Cabinet Announcements Thread

[Aggie]

This thread is for announcements from the cabinet. There will be one regular cabinet update every month, detailing next steps and accomplishments over the past month. This thread is not to be confused with the PfS announcements thread, which contains announcements about the Partnership for Regional Sovereignty.

The current cabinet is as follows:

Frattastan	Delegate
Mad Jack	Gameside Affairs Officer
Mhaul/Giangsang	Integration Officer
Minskiev	Foreign Affairs Officer
Vis	Culture Officer

[Aggie]

Cabinet Agenda May-July

This document will detail outcomes and trials envisioned by the cabinet until the start of July. The Outreach section will have a second publication after the byelection finishes.

Foreign Affairs - Officer Dyl

• Make staff applications open-ended so that people can be involved in the department even if there are no vacancies. This will include a trial of a junior diplomat and diplomat system, where each new staffer could be assigned to a diplomat to get them acquainted to the region they're assigned to and to the general workings of Foreign Affairs.
• Working with staff to ensure that we receive more information about the regions they're assigned to.
• Developing and running a system to collect reports about regions from staff.
• Formalising embassy and consulate applications to make them easier to navigate for regions.

Culture - Officer Grea

• In collaboration with Dyl, culture will look into running a weekend event with a partner region - events will be determined and announced nearer the time.
• Asking staff for ideas and to run projects to ensure that a variety of different perspectives are being considered.
• Increasing engagement with offsite games such as diplomacy to try to get more players - incentivising people with rewrads will be a method used to increase engagement
• Culture is currently looking into revitalising RP - Grim has been appointed as a deputy to help culture build up a roleplay. More information will be released if a plan is developed
• Exploring and running off-site tournaments such as werewolf and tetris
• Looking into onsite cards events such as card collection challegenges where people collect a certain type of card and riddle challenges where people have to find a set of cards to collect based on a riddle we give

World Assembly - Officer Chip

• Telegramming new voters in the WA gameside to join the offsite and onsite voting program
• Exploring building an academy for the Security Council - this could include both guides and mentorship
• Running a reional group drafting program for the Security Coucnil - we're currently looking into potential targets to write on.

Outreach - Currently Vacant

Outreach will set up Open Planning and create dispatches advertising the issues contest that we plan to run with culture so that a future Officer will be able to run it as soon as they are assigned to Outreach. Otherwise, I'll discuss the plans for Outreach with the human who will be assigned to the position in the future - more updates will be posted about the office soon.

[Aggie]

Bormiar has been appointed as Officer of Outreach.

[Aggie]

Cabinet Update - 02/06/21

I'll try to post cabinet updates weekly in more of a blog format, but for now, you're going to have to make do with this.

Culture

Culture has posted a culture calendar for the month - check it out here: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1553602

Voting for the regional banner contest has opened, vote here: viewtopic.php?f=73&t=10032226

We're running a card farming event, read more here: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1553957

Force Embassy

As a result of Force's founder's on various off-site platforms (primarily threats made against another player), I've decided to withdraw embassies from Force.

Outreach

Outreach is running an issue answering contest, read more here: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1552946

If anyone has any questions about this update, please don't hesitate to contact me on-site or through Discord on Aga#3979.

[Aggie]

Congratulations to Sarah who has been appointed as Officer of World Assembly Affairs.

[Aggie]

Chipmunker is no longer on the PfS delegation.

[Aggie]

After having discussed it with Sarah, we both mutually agreed that Outreach was a better fit. Therefore, Sarah now has the role of Outreach Officer, and the WA Office remains vacant until the end of this by-election.

[Aggie]

As many of you are aware, Bormiar's recent resignation has sparked an internal debate on the state of our region and the way we resolve our differences. We are saddened by his departure and we understand that the frustrations he has felt stem from recent incidents in the region. For these reasons, we would like to offer a statement on our way forward.

As elected officials, we are keenly aware of the pressures of holding office. We try to do our best for the region, and we hope this process is not more difficult than it should be. Too often, disagreements are not constructive, get out of hand, or are disproportionate to the issue at hand.

There is a fine balance. The Delegate and the Officers hold an elected mandate to carry out their roles, and the opposition of a few should not stymie progress. On the other hand, elected officials serve the citizenry, and we also manage a large staff whose buy-in we need.

As a region, we need to be able to process and effect change in a way that respects these principles.

Our promise to you

Transparency and consultation - Before major changes to policy or to how our departments operate, we will do our best to let the affected people know in advance and consider feedback to our proposals. We will also encourage these discussions to take place in forum threads, to ensure everyone’s well-considered views are made and heard.

Responsiveness - We will consider what you have to say and respond to it. The more constructive your feedback, the more constructive that our response to it can be.

What we ask of you

Be constructive - Constructive criticism is not only fine, but essential to our democracy. If you disagree with a decision, consider what is important to each side, and what the Officer is trying to achieve with the change. Quite often, if we work together, we will be able to find a solution that satisfies everyone.

Be proportionate - Even if you think we’re doing something wrong, how you oppose it should be proportionate to the issue at hand. Forcefully opposing the smallest decisions takes away from the Official’s time and ability to carry out their portfolio.

Take a deep breath - Even if you consider our idea terrible, and you think it’s a really big deal, when arguments get out of hand it benefits no one. If an argument on Discord is getting heated, consider whether it’s not better to continue the discussion at another time or place that would be more conducive to resolving the issues in dispute.

Signed: Aga, Delegate
Minskiev, Speaker
Gorundu, Editor in Chief
Dyl, Officer
Sarah, Officer
Grea Kriopia, Officer

[Aggie]

Policy Announcement

Office of Foreign Affairs | Revision of Embassy Guidelines | 25/06/21

In collaboration with Dyl, we have decided to revamp our embassy guidelines so that they clearly reflect the policy on embassies that we will have throughout the term. The changes of the policy are as follows:

1) We have removed the gameplay interest requirement - although most of the relations we will continue to build will be with gameplay regions, we also recognise that there are a wealth of possibilities in regions that are not just gameplaying regions - we will continue to explore these possibilities throughout the term.

2) We have removed the offsite forum or offsite discord requirement - most regions have a discord server these days, and if a region doesn't we could look into why that is the case and whether they have an active RMB which we could post updates on and engage with. We have replaced this by asking regions to provide us with a place to post updates from us.

3) We have removed what we felt was unnecessary to ensure that the dispatch is clear.

Needless to be said, we will continue to exercise best judgement. Even if a region does meet the requirements set out in the guidelines, it isn't guaranteed that we will build relations, and likewise, if a region is only a little off meeting the requirements we could look into building embassies or consulates.

This will lead into further plans to streamline how our Foreign Affairs is run - we are in the process of creating threads for applications, and we are in the process of collecting notes on our embassy regions so we can build a world atlas of regions we are diplomatically connected to. If there are any questions, feel free to reach out either to myself or Dyl.

You can view the current embassy policy here: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1562975
For comparison, you can view the previous one here: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1480466

[Aggie]

Fauxia has now been appointed as WA Officer.

[Aggie]

Government Update

The Cabinet - ALL UPDATES ARE WRITTEN BY THE OFFICERS. | 02/07

Statistics Spoiler

RMB Posts May: 5,525 Posts
RMB Posts June: 4,950 Posts
Total Nations: 6122
Number of World Assembly Nations: 491
Number endorsing the delegate: 200

Office of Culture

Culture Calendars continue to tick along, seeing additions like Diplo Days and the reintroduction of monthly contests. Culture Deputies Asche and Grim are both hard at work conspiring over the TRR Minecraft server, as well as helping on individual levels with separate events and ideas bouncing around the Culture/cabinet currently. I'm personally hoping to work on additions to Culture resources like the Cultural Event Library to leave helpful ideas for future officers. Expect a slight scale back in July events in preparation for a large interregional event and lots of Werewolf for the coming month with a free-structure WW tournament!

Office of Foreign Affairs

The Foreign Office has continued to make progress on its efforts. We’ve seen the opening of embassies with The League and have begun a focused attempt to reach out to both growing regions and those outside of the usual gameplay sphere. This comes as the result of changes made to our embassy policy allowing us to be more open to such regions. Cultural collaboration has continued well, with more to come in the coming weeks. Ambassador engagement has been discussed extensively and this coming month we’ll continue to look at ways to get our diplomatic corps more involved. We’ve unfortunately lost a few ambassadors due to busy RL, so the expanded corps have been put on a bit of a back burner while we instead focus on building up the corps in the coming weeks, though I do still intend to lay the framework for an expansion by the end of the term.

Office of Outreach

Outreach started the endorsement contest. That's about it so far. ISarah is working on starting to welcoming DMs back up.

Office of World Assembly

1. Put up threads and recommendations for every resolution, as "usual"
2. Log the Delegate's votes.
3. Telegram/reach out to people who are voting on-site.
4. Determine the outcome of the discussion on gameside voting.

[Aggie]

Fauxia is now a member of the PfS delegation.

[Aggie]

Cabinet Assignments

Office of the Delegate | Announcing your new cabinet | 09/08/21

After a brief discussion with the newly elected officers, I'm pleased to announce that the final cabinet assignments have been confirmed for the August to December term. The assignments are as follows:

• Visionary will serve as Officer of Culture;
• Minskiev will serve as Officer of Outreach;
• Dyl will serve as Officer of Foreign Affairs;
• Fauxia will serve as the Officer of World Assembly Affairs.

I look forward to a productive four months where we will seek to deliver a structured and transparent agenda.

Aga.

[Aggie]

August-October Cabinet Agenda

As usual, we aim to post and deliver an agenda for the next two months. The agenda that the cabinet wishes to deliver before the end September can be found in this document, split by portfolio:

Cross-Departmental

• Starting to set up TRRU (the Rejected Realms University) - initially this would include collating a large amount of guest lectureres to "speak" at the university. These talks would be open for TRR Citizens to ask questions but would eventually be made available to the public. I'll develop the vision further in another thread. The idea is that we develop the basis for this the first half of term to open it during the second half.
• A TRR Curency - this idea is based on assigning staffers a monthly currency for each department they're in and people who are endorsing me and are in the wa also get some money. This currency could then be used in a sportsbook-esque thing, or could be used in exchange for services offered by citizens, primarily graphic design services or maybe nation-building advice.
• We'll be working on simplifying the dispatch system to ensure that people can easily navigate the guides and recruitment dispatches that we have from the WFE.

Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs will be focusing on continually updating regions with events that happen in TRR. We will also finish our factbook project cateogirising and recording the details of all regions we are directly diplomatically aligned to. We'll also be looking for ways to ensure that diplomats are socially active in the regions that they are assigned to.

Culture

Culture will be publishing a culture calendar (already planned, link to be posted in 24 hours), and we'll be running both Rejectvision and a music festival. We will also start to record participation in culture events and hand out culture awards for continuous participation. We'll also be looking into taking more events gameside to try to get newer people to interact with the site more, and eventually recruit them to the forums.

Outreach

Outreach will be having a focus of reaching out to people. Minsk will be working on prompting conversation on the RMB, and encouraging people from the Regional Message Board and gameside to join off-site property. Awards such as the unicorn awards will also be revived, and the RMB awards will be run again at some point in the near future. Outreach will also be focusing on manual recruiting.

World Assembly

The Officer of the World Assembly will be working on publishing recommendations more frequently, and will work on increasing activity on the World Assembly Voting Regional Message Board, promoting discussion there as well. The Office will also be keeping track of statistics and bring back the WA voting awards, regularly awarding people for high quality discussion on World Assembly proposals.

[Aggie]

We will shortly be opening embassies with the Partnership for Sovereignty Region to fully display our membership in the PfS. There are no changes in FA policy as a result of this embassy.

[Aggie]

Cabinet Update

Opening Statement

This cabinet term has got off to a great start. We've made leaps in infrastructure developments, from introducing things like automated Would You Rathers to having a "collective nation" project in the line. All offices have projects to be working on and finish over the next month, ranging from things like TRRU to Rejectvision to World Factbooks. Although we are undergoing staffing changes in the executive, I am convinced that we are on track to make good progress.

This statement will provide a detailed update of what each office has achieved since the new term, and what the next steps are.

- Aga.

Cross Departmenal Projects

• As mentioned in the agenda, a WFE and dispatch refresh is in progress. Most of this will hopefully be completed within the first week of September, with several changes made to the dispatch system (updating guides, and possibly pushing ping programs together into one) will be made after that date.
• We will now start running a weekly update TG for all those who are interested, as per BowShot's idea. Details for this will come out soon, but the crux of the idea is that we are going to TG people about events etc., which will function sort of like a mailing list.
• After this update, the cabinet will be posting updates regularly every Sunday/Monday.
• We will start working on TRRU - the idea behind this will be fleshed out within the first half of the month.
• Staffer of the month will also be run for each individual department.

Culture

Culture is currently running Rejectfest and has made a start on running a culture calendar over the past month. We've been regularly posting Theme Tuesdays, Werewolf Wednesdays and IO Fridays. Moving forwards, Salem will seek to re-introduce movie nights, and staffers from the department will be running puzzles (CoS) and several popmasters. Culture has also cleaned up its staffing roster, ensuring that all staff on the team are active and willing participants

The culture schedule release will be posted in this thread at some point within the next few days. Culture will also aim to run Rejectvision and a joint event with a few regions towards the end of the month. We will also be looking into creating new incentives for participation, such as recording participants and events they participate in and running new rewards, potentially giving people the opportunity to include their own name on the WFE. Culture will also be working with Outreach to run RMB events to increase retention and recruit onto off-site property.

Outreach

Outreach is currently running Unicorn Awards regularly, as well as NNEs and RMB awards. There has been an increased focus in automation in outreach, with Would You Rathers, Dispatch creation and more being automated or in the process of being automated. In the future, Outreach will also be focusing on running mentorship programs, primarily in the form of assisting TRRU. Outreach will also be updating guides and creating new ones, either under the leadership of an Officer or the delegate, and recruiting people who are voting in the WA, in polls and on the RMB. Outreach has also cleaned up its staffing roster, ensuring that all staff on the team are active and willing participants.

I will work with a new officer to develop an Outreach agenda if there is a new officer.


World Assembly

Although the WA department has got off to a lethargic start, there are several things in the pipelines for the WA. Firstly, BowShot is now the gameside voting co-ordinator. They are now ensuring that votes are being collected and promoted to the RMB in a timely fashion, and is temporarily in charge of the WA Ping Program. We are also going to be more agressive with recommendations, with the aim of publishing one for most SC proposals. WA Awards will also be re-instated, with awards being handed out monthly for best debaters and most regular voters.

I will work with a new officer to develop a WA agenda if there is a new officer.


Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs will be focusing on publishing the guidebook and ensuring that ambassadors are assigned to all regions. This will mean recruitment to fill empty spots and increase coverage. We will also be discussing additional FA advisors and if we do not get enough ambassadors then setting up ambassadorial halls, where ambassadors would be assigned to a group of similarly ideologically aligned regions.

[Aggie]

Weekly Update

Aga | 08/09/21

Officer Assignments

Following the election of Jamie and UPC as officers, they have been assigned to the Offices of Foreign Affairs and Outreach respectively. Walrus has now been reassigned as Officer of World Assembly Affairs.

Culture

In culture, the latest culture calendar has been posted here. Vis has also published a new spotlight here. Rejectfest playlists are in the process of being made public.

Outreach

Outreach is currently going to be posting NNEs, Unicorn Awards and RMB Awards regularly. These are all undergoing automation at present. I am also working on ways to retain players who immediately move to the region as a result of the latest mini-boom, including setting up a group who endorse new WAs when they move into the region.

WA

As we've just had a change of Officer, not much worth noting has happened here for the past week. In the very near future, the WA Office will be publishing recommendations more agressively, putting up voting threads earlier and will also be bringing back voting awards, as seen here.

Foreign Affairs

I am currently working with the Officer to develop an agenda for Foreign Affairs. Expect further announcements on the near future.

Dispatch Re-Organisation and Updating

All official government dispatches have now been reformatted and organised into one, coherent system. You can now view our refereshed dispatch index here. The dispatches also all have the same format now. Yippee.

We now also have a TG Updates service which delivers updates straight to your inbox weekly. Read about it here: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1588721

[Aggie]

Hi peeps, just in case you missed it, Vis has been reassigned to Outreach and Salem to culture!

[Aggie]

GOVERNMENT UPDATE Culture

Culture has been working on running regular events such as theme Tuesdays and werewolf Wednesdays. We've had several staffing changes in this department, so there are no major events planned for the moment.


WA

WA is currently planning on running an SC convention in the middle of November. So far we have worked on posting votes and recommendations regularly. Walrus is also working on guides for the World Assembly.


Outreach

In the past two months, Outreach has completed a dispatch format redesign and a revamp of regional infrastructure. The office of outreach now no longer exists, and is now the office of gameside affairs, which will in part deal with integration. Office BowShot will work with the delegate's successor to develop an agenda.


FA

FA has been developing ties with partners around the world, and closely monitoring global situations to ensure that the rejected Realms can react in the best way possible. FA is also playing a role in the SC convention's organisation.


A Note On My Future as Delegate:

As is now public knowledge, I intend to resign as delegate shortly and will post a full statement in the coming days. I'd like to take this space up in my final government update to thank everyone for their time and work throughout the past six months.

[Aggie]

Hello everyone.

When I started the Delegacy, I was full of energy and fresh ideas, however, over time, I started to burn out, and it has eventually lead up to this point, realising that it's best for me to leave the job slightly earlier.

Under my tenure, we've gone through officers quicker than laxatives through a short octogenarian, and we have seen changes in staffing and activities across the region. Whereas I haven't achieved everything I've wanted to, it would be unfair to say that I am not proud of all of the work that people have poured into the region over the past six months of the term. So, regardless of if you're an officer or a staffer or anyone else I've randomly worked with, thank you.

So, this is my official resignation. Sorry, I suppose.

I wish my successor the best of luck in their endeavours, and I will be around to help them transition into the seat safely before the next lot of officers take up their seats.

[Nakari]

Cabinet Assignments

The officers for the December to April term have been assigned their portfolios, and we've discussed priorities to be worked on before the next scheduled report on January 1st 2022.

• Frattastan as Officer of Foreign Affairs; Frattastan will be working on assembling an advisor team, updating the amnbassador corps, and alerting our allies to our upcoming events;
• Ereh will serve as the Officer of Culture; priorities in the next few weeks will be cultural events including Rejectmas;
• Minskiev will serve as Officer of World Assembly Affairs; maintaining regular WA recommendations and aiming to increase participation;
• Toerana will serve as Gameside Officer; focusing on maintaining current activity and increasing visibility on the RMB, with potential roleplay development.

Should be a fun time, and I hope we can serve you well

[Nakari]

Government Update


Over the last two months a new Delegate was elected, a new Cabinet was elected, and people in general have been fairly busy. In the New Year expect more activity


FA

We have been putting together a team for foreign affairs discussion and… well, discussing FA developments that I currently cannot reveal. The next months are expected to involve working on the world factbook, distribution of a foreign update, and secret diplomatic stuff~


Gameside

Along with regular NNEs, welcoming telegrams, and topics of the week, the first AMA has been held with Fratt. We’re also going to investigate interest in creating a gameside roleplay region.


WA

The World Assembly office has been producing regular votes on WA things and getting our voice heard in the Partnership for Sovereignty. The focus in the next months will be on increasing participation, finishing up things from SCcon, and running the WA awards. Recently the Rejected WA Office, used for RMB voting, ceased to exist; due to extremely low participation we have decided not to revive it and instead to focus on having debate concentrated in one place.


Culture

Culture has been working hard on Rejectmas and we have contributed to both the NSCCF and HPFOF. You can also look forward to the Reject Awards and [redacted].

[Nakari]

Government Update

The government sure does exist. The last two months I’ve focused mostly on keeping my endorsements high, with raider piles creeping over my own count several times, and currently the threat of Reliant. I’ve asked CitCo to appoint a vice delegate in case the worst happens (I don’t think it should but the possibility is stressing me out).

Outreach

Bowshot did great at Outreach so it’s sad to not still have them in the role, but regular NNEs have continued and we should have someone in charge of Outreach reasonably soon, either through election or appointment of a general deputy.

Culture

Obviously culture has also been hampered by loss of an Officer, and an interregional event also fell through because of government change in the other region. But I’ve just appointed Agalaesia as Officer of Culture so hopefully more activity will come there soon including Reject Awards.

World Assembly

So far this term, the World Assembly Office has revamped its templates, included vote tables to track regional position, started posting our recommendations to the proposal's forum thread for extra exposure, and created recommendations for almost every proposal unconnected to the Officer as of recently. We hope to create more recommendations and increase staff numbers in the month remaining.

Foreign Affairs

Tentative negotiations on a treaty continued. Frattastan acknowledged that his level of commitment was inadequate to fulfill the objectives of his platform but still hopes to bring the term to a satisfactory conclusion.

[Minskiev]

Officer Assignments

I've assigned the officer portfolios for the April to August term.

Thepeopl as Officer of Outreach, to promote RMB activity and engage the onsite.
Catalyse as Officer of Foreign Affairs, to revitalize the Diplomatic Corps and act as a contact point for foreign affairs matters.
Salem as Officer of Culture, to restart regular events and handle upcoming holidays.
Ereh as Officer of World Assembly Affairs, to continue to put up voting threads and put out voting recommendations.

Hope I can serve you all well

[Minskiev]

Government Update
The entirely freshly-elected government's been chugging along fine, with some projects and things being worked out. Expect some things. We've also put a handy staff application section in #ferry of the Discord.

Outreach
Thepeopl is doing regular polls, and our RMB is very active with political discussions. We've been falling a little behind in NNEs, but that's easy to fix.

Culture
Salem's been doing Theme Tuesdays and a Popmaster, while we had a Diplomacy game and a few sporadic Werewolf games. TRR participated in the Spring Beach Bash event with XKI, TSP, and TEP. We've also been invited to Thaecia's Eurovision watch party on May 14th (might've gotten the date wrong? it's the final), so we should pick someone to root for soon.

World Assembly
Our World Assembly Office is a little inactive, but some staff and citizen-initiated efforts to keep up to date are being made, which is highly appreciated.

Foreign Affairs
Discussions of Foreign Affairs arrangements are ongoing, so that's exciting a foreign update should also be distributed sometime. We're also discussing a small cultural exchange type game night thing with another region.