A Necessary Resignation
July 23, 2018
I did not plan or expect to leave you so soon, but here we are. As you no doubt are aware by now, I have been elected to fill the remainder of Deropia's term as Vice Delegate. It seems I will follow in his footsteps once more and this fine ministry can count another one of its own among the Vice Delegates in our region's history. My experience here was obviously a big contributor to my platform as well as his, and I hope to bring that perspective with me to the office I am soon to occupy. You will recall that I outlined a list of goals at the start of the term, and naturally many of those goals remain unfulfilled as my term has come to an early end. I believe that we had some challenges along the way, but not all of them were of circumstance. It also falls upon us to take advantage of the fantastic team we have, and to communicate. I believe we trust and work well with each other, but where we fell a little short was in taking that trust for granted. All of the talent matters little if it isn't put to good use, and too often we failed to coordinate and team up, and tag team when one or more of us were absent or unable to carry the work forward. This isn't a one-man show anymore, and I feel we left it to one man more often than not, just not always the same man. My first term as MoWA saw vigorous and regular debate, multiple IFVs, and a lot of communication with people from other ministries and backgrounds. We had good discussions, and fantastic drafts, but these moments were too often isolated and almost like fireworks, which burned brilliant but too short before the sky went dark and quiet again. I hope that going forward, we can light the sparks continuously so that the fire continues to burn brightly without needing to be started again and again. And I know the season means that we'll have dry spells, and that's going to necessarily slow things down. But we also saw a flurry of nonstop proposals over the course of a few weeks, and we weren't always up to the task of juggling them perfectly.
I don't say all of this to bum you out, or to suggest this term was a failure. Far from it, the work we put out was of good quality and our speed overall was what was needed. I can't think of any technical glitches, only typos, and I don't believe we missed more than a couple of IFVs, and the ones we did were for commendations/condemnations. I will forever be proud of the IFV for "pride and prejudice" and other than being late maybe once, we always had voting threads up. The machine that was built and maintained since I was last here continues to hum and make this ministry a vital and engaging part of our region's government. When I said we treated this too often like a one-man show, remember that without exception, the one man who stepped up knocked it out of the park each and every time. You guys are up for anything, even if all the dots didn't always connect as quickly or consistently as we liked. A big part of my plan for this term was better communication with other WA players, particularly on the forum. I made a point to spearhead that but I didn't get the routine established. Better was our communication in WALL and even a few surprisingly well-done lobbying efforts during voting itself. We could definitely enhance our efforts there in future terms, and complement our regional campaigns that come from our IFVs, and sometimes voting threads. I think it's important to know that while we're good, we could be better, and I wanted the takeaway from this term to be that the pursuit of perfection can make everyone better skilled and better people, and that we should keep striving because. The nature of this ministry requires constant attention and diligence and continual output of the materials and work that we need, but it also requires constant fine tuning and evolution, because as I have said many a time, this game is always changing. You guys already have everything you need, so I hope I was able to provide a road map for how you can go even further and to a level we haven't even imagined yet.
It was a homecoming for me, and like coming home, there was comfort but also a sense that things aren't quite how you remember them, and not quite the same. It takes a little time to get accustomed to the new, but it's made easier by the reassurance that comes from what is still the same, and what you already know. I'm glad I got to have this experience with the staff who are here now, and I know that you'll keep this quirky little part of TNP going strong through the rest of this term, and into the future ones. Thanks for being awesome, and remember, vote early, vote often.
-Ghost
