End of Term Address January 2024
Undoubtedly the past four months have been taxing, annoying, and a lot of work. That’s been especially true for this ministry, as the primary external facing ministry in the government. I have accepted the usual comments and critiques regarding our communication, or relative lack thereof. This term we finalized three treaties, worked extensively with our allies and partners in the MGC as we navigated this war we have found ourselves in, and partnered with the NPA to coordinate responses to the events that have unfolded since September. In short, we have been busy, and admittedly it has probably affected how the ministry’s internal procedures have been handled. I believe this is where a lot of our communication may have broken down, and why citizens were less aware of some things than they should have been.
FA takes a certain kind of skill and it’s not easy to teach. Those working in this ministry certainly got to experience that nearly daily, but those outside were probably often wondering what precisely was going on. Figuring out how to educate the masses on FA is an ongoing challenge. I continue to question it the old region report model is the best one, but barring a better one, I guess we have to keep trying to make it work. I’m no stranger to experimentation in this ministry, but this term I have largely been hands off and focused on the big picture diplomacy stuff. That’s where we needed to focus this term, and I believe we were a help to the delegate and we did our job well.
I have to shout out our deputies this term who did what they needed to do and we’re willing to tackle some often big questions and challenges. Thank you @Attempted Socialism @Halsoni @Chipoli @Nutmeg The Squirrel for assisting me in this effort. When lots of things are going on, especially in the world around us, we can drop some things and overlook others. Where it mattered, we were there and responding when Kasch needed it.
I set a goal to update our internal diplomatic records to help future FA leaders learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t. I’m proud to say that has been done - we have diplomatic logs of all major interregional talks that took place in the last year. I set a goal to find a better way to handle region assignments and reports. As outlined above, that continues to be unsolved. Maybe it never will, we just have to try different things with different people in charge and see how it comes together. I set a goal to improve internal ministry discussion of world events and familiarize them with NSGP. I think we’ve managed a lot of progress in that regard. Where we fell the most short was communicating to the rest of the region. There is some groundwork and thought already out toward this - I think the next minister and his team can take it a step further and improve in that area.
It was the most interesting period of the game yet that I happened to be in this role. I wish I could say it was all fun but we all have to admit there’s no small degree of masochism in doing the work we do in this game. It can be stressful and yet we thrive on it anyway. I didn’t expect to help deliver us out of this war period and conflict in four months - this was always going to be a long haul. But I hope in my humble way, I positioned the ministry and the government a bit better toward proceeding down this path, and one day they’ll be stronger and more able to respond because of the work we started in this prior term.
If any of you want to take on this crazy job, you know where to find us. We can always use the help, especially if you have some ideas on how to do what we do better. TNP is paying attention and in a way I’m still not used to, they want to know what’s going on outside our borders and what it all means. Good luck to the incoming team, and I’ll see you around.
-Pallaith