International Coordinator/Authorization Orders/3007/Reasoning
Portions of letter to Advisors List
Greetings my trusted advisors. You should know that I consider the majority of my MFI Family as my friends. If you think about it, that is a remarkable thing when you consider I have never met or even seen most of you except through our interaction over the 'net. You are also family. As such we also tend to have our spirited moments where we disagree and sometimes get angry. But we go on.
We of the Maquis have slowly experienced a general malaise growing within our ranks. We announce a project or start a discussion and few if any bother to comment or add to our collective thinking. As an organization, MFI is pretty laid back. After all, a prime part of who we are is based on minimal interference with how the cells and members conduct their fandom.
However we DO have rules. Those rules dictate how we are organized and how we conduct the affairs of MFI begining at the middle management levels which start just above the cell level. Sometimes there is confusion about our non-interferrence policy. It exists most strongly at the Cell level and below. Once a member aspires to greater responsibility in service to the Maquis, that member gives up a portion of that independence enjoyed at the lower levels in exchange for rank, for rewards/awards, and for the satisfaction of being someone who makes a difference. In theory, our middle managers will want to contribute to building MFI and keeping us on the leading edge in fandom. Those managers will get involved, learn what works and what does not, come up with new ideas and ways to keep our club fresh, and most importantly--grow as leaders to where they can assume increased responsibility--hopefully to aspire to serve on the CC some day.
Recently we have had a few long time middle managers resign. Some because they came to feel that the members no longer care. Some because they grew complacent and did not want to do the things necessary to properly serve their part of MFI. We have had others who have voiced their concerns that our managers are possibly growing stagnant. There is probably some truth in that. We need to take action to correct that problem. We need more than a handful of persons who are willing and able to help meet the goal and keep our club afloat.
I as Chief of Operations have been tasked by our IC, FADM Sam Cummings, to head up an evaluation of our managers to determine if we need to make some changes and/or rotate some "new blood" into our management. This effort has been tagged as Operation Watson. Now some of you may have a tendency to mistake this as some sort of "witch hunt" but it truly is not that at all. We do not seek to point fingers. Our goal is strengthening the health and viability of our club, MFI. My plan is to encourage our advisors to look deeply within themselves and determine if they are doing all they should in service to their assigned positions for which they volunteered. We need to determine what if any changes need to be made.
I already have a few changes in mind that I plan to put up for discussion. I sincerely hope all of you can make the time to assist in this effort.
More later. For now think on these things. Comments and suggestions are always helpful.
VADM Steve Lackey
MFI Chief of Operations
