[2545.CN] Cabinet Nominations

Assembly
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Esteemed Chair and Legislators,

I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to lead the Coalition’s executive for these next three months. There is much to do, and I am looking forward to hitting the ground running on the 1st. I come before you today to nominate the following individuals to the Cabinet. They will all be posting their individual agendas in this thread soon, and both they and I would love to answer any questions you have.

I hereby nominate @Of_the_Ages for the position of Minister of Culture.

I was impressed with Utopia’s culture agenda in this election and would like the chance to allow him to see it through. Having worked very closely with Utopia in the SPSF, I have found him to be diligent, organized and a fellow lover of a good spreadsheet. Moreover, I have watched him engage with new recruits with an understanding and grace that gives me confidence in his ability to lead a restructured ministry.

I hereby nominate @Welly for the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Both Welly and I are aware of the gravity of this nomination – rest assured, they will soon be publishing a plan for transitioning the Assembly to a new Chair. Welly has been an invaluable partner in dissecting the systems and structures of a reimagined executive. He has engaged in a laudable string of reform projects in the assembly and is the exact mind I need to help me design and christen the ambassador program I promised in my campaign.

I hereby nominate @flowerpetal for the position of Minister of Defense.

In the time since Hya returned to the SPSF, her impact has already been felt greatly. She has been a persistent asset in the training of our newest troops. She has taken on projects that have singlehandedly provided a significant percentage of all of defenderdom’s update activity lately. She has already been aiding me greatly in the infrastructural work I promised as MoD. She has earned nothing but my full confidence that she can continue in that path as MoD.

Finally, I wish to officially state my intention to retain @Erstavik as OWL Director.

I have begun talking with Erstavik about the prospect of a more coherent WA policy, following up on a question from the debate. We will be working closely with the MoFA as well as the broader community in exploring that. I am excited to work with him in a different way than I have gotten to in the last term.

Thank you all, I look forward to your questions and to a productive term. I wish always to be,

Faithfully yours,
Heliseum
Prime Minister Elect

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I will wait to ask questions about specific nominees until they have posted their agendas. However, I had a question for the PM.

Can you tell us about the process that you used for selecting your nominees? When did you start the process of talking to potential candidates? Did people reach out to you or did you reach out to them or vice versa?

Similarly, how will you monitor the activities of your Cabinet? How will you (and they) report to the public about their agenda and progress?

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Sure, the process happened differently and at different times for each candidate. I wanted to ensure that the big three ministries had ministers, even if I felt I could reasonably have done the work alone. Partially, this is a recognition of my own limitations, partially this was a philosophical belief that empty ministerial positions are bad for the coalition, and partially because testing models for executive reform is made easier with a fully existing hierarchy.

I had started thinking about nominees not long after I had decided I wanted to run for PM. In the broadest of strokes, MoC was selected relatively early in the election, MoD was selected late in the election and MoFA was selected a bit after voting had closed. In all cases, I approached the candidates. The selection of MoFA was by far the hardest, and involved me creating a shortlist of candidates and slowly cutting it down over time.

As far as monitoring goes, I am working on instituting a series of calendars with clear dates of projects, events etc. The behemoth that is the full culture calendar will be posted alongside Utopia’s agenda. Otherwise, my hope is to be participating personally in much of the ministry activity and will be watching both the FAC and DAC.

Candidates agendas will be posted here (hopefully soon). Regarding reporting to the public: I’ve discussed this with the prospective cabinet and have landed on a regular ‘fireside chat’-esque post from myself to the forums (and linked in discord) that contains the weekly happenings of the Ministries as well as upcoming events. I honestly view this as an accountability tool for us as much as it is information for the region.

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Legislators of the South Pacific,

I humbly seek your confirmation for the position of Minister of Defense.

Last term, MoD Heliseum took on an SPSF that was but a shell of its former self, and began instituting reforms and doing the day-to-day work to slowly revitalize the SPSF. As a MoD working under soon-to-be Prime Minister Heli, I see myself as largely continuing the work from the previous term. I present to the Assembly my agenda for MoD, in which I seek to build up the ranks of the SPSF.

Updating Infrastructure

My main focus at the very beginning of the term will be on updating infrastructure, which will be the foundation of much of the rest of the things I plan to do. In particular, I will:

  • Audit and update public dispatches and information threads: I have noticed some outdated information on dispatches as well as ambiguity, specifically in the exact descriptions of the distinction between Tsunami and Tidal Force.

  • Move SPSF application off of the Getting Involved wizard and into its own thread: Heli already did the bulk of the work for this part in the previous term, we pretty much just need to actually publish the changes. In summary, we determined this was necessary because 1) the Getting Involved wizard was not adequately explaining what the SPSF was to new members of the community, and 2) having the applications be public instead of going to a DM inbox would allow the public to ensure that applications were being processed at a reasonable pace.

  • Update & move internal training guides off of Pronoun’s tool: While the site is very fancy, unfortunately it has made it difficult for those of us less familiar with how it works struggling to update it. I am planning a transition off of the tool to Google Docs, which will be a lot easier to work with. Furthermore, our early training documents are not really sensitive, so they do not require the encryption from Pronoun’s tool.

  • Update the SPSF Data Portal: The SPSF Data Portal is currently very outdated. Having it up-to-date would be very useful for pulling stats for, for example, monthly reports.

Recruitment

Once we have all of our infrastructure in place, I will shift my focus to recruitment. It is vital that we rebuild a solid base of active soldiers, who may then become potential candidates for leadership as well. To this end, I will:

  • Personally reach out to active citizens and residents to invite them to the SPSF: Especially with the re-establishment of ministries with active junior staff, it will become increasingly easy to identify active members of our community who may be good candidates for the SPSF.

  • Systematically reach out to citizen applicants: Given that after the application reform is completed, new members of the region can no longer sign up for citizenship and SPSF membership at the same time, it is important that we replace this with something else to get the word out to new members.

  • Utilize large-scale operations (typically liberations) to recruit from all members of TSP, including gameside: Liberations have always been a great tool for us to do a recruitment push both in Discord and gameside, and I intend to continue this practice (although unfortunately this is contingent on raiders doing anything, which comes rarely in this day and age).

Internal Operations & Integration

Once we have recruited a member of the SPSF, I will foster an environment that encourages them to continue being active. This includes supporting members in their training and building up an internal SPSF culture. To do this, I will:

  • Continue with timely answering of SPSF applications and proactively reaching out to new members for their training

  • Occasionally run internal events: I’m not 100% sure what these might look like at this point, but for example Utopia has offered to help run competitive detags.

  • Have regular Tidal Force missions to engage off-update members: Utopia has agreed to continue acting as Tidal Force coordinator. As we are leaving the Delegate transition phase, we can restart Tidal Force missions soon.

Visibility

Increasing the visibility of the SPSF has a number of benefits. Recognizing people for their contributions can be helpful for retention, and anything we put out can act as a recruitment tool as well. Additionally, regular communication will help keep fellow citizens informed on the goings-on of the SPSF. Therefore, I will:

  • Produce monthly reports: These will include a summary of what the SPSF has been up to, as well as recognize people for their achievements in categories such as attending the most updates.

  • Write reports or have others write reports celebrating specific updates: Writing themed reports for highly productive updates has always been a fun activity that increases awareness of the day-to-day work of the SPSF. This can also be a great task to delegate to newer members who have an interest in writing.

  • Host the Defender Awards: This is something that has been in the works (and we are obligated by treaty to do). I will be helping host this in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure & Final Words

The South Pacific has been my main region since I founded here in 2020. I am currently a citizen and legislator. I have previously held a number of roles in the region, including Prime Minister, Minister of Media, Minister of Engagement, and Chair of the Assembly. I have been a member of the SPSF since 2022 and currently hold the rank of Captain. I have previously been active in the Rejected Realms and Inferno Stellaria (a now-defunct small region), though I haven’t held any role in other regions in years.

I thank Prime Minister-elect Heli for his appointment of me to Minister of Defense. I welcome any questions regarding my agenda for the upcoming term.

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Greetings everyone!

My agenda as MoC will consist of the execution of the cultural events and projects I previously detailed in my PM campaign, and utilizing the bodies of a structured Culture Ministry to do so.

Project Groups and the Domestic Affairs Council

Two organizational elements which I will be relying upon are the Domestic Affairs Council and Project Groups.
The DAC, while an existing body, is not something that has been utilized at all. There have been 6 messages in that channel this year, which encompasses multiple PM terms. I intend to revive the DAC by utilizing it as a central channel of communication within the Ministry, to plan events and coordinate between project groups.
Project Groups are not currently anything that exists, although there have been similar structures under previous executives. These will function as small groups focused on addressing a specific project or event. Some Project Groups will be temporary, existing for the instance of their event, while others longer-lasting for a repeating or more continuous project. The specific and actionable nature of what the groups are executing on allows to prevent the general bloat of inactive members we’ve seen with staffers in the past by ensuring there is something specific to be worked on, and ensuring there are clear expectations of what that thing is and when it needs to get done.
These two structures of the DAC and Project Groups serve to both provide an introductory body to give members a stepping stone into culture, as well as to allow me to delegate projects so I can focus on the Cultural events that need me the most.

Culture & Events Calendar

As part of the cultural agenda, a Culture & Events Calendar has been put together, which details most of the events that will be carried out this term. The Calendar serves as both a planning tool, and for internal and external accountability. For planning, the calendar has been used to space out and time events relative to each other, for example to limit conflicts with needing polls across events. When it comes to accountability, while the Calendar is subject to change if needed, if something is not getting done by the times set in the Calendar, that is a signal both to the cabinet to take action to ensure it gets done.

The Calendar can be found here: Working Draft of TSP Culture Calendar, Nov 1 - Jan 31 - Google Sheets

Cultural Agenda

This is a simple list of what I plan to get done for the term. For the sake of brevity I’m not going to elaborate on them here, as details can be found in my PM Campaign.

  • RMB Mayor
  • Poll Contest (Which will be SWANVision)
  • Game Nights (on RMB & Discord)
  • RMB Awards
  • Resident Spotlights
  • SPHL
  • Card Giveaways
  • Holidays
  • Newspaper
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What will the process and standards be for individuals who are not active in the SPSF to the level that their rank warrants, Cadet to Admiral?

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Thank you for your question! The details of this aren’t final, but I have discussed with other members of SPSF leadership (Heli and Utopia) about the direction we would like to take.

Generally, for Cadets and Ensigns, we don’t think they need activity requirements. We don’t believe that activity requirements will actually incentivize much activity, and leaving them on the force will essentially give us a reservist force that can be drawn from for big liberations. We may periodically remove people who’ve done literally nothing at all, but we don’t see a problem leaving the Cadet that just shows up for libs once a year.

For Lieutenants and Captains, we think it’s more important that they represent active leadership. Therefore, we are thinking of doing a bit of rank reform.

First, we will define two new ranks: Lieutenant Emeritus and Captain Emeritus. These represent people who are effectively Ensigns, but were formerly Lieutenant/Captain.

We will then institute a policy to the effect of: if you are completely inactive for at least one month, you may be demoted to Lieutenant/Captain Emeritus. For the definition of activity, we would include both on-update and off-update work. This policy leaves some room for flexibility in special circumstances–it’s not an automatic removal after one month of no activity. However, it makes clear our intentions to keep an active leadership body.

Finally, we will allow Lieutenant/Captain Emeriti to be speedily reinstated to their former rank upon a return to activity.

The question of Admirals is a little tricky. It’s not entirely clear what would happen legally if we were to demote an Admiral from Captain–would they stay as an Admiral or not? (It would depend if this is considered a “temporary demotion”.) I personally would probably err on the side of not demoting Admirals. I think keeping an active Admiralty is ultimately the responsibility of the Assembly, as they have the power to recall Admirals or not approve their retention votes.

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Members of the Assembly,

With apologies for the tardiness of my posting this agenda, I humbly seek your confirmation as TSP’s next Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Having likely exhausted the Assembly with my inordinately long judicial application, I will endeavor to keep this concise and to the point. My agenda for the coming term comprises three key areas: (1) organization and structure; (2) policy development; and (3) re-invigorating our alliances.

Organization and Structure

In line with the Prime Minister’s vision for rebuilding the executive branch, I plan to re-introduce a TSP Ambassador Corps. To put it simply, we need a deeper bench of FA talent in TSP. But that is difficult to develop as, at present, there are limited opportunities for new (or even experienced) members to gain tangible FA experience. Indeed, the only two FA offices that exist presently are MoFA and the Foreign Affairs Council, neither of which are the type of junior positions in which new members could begin their careers in foreign service.

Over my time in TSP, I have heard folks deride Ambassadors as nothing more than glorified paper pushers who publish reports on foreign forums that no one ever reads. That is certainly a trap into which an ambassador program can fall, but I believe that with proper leadership and direction, an ambassador corps can both increase and deepen engagement with our friends and allies, while also developing the next generation of FA talent.

Specifically, I expect that Ambassadors will, at a minimum:

  • Embed themselves in their assigned regional community. This will involve making connections with members of that community on both personal and official levels.
  • Monitor the major political, social, cultural, and diplomatic events of their assigned region and regularly report on those events to the MoFA. I’m still thinking through the precise timing and mechanics of these reports, but they are likely to take place on a weekly or bi-weekly basis via Discord channel (except for any urgent news which should, of course, be reported immediately).
  • Promote TSP’s cultural events, publications, and other major activities. This will involve close coordination with the MoC and members of that ministry.
  • Most importantly, learn with and from their fellow ambassadors about the complex machinations of NationStates FA, such that they will be experienced and capable to take on greater FA-related responsibilities in the future.

To be clear, a full Ambassador Corps will take time to staff up and train. I will prioritize assigning our more experienced diplomats, including members of the FAC, to key international partners, including our Aegis allies and other GCRs. At the same time, I will work with the Cabinet and FAC to develop an application process and training materials to begin onboarding newer members as ambassadors.

In addition to the Ambassador Corps, I plan to more closely integrate the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the Office of World Assembly Legislation. OWL and FA have numerous areas of overlapping responsibility, and greater coordination between the departments would be beneficial. For example, it is my understanding that the OWL Director plans to bring forward several commends for deserving members of TSP. I wholeheartedly support that initiative, and would seek to coordinate our efforts to ensure the backing of key friends and allies in the ultimate SC vote.

Policy Development

I plan to carry forward to fruition Nwahs’ project of formulating a more formal TSP foreign policy doctrine. This will involve engaging the Assembly in a discussion regarding the current and future direction of our foreign policy and what steps we should be taking to achieve our FA objectives. I won’t comment much further publicly on these matters, but, if I am confirmed, the Assembly should anticipate a robust and fulsome debate.

Relatedly, I also hope to work closely with the OWL Director on formulating–or at least considering whether we should formulate–a more formal WA policy. Our current position on WA affairs is somewhat curious. We appear, with virtually no discussion, to have adopted a stance opposed to the slew of repeals that have made up much GA business over the past months. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but if that is to be our position, then it seems we should at least discuss it and flesh out the pros and cons. Since there has been so little debate, it’s hard to know if members are consciously considering and opposing these repeals, or if they are simply following the crowd by clicking the little red box on the OWL votes.

Re-Invigorating Our Alliances

I fully support the Prime Minister’s goal of strengthening our relationships with foreign friends, especially our core defender allies. Obviously, developing the Ambassador Corps will be a key part of this effort, but it will not be the extent of it. At least initially, I also plan to:

  • Personally visit each of our treaty partners within the first week of being confirmed to establish a channel of communication and begin building a relationship. As noted, it will take some time before a full Ambassador Corps is in place. But I don’t want to just wait while that process is in train; I will act quickly to being laying the groundwork for stronger relationships.
  • Conduct at least one state visit (and perhaps more if the Delegate and Prime Minister have the capacity). We last held a state visit early in Griff’s term as Delegate. While I don’t believe the dignity of these occasions should be diminished by hosting and attending them on a regular basis, they strike me as a potentially valuable tool of diplomacy that we have neglected for too long.
  • Coordinate with the MoC and MoD to plan both joint cultural events and coordinate a successful Defender Awards.

Conflicts of Interest

I am currently Chair of the Assembly, which, as you all know, legally conflicts me from serving as a Cabinet minister. I will resolve that conflict tomorrow after posting my final State of the Assembly. I am also a current member of FAC and DAC and a nominee for Associate Justice on the High Court. Aside from my main nation, I have a handful of Garth-Nix-themed puppets, all of which reside in TSP. I have no nations outside of TSP, and I hold no positions in any foreign regions.

With immense thanks to the Assembly for its forbearance in reading numerous extraordinarily lengthy posts from me over the past week, I stand ready to answer any questions.

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Esteemed Chair and Legislators,

In my campaign and in the debate, I mentioned making the decision to not appoint a MoI partially for practical/search reasons, but I urged anyone interested in such a thing to reach out. I said then that I didn’t want to promise something that I didn’t feel sure I could deliver on, but privately I came into the belief that both for my own accountability and for the better modeling of the executive, I ought to redouble my efforts to fill that position.

Not sure where to start, I approached several trusted members of the region for advice, and one name came up more than any other: Trivalve. After a couple long conversations with him, I believe he will be a great close partner on the many integration projects I promised in my campaign. It is with great pleasure I now announce that,

I hereby nominate @Trivalve for the position of Minister of Integration.

He will post his agenda shortly. As with the other candidates, both he and I are available here for any questions. I remain,

Faithfully yours,
Heliseum
Prime Minister Elect

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Hello all!

I have multiple areas of focus in the integration domain. There has been a massive problem revolving around the lack of new faces getting involved. This might be due to the lack of options when it comes to being a part of the government. This agenda plans to resolve this prevalent issue.

More Government Placements

Heliseums plan to allow people to apply for lesser positions within the government is a crucial part of this plan. Implementing an ambassador program for Foreign Affairs and a newspaper team and an events team for culture is a perfect way to get people more involved and feel more prevalent within our government.

Training

Allowing people to join these positions still won’t be enough. We can’t expect people to put effort into their roles if we aren’t willing to put some effort in back. That’s why I plan on implementing training for new members who join these roles. I plan on moving this training past just the designated roles as well by adding anyone willing to the domestic advisory to train them in regional decision-making.

Wizard Changes

In terms of allowing people to join these roles, we plan on making changes to the forum wizard to make the roles more accessible. Adding in options to join programs, such as the ambassador program, should increase the chances of people joining them as the process is made readily available to them upon joining, rather than them having to locate them on their own.

RMB Recruitment

To integrate those from the RMB into our government, the plan is to improve how we communicate to them. Such plans include a possible second-day telegram that outlines to new foundings what they can join and why they should join. The reason for this coming on the second day is to avoid overwhelming them with information along with all the other recruitment telegrams they receive on their first day. Though not confirmed, a possible bot that welcomes new foundings on the RMB could be implemented. Having it send a message out every 10 foundings should avoid any spam that may arise.

Updating Outdated Factbooks

We also have an issue with some of our factbooks/dispatches being outdated. The plan here is to get us back on track with updating them and ensuring that any changes that happen during the term are added to these factbooks at a reasonable time.

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How do you plan to bring new nations into TSP?

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I don’t see how either of these makes the separate topic “necessary” as the wizards plugin seems entirely capable of supporting these changes.

I’m especially confused why we’d have a nominee for Minister of Defense saying the wizards are too hard to change while we have a nominee for Minister of Integration promising to change the wizards…

Does the Prime Minister intend to nominate the OWL Director for a ministerial position? If not, I’d ask a question I’ve asked before:

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As there has been interest in me doing so, I will be posting a new OWL agenda tomorrow. Since I am already a cabinet member and a reconfirmation vote isn’t time sensitive, I would invite the Assembly to vote on the other nominees first so they can begin their work. With that, I move that we proceed to a vote on @Of_the_Ages, @Welly, and @flowerpetal’s nominations.

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I will second the motion

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As a feeder we are guaranteed 10% of spawns. This means that currently trying to attract external spawns to the region isn’t our main focus. My priority is building a process to keep the attention and activity of new nations that spawn in the region. Without a set process to keep new nation active, attracting external new nations becomes pointless as they will most likely lose interest. However recruitment TGs will be used when the time comes to start looking externally.

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I third the motion

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I guess strictly speaking these changes are not “necessary”, but I do still think it’s a better solution. To explain some more, regarding my reason 1, currently, there’s a number of people who tick the box for SPSF but don’t have any idea what they’ve actually signed up for. This number is so high in part because this checkbox is presented without any explanation for what it’s for. Additionally, I believe there’s probably some portion of new people that would sign up for the SPSF if they actually knew what it was about, but currently that’s just not easy for a new person to find out from the wizard itself. To rectify this, I’d want some kind of explanation about what the SPSF does in the same place as where people sign up. However, military gameplay is a pretty complicated concept, and throwing that on someone who’s just trying to get involved in TSP for the first time is probably going to lead a lot of them to be overwhelmed and not engage with the information. And regarding my reason 2, there is actually a technical limitation (as far as I’m aware) where wizards cannot create replies to threads, only new threads. I believe that having the applications as replies in a thread is much less clutter than having them clutter up NationStates Discussion Centre or some other subforum.

As to your second point, I don’t believe I said that wizards are too hard to change–am I not literally advocating for a change?

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This seconded motion is now at vote.

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I move to vote on @Trivalve’s nomination.

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I will note that the requesite 3-day discussion period has not yet passed for Trivalve’s nomination.

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