I have been told on a few occasions to “put my money where my mouth is.” The very nature of STARFLEET Fail, at its roots, is to bring about change in STARFLEET. But most opponents of this site see it mainly as “sour grapes.” A crybaby site focusing on the Lizard/Halverson administration because “our candidate” did not win.

This site is more than mob mentality. We are not gathering with pitchforks and torches, demanding heads on pikes. We all agree that STARFLEET needs to be fixed.

Calling for the resignation or impeachment of Sal Lizard is not the answer. We’d just get Garrick Halverson as his replacement at Commander, STARFLEET, and I am not convinced that is any better.

We need to take a page from our parents’ manual. In the sixties, during all the protests and movements, one thing grew. They learned, as young hippies, that burning flags and screaming at the top of their lungs at “the man” was not working.

So they got haircuts. Got an education. Got jobs. began working through the system. They learned to beat the man, you have to become the man. Now these hippies are senators.

I propose we form a sort of political action committee. We would help a candidate get elected as Regional Coordinator in their region. Working within the system, we get rid of the Sal Pals on the Admiralty Board one at a time. We oppose all the spending, the secrecy, we make new resolutions from the Admiralty Board demanding more transparency and better communications.

Your thoughts?

I know this has nothing to do with STARFLEET or any of the happy fails that our current administration has show us, but anywho I wanted to see if there were others in our brotherhood who had experienced my recent epiphany.

Last night, I went to my chief navigation officers wrestling show (Derby City Wrestling aka Ohio Valley Wrestling). He wrestles as a character named Electrico.  Anywho… After the show he invites me to join him & the other wrestlers from a team called the Insurgency (Heal characters from Iraq) for an after party victory celebration. I figured what the hell, I don’t hang enough with people of my chapter & several of the wrestlers like me & even admitted they were Trek Fans. So off I went with Mike (aka Electrico) to a place called the Captains Quarters. (Fitting huh?) This club was huge sorta looked like a teen party from the Feris Bueller flick… Anywho… I’m hanging with Mike, Pops, Ki’ele, Turcan, Mohammed, & some of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life… I mean these girls looked like the kind you see on Girls Gone Wild or at the Playboy mansion.  In the words of MiniAlex… WOWSIES!!!

Anywho… Theres this guy peeing off the stern of his yacht & the girls took notice of him. They started taking pictures of him so he showed them more of his bare ass, his goat, I mean damn, that was nasty… He comes over to the girls & wants to get his picture with them also showing more of his bare necessities. One of these extremely hot woman ran behind me grabbed the back of my shoulders and stated, (Ok people here it comes) “Hey this is my dad!” The guy backed off & said he didn’t want to disrespect my daughter…

OK guys, I know feel like I ‘ve reached the complete FAIL… I wasn’t trying to pick up anybody, I’m very happy with my wife & wouldn’t do anything that would breach our relationship.  The part that got me was that she said I was her dad.. & the sad part was after deeply looking into it, I was old enough to be her dad… DAMN!

Before I got married & no children, I remember going to Toga parties with Capt. Tony Lopes & having complete debauchery taking place with young girls stripping for us. There was always this 1 old guy hanging at the party that the girls went to cause it was fun to tease the fatherlike figure. Last night I realized I’ve become that guy… What happened?

I would love some input if you too have come face to face with your mortality…. I can see it now, a Mooby picture with a big fat stamp that reads… FAIL! How fitting….

That’s my story & I’m sticking to it…. Until then, Courage…

Mooby

“The 40 year old not so virgin

I have piped our RSS Feeds through FeedBurner. I have been happy with their service in the past. I like getting the statistics, seeing what is getting read, etc. I swear by the whole RSS thing. I recommend Google Reader, it’s free and easy. You can get our regular posts or comments. If you hae already subscribed, the plugin I installed should migrate your stats over to FeedBurner and you will not have to change your subscription.

It might come as no surprise, but the numbers reflected in the SFI database aren’t exactly correct.

Right now, the database is showing 3415 members (-11.32% from late November 2007), but it’s also showing 225 chapters. This isn’t exactly true.

There are six chapters in the database that have zero members, knocking the actual number of chapters down to 219, or -2.66%. Out of the remaining chapters, 61 (or 27.85% of the total fleet) are understrength.

As of June 30, 2008, STARFLEET has spent $9,077 on legal fees. These figures have been presented by the Chief Financial Officer to the Admiralty Board.

Doing the math, that’s around 19% of the organization’s net worth. That’s over three times what STARFLEET awarded in scholarships in 2008. That’s also almost twice what was spent on IC year to date. It is also almost twice what was spent on Quartermaster.

When I was kicking around these figures, I was reminded that neither the IC nor the QM are contractual obligations of STARFLEET. Certainly neither are Sal’s legal expenses.

STARFLEET spent $1,559 in June 2008. I would like to see an itemized report on exactly where this money went. This is also as of June. This does not count the last two months.

Year to date figures are scary. Something has got to give. Membership is dropping. Spending is out of control.

Is anyone else worried about this?

The “Soundtrack of Fail” I added several weeks ago was fun. We ended up with over 30 songs. But the playlist is getting a little stale. Even on “shuffle” and almost 40 tracks, I think it may be time to start Volume 2.

So let’s see some suggestions for the second list. Post in the comments. I’ll assemble the playlist and when I get 15 or so, I’ll switch them out, but I’ll keep a link up to Volume 1.

Here’s what I have so far »

Joseph White said in his comment that we can’t blame membership dropping on Sal. Aw, why not?  The reason people are not renewing is STARFLEET is too expensive and stuff like groceries, rent, and gasoline come first. I am sorry, Joe, but I have to call bullshit.

Scott Akers also touched on this point while I was writing this post. $22 for a family membership breaks down to just over six cents a day. I guarantee that these “poor people” spend more than six cents a day on lottery tickets, cigarettes, beer, condoms, or even M&Ms. I that the money is not the real reason. I am pretty hard up sometimes financially, and I find a way to renew.

The only way it could be the money is if the member percieves no return on the investment. It’s the age old question that members of all chapters face every time they renew. What has STARFLEET done for me lately? The converse is, naturally, You get out of STARFLEET what you put into it. Lower membership dues? No, that would really hurt STARFLEET more than help.

Don’t raise the membership rates to combat costs! Perhaps we should as an organization take steps to cut costs. Here’s some ideas:

Stop printing the CQ. OK, there are a host of arguments here. They range from misguided numbers to the outright absurd. Some misconceptions:

We need to print xx copies to get the USPS discount. Yes and no. We get the discount by volume, but it still is a per-piece cost. If we are printing fewer, we’ll need to mail fewer. Do you know how many “paper chapters” we have out there? Without giving away names, I know one commanding officer that has eight family memberships in his pocket. He gets eight copies of the CQ when it is mailed. Eight. That is seven issues right there that did not need to be printed.

We need to print a certain number to keep our deal with the printers. I’m sorry, have you seen CQ 146 and CQ 147? They were ugly, poor color separation, faded, and by the time they get to your door they look like they’ve been on a subway seat for a week. Apparently quality has not been a factor lately.

It’ll cost more to print a better CQ. Again, yes and no. Per item? Certainly. But if we print fewer, the overall cost will be less. Make the printed CQ a premium item that members must pay extra for.

Not everyone is online. True. But how long are we going to cater to the luddites? We’re not an Amish fan club. We pretend we’re in the 24th Century, it’s high time we live in the 21st!

What about blind, elderly, disabled? Fine. I am sure that with all we save on the printing and distribution of the CQ, we can afford to offer a number of complimentary issues to those with special needs. Isn’t there a Fleet Resource Center office for such things under the Office of the Vice Commander?

Stop mailing and printing membership materials.  See above. No more CDs except by special request. If they are disabled, special arrangements can be made. Fleet owns a couple of printers, we can print what we need as needed on a case by case basis. Make everything available for download. They can print the certificate and ID cards themselves. Or if they want a spiffy card, fancy bound manuals, etc, the Quartemaster can sell them a nice one.

Make all the forms in the organization available online.  Not just for download. Let them be able to be filled in Adobe Reader, and then emailed, or later printed and mailed by post. Nobody wants to download a form, print it, whip out a pen and fill it out! I am positive some of our volunteers have a full version of Adobe Acrobat. If not, it’s cheap enough and would save the organization money in the long run.

Automate the Academy. Postage costs, certificate printing, can be automated with the right software. Take the test online, download the completion certificate as a PDF, let them print it themselves.

Lower chapter requirements. Drop chapter requirements to 5 members. Eliminate the difference between “correspondence” and “meeting” chapters. When Al Gore invented the Internet, the lines got all blurry. Offer stuff electronically to COs, NX Training chapters, etc. All certificates, manuals, etc.

Reinstate chapter fees. Something low, like $10. In addition, make them annual as well. Chapter COs would get a printed copy of the CQ included. They would also get access to flier templates, brochures, recruiting supplies, business cards either at a discount or as free downloads.

Just a few thoughts. Discuss.