Just Another Opening Address (January 2021)

[Hulldom]

Rather than do some sort of image editing on a picture of Kimberly Guilfoyle at the 2020 RNC at the White House and going with platitudes about the job, I’m going to keep this Opening Address very to the point.

It goes without question that I heartily thank @St George for re-nominating me to this post and that many thanks also go out to the electors of the Regional Assembly who freely and graciously chose to re-confirm me. It means a lot to me that the citizens and leadership of this region retain their confidence in me.

Moving forward, I’m going to do three things in this Opening Address: (1) set out our agenda for the upcoming term, (2) announce some minor technical changes to the way the Ministry operates, and (3) announce this term’s initial slate of Deputies and WA Council appointments.

As noted in my closing address, most of the things I wanted to do with the office on the Ministry-side have, blessedly, been accomplished. Most of our tasks tend not to be big projects anymore, but rather the day-to-day voting threads and IFVs. Never one to be satisfied or rest on my laurels though, I have big plans for the upcoming term.

By May 11, 2022, I will make sure the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs does the following:

1. Works with the Delegate and adopts the new draft internal procedures for the World Assembly Legislative League as drafted by Imperium Anglorum. I will also work to amend those procedures to provide a step-by-step path toward engagement and eventual accession to WALL for interested member regions while respecting the language in the original Treaty.
2. Creates a new onboarding task and staff guide for new members of the Ministry. While I have a very rough idea of what this new task will be, I am not 100% sure of it just yet. With the guide though, sections will include my already drafted How-To on thread creation and will include sections on proposal analysis, thread creation, IFV writing, and more.
3. Establishes new templates for our threads. I intend to make our threads more approachable and less menacing and bulky. I set Concrete Slab to this task prior to their departure last term, so it never came to fruition.
4. Publishes on the NS Forums and passes at least one Heroes of Valhalla draft and publishes at least two more on the NS Forums. I will work to ensure that these drafts also meet with internal opprobrium in TNP and Europeia at least before they are posted and are as close to a finished product as possible.
5. Creates a public archive of all World Assembly Ministry votes undertaken since at least 2020. I will work to ensure that eventually this project encompasses those votes since the reformation of voting threads in 2017 as well.

Further, and well more ambitiously, I want to work across Ministries and across areas of expertise and create a TNP MoWAA-run public database of World Assembly voting that does more than just record votes. While this is an idea I have in theory and haven’t fleshed out yet, I plan to manage this project so that it shows, for instance, the correlation in voting stances between Delegates in chambers, the frequency with which Delegates (and by extension regions) vote for particular authors, and more.

I would also like to announce that there will be a reorganization of World Assembly Affairs roles in the Executive Staff server as a consequence of us being more regularly engaged in WALL discussions.

• Following poor engagement these past few terms, the WA-Mentors role and program will be discontinued. I encourage new authors who wish to have their proposals commented and worked on to submit their work to the Accelerator so it may be worked on with the rest of the WALL staffers or to the Minister himself so he can begin internal discussion on the proposal if so specified.
• The WA-Heroes and WA-Accelerator roles will be merged as WA-Authors. Staffers with this role will be expected to participate in the Heroes program by contributing substantively in feedback or writing to drafts and in feedback to those drafts going through the Accelerator.
• The WA-Voting role will continue to be used as a notification to staffers to “go vote” in threads and will be used from here on out for at-vote proposals to do the same as well (in line with our IFVs of course).
• WA-IFVs will be used moving forward in concert with WA-Voting as a notification for those staffers with this role to participate in voting recommendation stance discussions in the WALL server.
• The creation of a new role, WA-Data and Statistics, which will be for those members of the Ministry with the technical expertise to help us build out the public vote archive and the proposed MoWAA database.

I am also adopting a new policy on staff activity. Staffers who are inactive for a month in the Ministry by non-participation, or non-assistance with tasks, will have their staff access removed and must re-apply. Additionally, a hard “purge” of staffers who do not respond to the Roll Call will be in effect from Thursday at midnight.¹

I’d also like you all to welcome aboard our new Deputy Ministers of World Assembly Affairs. These folks have graciously agreed to serve the Ministry and the broader public and they should take their oaths immediately.

• @Greater Cesnica will return for his third stint as Deputy Minister with the additional responsibility as my official number two as Executive Deputy Minister. Do note here: this is not an explicit statement GC will be my successor, that is for MJ or the next Delegate to decide, but it is a note of GC’s hard work and continued leadership here.
• @Sincluda will return for his second stint as Deputy Minister with the responsibility for staff engagement and onboarding. While he will continue to engage with other parts of the Ministry, his primary work will be to work with new staffers.
• @Fregerson will come aboard for his first stint as Deputy Minister under me. Freg will not be taking on additional responsibilities at this time in terms of oversight, but will serve primarily and informally as an Advisor to the Minister for the Security Council.

Finally, I want to announce our newest members of the WA Council: Tlomz and Pallaith. Tlomz served on the council last term and I trust that his continued service as Advisor to the Delegate, and previous service as Delegate and MoFA, will serve him well in the role. I’ve also selected Pallaith. We all know and love Ghost. His continual presence (or is it haunting? ) in/of the upper echelons of the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs is both a well-established and well-appreciated fact. I believe they will both serve well and faithfully in this role and continue to provide sage advice and wisdom to myself and others.

Well, I can’t exactly say that was short or sweet, but I suppose it was matter-of-fact. In any event, I wish everyone a great term ahead and hope we can continue to sustain the absolute level of excellence that our MoWAA has become known for across the multiverse.

Wishing you all the best,
@Hulldom (formerly Boston Castle)
Minister of World Assembly Affairs

¹Either/or. Staffers may be removed for both, but a staffer that assists with a task within the month will not be removed, nor will a staffer that participates in a discussion or not. Rolls and participation will be checked on the first of every month and participation in the middle of a month will essentially make one exempt until the end of the next month.

 

[mcmasterdonia]

Congratulations and good luck!

 

[Simone]

Congratulations