If you look at the staff we have in various Executive Committee departments in STARFLEET, you'll see that there are  a number of areas where we have duplication of efforts between departments, positions which aren't accomplishing what they probably should, and teams which are just in the wrong EC department as a whole.  Putting these things all together results in STARFLEET not being very efficient and in people getting frustrated with one another because they feel that someone else is doing a job that they should be or because something that needs to get done isn't being done effectively.

One of the first things our team is going to start on is a reorganization of staff and positions to make sure that we have the right jobs being done by the right EC departments.  This will result in some shuffling of the deck among the departments, people moving from one department to another, and working through departments to make sure we're getting the right things done by the right people.  We hope to have this accomplished by the end of the second quarter of 2011.

We're also looking to implement some better Human Resource practices, including establishing proper job descriptions for each Fleet position (targeted for within fourth quarter 2011), defining and implementing an annual review process (targeted within the first quarter 2012), and better development of a general staff pool for project resourcing (targeted for the end of the first quarter 2012).

There's been a lot happening over the last 3 years with the CFO's office, and we'd like to get things stabilized in this department, with not a great deal of large undertakings within the CFO's Office.

On the drawing board for the CFO's office is to conduct an internal financial review for STARFLEET.  Our team will be reviewing the expenses of each department, comparing what STARFLEET is bringing in against what STARFLEET's expenses are being spent, with a target of approximately within the fourth quarter of 2011 to finish this internal review.  Following this, our team will be examining other opportunities to raise funds (operating and otherwise) for STARFLEET, including, but not limited to:

Our team has found that there are a number of areas in which we feel services to members, chapters and regions can be improved.  A short list of those areas include, but are not limited to:

Chapters and regions are going to be a big focus for the combined Operations/Shakedown Operations department.  In a brief review of STARFLEET, our team is already seeing that there are a number of ways in which we need to get the proverbial house in order and work with chapters to get those that are below their minimum membership strength back to capacity and to help others grow and expand.

A review is going to be very necessary where our team is going to look for what issues are being faced by chapters, trending those issues and membership numbers, and focus first on chapters in what we'll be calling "Red Alert" status first, those who are under their minimum membership strength, then focusing later on the chapters in what we'll be calling "Yellow Alert" status, those who are at their minimum membership strength, but only just hovering in that area.

This is going to be done through a focus on communications with Chapter CO's and with Regional Coordinators or their appropriate Regional Staff to understand why chapters are understrength and how STARFLEET can help them to get above their minimum numbers.  An official community will be created and monitored by someone in Ops for new chapters to encourage participation and to share ideas for recruiting, retention and promoting the organization to prospective and new members.

We'll also be focusing on recruiting by creating a plan for the upcoming sequel to Star Trek due to be released sometime in 2012, along with the development of a "rental program" to give chapters and regions access to a membership drive display and materials which can be used when chapters and regions are out in the public at conventions and other events to attract attention to themselves and draw in new members for chapters, regions and STARFLEET.

During every election, we always hear from teams who want to "improve the STARFLEET database" or "create a new STARFLEET database", and we are at a point in the life cycle of our current database system, developed by some members of STARFLEET who had some great programming and technical skills, where things are starting to break and are beyond our capacity to fix.

Usually it's a case of not having enough volunteers with the right skills to be able to do the programming and development work that we need in order to either fix what we have or to develop something new, and, unfortunately, we may never get to the point where we have enough volunteers or the right skill set in the people that we do have to do what we would like to with the database.  So, we're not going to make a grand promise about programming a new database.

Instead, our team is looking at getting someone else to do the work for us.

Even now, our team is drafting up a wishlist of things that we'd like to have in a new database, things that will help us to mange STARFLEET and our membership information, but that will allow us to automate processes and correct things along the way in an easier fashion.  We'd love to hear your thoughts or suggestions for items to go on the wishlist, so please do send them in!  We want to include as many things as we can for the various teams and departments within STARFLEET, including the Marines, Academy, SpecOps, STAR Programs, as well as possible future expansion that can happen.

Once we have a wishlist, that will give us a good idea of what we really need, we'll start by looking at what products might be available off-the-shelf to help us accomplish many of those things that are on the wishlist, but if we can't achieve enough of them, our team would like to have an outside developer draft a quote for STARFLEET and outsource the development of such an application which will best suit the needs of the members, chapters, regions and departments of STARFLEET.