SUB SPACE CHATTER: The New Year’s Edition

Welcome to 2013. We’re about one month into the new year and plans are unfolding for activities of the next 12 months.

As you have no doubt read, RC Wayne has announced Region 7 Activities at this year’s Farpoint convention.

They include:

  • Saturday morning at 8 AM: Our traditional breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant (Northern Lights).
  • Saturday morning at 9 AM: The Region 7 meeting (Chesapeake Room, I believe).

Of course, we will have our recruitment table throughout the weekend.

R7 CONFERENCE BIDDING NOW OPEN

R7 Chief of Staff RAdm. Jeff Victor posted the following reminder that the 2014 Region 7 Conference bidding is now open.

Bidding guidelines can be found at http://www.region7.com/portal/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=70&task=view.download&cid=35

The deadline for bids is May 1. Please reach out to Jeff should you have any questions or concerns.

HELP WANTED: POSITION OPEN

Jeff also recently announced that R7 Command is now taking applications for the position of Awards Director. The position will:

  • -Administer the Regional Awards program.
  • -Recruit and Coordinate Judges
  • -Solicit and organize Award Applications
  • -Promote the Annual Awards Program during Awards Season, as well as
  • the Year Round Regional Commendations program all year long.
  • -Help to continually improve and evolve the awards program.


If you’re interested in serving in this position, please send Jeff an email outlining what you could bring to the awards program and the
position. The deadline for applications is Feb. 5.

RECRUTING REPORT

This in from R7 Asst. Recruiting Officer Karen Mitchell Carothers.Farpoint’s is less than a month away, believe it or not, so it’s time to put out a request for my various recruiting department projects. Please do bring chapter fliers to Farpoint! Even though we’re not putting them out on the table, I have a nifty bin that sits underneath with all the chapter fliers organized in folders. That way they are still available to hand out in a targeted manner to prospective members (e.g. all the correy chapter fliers, or all the fliers from NJ, or the one particular flier for the chapter that was talking to this person in the elevator, etc). If your chapter has new fliers since Shore Leave, bring me some of the new fliers. I don’t need a TON… 15 or 20 at a time is enough.

Please note that I’m not able to finance making copies for you, so I can’t just take electronic files. However, if you want to email me a file and send me the money to cover the photocopies, I’d be fine with that. I can take PDFs, Word 2007 and older, MS Publisher 2003 or older, and Open Office. CutePDF is a great little free program that converts all sorts of files into PDFs. I’ve been using it myself for years.

And remember that while we do have all chapters listed on some of the current R7 recruiting materials, your individual chapter materials are your chance to showcase your chapter. I’ve had a lot of positive feedback on the cards I did for the Richthofen with Vistaprint (and they ALWAYS run sales!). Plus, you’re not limited to just leaving chapter materials with the recruiting table. I personally really enjoy bookmarks… I’m STILL using the ones I picked up at IC 2011 that the Academy whipped up!

Also, I’ve got the USB photo frame display. I still have all the photos that folks sent me when I asked prior to Shore Leave. If you’ve got any cool new pics of chapter events between Shore Leave and now, send them along. The larger the file, the better. I’m only limited to the size of the SD card or thumb drive I shove into the frame, and larger photos have better pixel density. If your chapter has a new logo, or you’re a new chapter since Shore Leave, please send me your logo as well! I’m going to redesign that display so the logos and pictures are in one file and are mixed together. If your chapter has artwork of your ship, that would be REALLY awesome, too! People love that stuff.

Finally… COs, PLEASE go into the SFI DB and double-check that your chapter contact information is correct. Mike utilizes this info to generate a spreadsheet flier that we run off to give to prospective members. You’ll want to take special care with website URLs and email addresses.

Prospective members aren’t going to take a second look at broken URLs, out-of-date websites, or email addresses that bounce. If your chapter doesn’t have a website yet, it’s easy to get a free one set up on Google Sites, or Webs.com, or even WordPress or Tumblr. Don’t depend on Facebook for your PR.

Questions, comments, etc, I’ll be in the Staff Coffee Mess, hiding behind the extra-large trough of raktajino and working on SFA stuff. I hear the new subspace wifi gets great signal in there.

Karen can be reached at co@ussredbaron.org or trekkieturtle@gmail.com


FINALLY … A WORD FROM THE R7 VRC

Your friendly neighborhood VRC may seem a bit quiet as of late although our lists have been rather quiet so it may not have actually been noticeable but between family issues, work schedule changes and efforts to recover from superstorm Sandy, my Starfleet time (actually any real fun time) has been at a minimum as of the last few months but I appreciate all the kind words and the understanding provided by Wayne, Jeff and the rest of the R7 staff. 

I’m trying to keep up on everything and this bulletin while not technically late, was originally planned for a few weeks ago. I think it worked out better as it is now chock full of info from my fellow staffers. I’d like to think 2013 will be a better year but already it has presented some new challenges and a few obstacles and not just for me.

That said though, we’re all in this together and I’ve seen a lot of people helping to support those who need it the most and in many ways that is what Starfleet boils down, to supporting each other during bad times and sharing in the fun times.

I’ll catch you next month with more news around the region.