Ahoy, shipmates!

Welcome aboard the SPS Sporaltryus, led by yours truly, James Holden. You may recognise her name, for she has a somewhat storied past in the tempestuous waters of the South Pacific, and will no doubt continue to trawl the seas for her next mission. From docking at Government Island from August of 2014 to December of the same year to serve as Minister of Regional Affairs then, to serving as Minister of the Army in early 2015 and Chief Justice in mid-late 2015, she has had a wide variety of experience in her early career before careening off into the seas of other regions, such as Selene as the Constantine Lambros and Cynosure as the ProfessorHenn. A short log of her travels may be found here.

Now, here we are gathered, to select the most appropriate vessel to ensure the smooth sailing of the Ministry through another four months of rough seas. Our fellow sailors in the SPS Farengeto and the SPS Agalaesia place their fate in the hands of the shipmates of the South Pacific, so too shall we.

The emphasis that our sister ships place on new ideas, new fashions of engagement and combating the relentless inactivity, is not something shared by this crew. A return to old form is the way of the future, as it was functioning then, so too can it function now. This list has been curated to showcase some ideas of the guns that can be brought to bear against our issues:

• Monthly Coconut Press / Southern Journal. This newsletter, in its old glory, was a bastion of what the Ministry could produce in its heyday. Certainly we have it in active production now, but with numerous delays inset so that all articles can be written, edited, and place appropriately. This is sacrificing a regular newsletter for a fuller one, and this would be reversed immediately.
  
• One or Two Festivals. Festivals, and any large major event concerning the entire Ministry Staff, is a massive drain on the productive potential of the staff and should mostly be planned and executed on a specific time table. The mistakes I made with the Independence Day Festival were numerous and could likely fill a full report in its own right, but with every mistake is a learning opportunity, and knowing how to work the system can lead to good results in its own right. A Christmas festival is best suited for this term, with the possibility of another if the Ministry can commit its staff appropriately.
  
• Reinstatement of the Fellowship Programme. Older legislators will remember this as the main product of my first term as Minister. The FP was an incredibly useful and versatile tool for integration and ensuring that newcomers were not left to their own devices to take part in the South Pacific's government and Ministries. With the Integration department in its current iteration being as lackluster as it is, abolishing the department and assigning a single, or multiple if necessary, staff member(s) to run the program would help inject the region with a spout of fresh blood as the school months begin to progress and we raise ourselves out of the summer rut.
  

Certainly the storms not far from port are rough, but our predecessors had found the superior methods of weathering them, and what good sailors are we if not followers of tradition?

ProfessorHenn
Legislator

Reply

Could I ask you to explain in more concrete terms how you envision the fellowship program?
Both for newer people who aren't familiar with it and older people who don't remember it (well) or want to be sure about your exact plans (in case you have some changes/adaptations in mind).

Reply

Could I ask you to explain in more concrete terms how you envision the fellowship program?

The Fellowship Programme, as it was when released in 2014, was an integration program that was primarily run in a thread in the Welcoming Centre as a sticky. This is that original thread, and I intend to revive it in that fashion in an entirely similar way. Some chaste threads would be unstickied and left alone or moved to archive and the primary point of contact for involving newcomers to the region would be through a single thread with the caretaker either responding directly to application (in the same thread, as a note) or sent in a private message.

The primary goal of this is to lessen confusion for new South Pacificans so that multiple threads are not created and we do not have to track them through the forum. With a single thread, they can apply for their desired Ministries as they are available, and the caretaker will put them in contact with the respective Minister or designate in our counterparts in Military, Foreign, or Regional Affairs. Same for the Assembly, although I suspect the Chair may have their own ideas for increasing newcomer participation. This will be discussed in detail when necessary, as reviving an old program is easier than creating a new one.

In an ideal world, this program is meant to be the primary means of connecting people to projects on an initial basis. After they are brought into the fold as a member of a Ministry, they would be able to learn enough from their project leads or equivalent and expand out into the rest of South Pacifican culture from there. Recurring applications are not necessary.

ProfessorHenn
Legislator

Reply

Do you intend on doing something about the levels of inactivity in the MoRA? If so, what are you planning?

Phanama
Roleplayer

Reply

Do you intend on doing something about the levels of inactivity in the MoRA? If so, what are you planning?

Combatting inactivity is a perennial issue and not something an election will change on the dime. The trick is institutional and cultural change combined with a motivated and invigorated staff, but that is a tall order to pull off well and my campaign’s entire purpose is merely to lay the groundwork for both the changes necessary to ensure a smooth operation of the Ministry, separate of a changing Minister every four months, and a general culture of working on a regular project (Coconut Press, Fellowship Programme).

Plus accountability of project management and Seniors to ensure they are executing their plans properly and on time. I was that Senior, I don’t want that to continue for too long.


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ProfessorHenn
Legislator

Reply

Thank you to @Sasha and @Phanama for asking their questions, I hope I've informed their choice well enough!

Good luck and godspeed, South Pacificans.

ProfessorHenn
Legislator

Reply