want to start by thanking the legislators of the Assembly for electing me as the Minister of Regional Affairs in February 2020. Before I was elected to serve as the Minister, I was just a citizen, legislator, and roleplayer — and have been since I joined the South Pacific in February 2014. It was a particularly enjoyable moment to be elected Minister on the heels of my sixth anniversary of citizenship in the Coalition of the South Pacific.

In 2019, I made the move to become more involved in the political aspect of the South Pacific, which I had begun to find intriguing. By March, I had taken an interest in endotarting and the Southern World Assembly Initiative. By July, I had begun participating in the Ministry of Regional Affairs. When I started in the Ministry, I did so by contributing roleplay articles to Coconut Press, but my contributions to the Ministry would grow as time went on.

In the final quarter of 2019, I worked in a Ministry led by Agalaesia, who did amazing work as Minister and I am grateful to him because he granted me the opportunity to serve as the first-ever Senior Fellow for Roleplay. In this position, I took the initiative to revive the Treasure Island Report and helped in the planning and execution of the South Pacific–Conch Kingdom event in January 2020.

When the February 2020 elections begun, I announced my candidacy for Minister of Regional Affairs but was disappointed to find that many candidates (myself included) were running unopposed. I wish there was someone then willing to challenge me and make me fight for the office of Minister, but that is not what happened. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the moment when I was elected for the first time to hold office in the South Pacific.

Now as we are concluding this term, we have co-organized and co-hosted the first of what will hopefully be an annual occurrence of Pacific-Con, begun development of TSP Encyclopedia, and revived The Southern Journal. I want to thank all of the Fellows of the Ministry who helped make this possible.

However, it is with a heavy heart that I announce my resignation as the Minister of Regional Affairs, due to take effect at midnight UTC on 18 May. Throughout my term, I have dealt with undue stress and anxiety that isn’t good news for my mental health, so I have come to the decision that I need to take a leave of absence from NationStates for two weeks, beginning once my resignation takes effect.

For the duration of this leave, I will probably log in to NS just to answer my daily issues and endotart, but avoid reading or posting anything on the RMB, Discord, or the forums. If I am pinged in any way on Discord that is not a DM, I will likely mark it as read without actually reading what was written. For my health and wellbeing, I need to take a step back from NS for a while.

I have spoken with Prime Minister Roavin about this and he will be announcing my successor shortly. Again, I want to thank everyone who elected and granted me the opportunity to serve as the Minister of Regional Affairs, which has been an honor and a privilege, as well as the Fellows who have contributed greatly to the Ministry during my term.

Many thanks,

Minister of Regional Affairs,
Jay

4× Cabinet minister /// 1× OWL director /// CRS member /// SPSF

My History

(This post was last modified: 05-14-2020, 06:18 AM by Jay Coop.)