28JAN12 - Weekly Meeting

[Aryte]

[18:03:27] Aryte Vesperia: Good evening and welcome, everyone. Meeting start time: going forward, please be certain to hold your comments and questions until given the opportunity to speak. Failure to do so will result in a dismissal from the meeting.

[18:04:08] Aryte Vesperia: Statistics

Members: 313

Cadets: 11

Applications

New: 7

Accepted: 0

Denied: 0

Review: 7

Operations

Defensive: 134

Offensive: 35

Allied Assist: 0

[18:05:09] Aryte Vesperia: Diplomatic notes: outstanding week for interactions. Foremost, early week, combat with ARK provided Ordo the opportunity to demonstrate excellence abroad. Three raids were held back to back by Mr. Ishelwood, resulting in solid (two of which were flawless) victories. Unfortunately, despite receiving warm reception from ARK personnel during the interactions—including kudos for our combat—the aftermath and the latter raid essentially turned into “what Ordo gear can we ban to ensure it’s difficult for them to repeat their victories.” Regardless, we faced them the third time—on their terms—and still pulled a victory. We hope that the banning of our technology will cease, as we finally opted to give ARK another shot after the last poor reception we received months ago.

[18:06:19] Aryte Vesperia: Otherwise, I will cover other elements of the week during the main discussion: we have a lot to celebrate regarding combat activity!

[18:06:30] Aryte Vesperia: Unit reports this evening?

[18:06:41] Ethan Schuman raises his hand for Astra

[18:06:41] BurrWolf Qin Raises his hand for Terra

[18:06:42] Aryte Vesperia: Mr. Qin.

[18:06:57] BurrWolf Qin: COHORS A:

> A-I, Invictus: From Pr0wer Miles: Invictus had a very eventful week! For starters I would to announce formally that we have two new additions to the titanium insurance plan for height induced injures Eliza Yatsenko and Riff Petrov of which have been thoroughly screened for previous medical injuries. Secondly I would like to thank everyone this week for being raid active! We should keep this week as a reminder that if we keep goals in mind anything is possible so with that being said I hope to see that we keep this raiding spirit carried on throughout the future. Finally as I always close off with as of recent, attend ART tomorrow! Last week had a large turnout and I hope to see it again this week.

[18:07:11] BurrWolf Qin: > A-II, Evalidus: From Huttser Ishelwood: Amazing week for all of us, I'm proud of you all. High raid counts mixed with two new members, Robwolf Dragovar and Digman Randt. Stellar work all of you. As for the Ordo in general, we have a few spots open, so if a fire support group sounds like your your kind of unit, contact Huttser Ishelwood or Awanken Wasp today!

[18:07:46] BurrWolf Qin: > A-III, Insidiae: From Mackenzie Macbain: Insidiae continues to stay highly active. Every member hit their raid quotas and then some! We added yet another new member (2 for January). Invictus FTW!COHORS A:

> A-I, Invictus: From Pr0wer Miles: Invictus had a very eventful week! For starters I would to announce formally that we have two new additions to the titanium insurance plan for height induced injures Eliza Yatsenko and Riff Petrov of which have been thoroughly screened for previous medical injuries. Secondly I would like to thank everyone this week for being raid active! We should keep this week as a reminder that if we keep goals in mind anything is possible so with that being said I hope to see that we keep this raiding spirit carried on throughout the future. Finally as I always close off with as of recent, attend ART tomorrow! Last week had a large turnout and I hope to see it again this week.

[18:07:56] BurrWolf Qin: > A-III, Insidiae: From Mackenzie Macbain: Insidiae continues to stay highly active. Every member hit their raid quotas and then some! We added yet another new member (2 for January). Invictus FTW!

[18:08:13] BurrWolf Qin: > A-IV, Praescius: From Liam Macalroy: Activity is up! Definitely, considering the fight for raid counts this week! However, not having as many members, we didn't get near as many numbers as some. THIS BEING SAID, WE ARE ALWAYS RECRUITING. IM Afevis Sodertelge or Liam Macalroy if you're interested or just want to learn more about us! Also, Gonna say it again here, ask for those PRFs guys.. easy way to get QP points! Looking forward to more raids next week! (Dictated- via Siri on ShepPhone 4s- but not read.)

[18:08:41] BurrWolf Qin: COHORS B:

> From George Reisman:An overall good week for Cohors B, good raid counts and levels of participation in group activities. Don't forget to request those PRF's and unlock all those tasty QP points!

[18:09:20] BurrWolf Qin: This concludes Terra reports

[18:09:35] Aryte Vesperia: Thank you. Mr. Schuman?

[18:10:08] Ethan Schuman: Writing quickly as I lost track of time and was in a sandbox up until a few minutes ago. I'm back from my bit of inactivity, and Astra staff is ready and active as well. All seats were filled at the staff meeting, so that was a pleasant surprise. This week has focused mostly on recruiting and pushing activity back up. With the temporary suspension of time requirements for alpha squads, Letalis is picking up a couple people. Activity for Aquila was very good this week, and Reapers didn't do so bad either.

[18:10:17] Ethan Schuman: Due to the increasing frequency of Malice deployments, Palaestra will be working on developing a stronger course that will be required for EVERYONE who gets a Malice to undergo, as well as harsh penalties for those who abuse it. This shouldn't ever be an issue, as Ordo members are held to such a high standard, but said penalties do need to be there, if only for the sake of formality. In addition, the increased need for the Malice has presented an obvious necessity for a larger number of pilots who have access to it, so we've begun discussing a number of methods for pilots to unlock it faster.

[18:10:25] Ethan Schuman: That's all from Astra for this week.

[18:11:40] Aryte Vesperia: Awesome. Thank you. Any additional reports?

[18:11:43] Drasamax Python raises hand for the IEA.

[18:11:51] Radryl Allen raises his hand for Adstutia.

[18:11:53] Aryte Vesperia: Ms. Python?

[18:11:57] Drasamax Python: From myself for The Imperial Education Administration: 7 Schola classes, 28 Armatura modules (individual ones), and 0 Ludi classes held this week in the IEA. Armatura walkthrough is still a WIP and hasn't gotten too far since last week. Mainly because I've been really busy with other tasks on hand that I hope I can get out of the way soon so I can work on this as they seem to never end.

That is all from the Imperial Education Administration.

[18:12:22] Aryte Vesperia: Thank you. Any additional?

[18:12:36] Aryte Vesperia: Mr. Allen.

[18:12:50] Radryl Allen: Good Evening everyone, we have some pretty surprising news this week thanks to someone who gave us some important information before denying to give more becaue he wanted to "keep his head safe", but most will not be mentioned here, anyway moving on.

[18:12:56] Radryl Allen: We already have people trying to find out if Afo Wolfpack still active as it looks like they lost their sim and we have not seen any of them in a while, and CATI said that they woud open soon and about Megiddo, their sim is already open, it just needs to be updated on the Board.

Once more we will begin by Megiddo, we got a confirmation about those negociations and there is indeed a plan going on here, even their attack shifts changed on this week, we had attacks from them during the night shifts, and they are not really used to stay up that late and to make it worst they close their sim after these attacks, so be warned, so gentlemen, keep your eyes open.

From what we heard, they are doing it by phases, but well, we still need to check it out, even UBC is not aware about it.

[18:13:20] Radryl Allen: As second news

Some new groups are coming up, but we are not certain if they are indeed going to grow or if it is going to stay as a small group. Also looks like UBC is already growing as a alliance group, they already began to bring people into it, on other words, they might call for assistance on that group now.

About the revenge squad we still looking for informations, for now what we found out is that they had been doing assaults at Rose Petal.

[18:13:38] Radryl Allen: Also we still looking for members! The requirements are right here.

Be at least a E-3;

Be able to speak more than one language OR be able to handle paperwork and difficult situations.

Be able to run really fast incase they decide to open fire.

[18:13:44] Radryl Allen: That is all.

[18:14:01] Aryte Vesperia: Thank you. :}

[18:14:06] Aryte Vesperia: Final call for reports this evening.

[18:14:48] Aryte Vesperia: All righty. Moving on.

[18:15:51] Aryte Vesperia: > Outcome of Combat Challenge

[18:16:18] Aryte Vesperia: First and foremost, it is really necessary to send out a big hell yeah to all of the participants of this week’s challenge. Determining a winner is actually incredibly difficult. By raw numbers, Cohors A contributed a total of 158 raid credits. Invictus claimed 47, Evalidus 45, and Insidiae 44. By actual time spent, Evalidus comes ahead on account of Mr. Ishelwood’s focus on ARK and Mercz. But there was a great amount of cross-unit participation on all of those major raids. Additionally, Praescius managed a strong 22—with half the manpower of the other units.

[18:18:03] Aryte Vesperia: As such: fuck it, you all won. I will be distributing QP to all of the units. Astra included. Not as a cheap “omg yay we work together all winners!” but as a genuine expression of just how badass you all did. It was a testament to our ability as a group and the ability of our combat forces to get out there and bring home a victory. There was hardly a group left untouched this week. I am honestly not sure if there /is/ a group (VG excluded) we didn’t hit.

[18:19:08] Aryte Vesperia: To say in the very least, I am super impressed. I definitely won’t expect you to do this every week, but I do want to point out that you all just proved there /are/ targets and if you strive for it, you /can/ massively blow your goals out of the water.

[18:20:04] Aryte Vesperia: Your QP awards will be handed out as soon as possible. They will be done automatically via the server and not listed on the promotions.

[18:21:07] Aryte Vesperia: Congratulations to you all.

[18:21:22] Maverick Garfield: Hi5!

[18:21:23] Heavy666 Bolden: 'OORAH

[18:21:28] Marc Gravois: rawr!

[18:21:28] Ethan Schuman: *SMASH* OH YEAH!!!

[18:21:34] Aryte Vesperia: > Archetype Discussion

[18:21:51] Aryte Vesperia: Now that life is starting to sort itself back out after my job change, I would really like to dig in and start working heavily on our revision projects. As part of such, I want to invite anyone interested to partake in a round-table discussion this evening regarding the “Archetypes” that we’ve been murmuring about.

[18:22:31] Aryte Vesperia: I am looking for feedback/ideas from /anyone/. For those curious, the Archetypes are going to be special designations for personnel to focus on after achieving the NCO level. These specific niches will be sort of “class” types that have specific educational allotments tied to them, with achievements and end-tier items involved upon reaching the top designation. Additionally, the Archetypes will follow individuals to officer status, permitting officers to have somethin’ to work on to differentiate them.

[18:23:05] Aryte Vesperia: We will be gathering in the moonbase at 9:00 PM SLT tonight. This will give folks time to get the typical post-meeting raids out before we unwind.

[18:24:10] Aryte Vesperia: > Day Off (Yay)

[18:24:22] Aryte Vesperia: Per our normal schedule, tomorrow will be our monthly “day off.” Casual dress is approved and the sim will be secured. Feel free to goof off (harmlessly) and enjoy yourselves.

For those new to the group: the last Sunday of each month is our routine free day. Unless major holidays pop up during the month (ex: Christmas).

[18:25:33] Aryte Vesperia: > Keynote

[18:25:56] Aryte Vesperia: For this evening’s keynote, we will be discussing perception and conflict. Specifically, as to how conflict is created out of misinformation or a lack of information. I believe it was last October that we touched on a matter close to this, but I certainly feel it is pertinent to elaborate on the topic.

[18:26:50] Aryte Vesperia: Foremost, it is important that we cover the reality of conflict. Most of the time—and this is said out of experience—a “conflict,” a disagreement, drama (whatever you wish to call it), arises based upon the perception of an issue’s existence. And I say perception because, for the most part, it is only that: a perceived, intangible reason for escalation into a dispute between any numbers of individuals.

[18:28:14] Aryte Vesperia: Regardless if one is conscious of the phenomena, the tendency to find offense and take offense to a matter is axiomatic. When a conflict is perceived, the gravity or investment of our concern can most often be connected to the individuals in question. For example, we are taught through experience that X individual (or individuals) are prone to Y behaviors, thus we will find ourselves quickly jumping aboard the train of believing Y behavior occurs. Additionally, it is natural to take a defensive posture on someone else’s behalf if any sort of connection exists: friends, family, etc.

[18:29:11] Aryte Vesperia: Let’s approach the idea from a scenario standpoint. We will go over a couple.

[18:30:23] Aryte Vesperia: Situation 1: Bob and Joe are in separate channels on TS3. Bob hears off hand that Joe has made some sort of comment regarding Bob that is inflammatory. Joe is in a rival unit to Bob. As such, Bob promptly approaches a friend of his who happens to be in the same channel as Joe. Bob asks his friend: “Is anyone talking about me in that channel?” Bob’s friend goes “Yeah. Joe said something or another, but I was not listening.” Bob takes this as validation, based upon the facts he has: Bob originally heard something bad was said, Bob is a rival to Joe, Bob got affirmation “something” was said. Bob connects the dots: Joe clearly must be talking bad about him. A conflict builds—EVEN if Bob does not confront Joe directly, a conflict can fester and spread if Bob decides to /tell other people/ about what Joe says.

[18:32:07] Aryte Vesperia: The aforementioned situation is a real scenario that occurred. Bob did tell other people. Bob shared with his friends that Joe was apparently slandering him. Bob’s friends became mad and rallied around Bob. The problem? Joe never said anything inflammatory about Bob. Bob’s friend who confirmed “something was said” confirmed he /heard Bob’s name/, not that “Joe is shit talking you.” As an end result, all the involved parties have to be brought together by an outside party and the sequence of events recreated in order for the puzzle pieces to be reassembled correctly.

[18:33:03] Aryte Vesperia: The entire matter could have been avoided in several ways. Bob could have simply shrugged off the hearsay at the beginning. Bob could have asked more probing questions of his friend. Or, Bob could have simply approached Joe and ask if something was said. Involving outside parties was totally unnecessary and could have resulted in a lot of bad blood, by several people, toward Joe.

[18:34:26] Aryte Vesperia: As a general rule of thumb: get the facts in line. Ensure that information is confirmed and validated before making an accusatory move. Additionally, unless outside parties are required to deal with something on an official level: there is no reason for outside parties /to be involved/. Even if Joe really did say something—involving other individuals only permeates the cycle by creating a perception of Joe for what could be an isolated matter.

[18:35:41] Aryte Vesperia: Situation 2: John is /furious/. He has had so many problems with members of the group. He reports them, but nothing happens. He feels like all of his complaints are being ignored and that certain members of the group, like Manuel, are being protected. As such, John is sure to inform all of his friends about how bias and unfair the judicial process is. His friends are all unhappy and concur with him: it is definitely unfair, the system is broke, and there are obvious favorites. Especially that Manuel guy. It seems like Manuel can get away with /everything/.

[18:36:21] Aryte Vesperia: Another /real/ scenario. The problem? John has no idea about what the “whole” picture is. Disciplinary notes are private in most cases. Individuals are dealt with confidentially if they are being punished or reprimanded: we do not typically permit public rebuking of any sort. As such, all of John’s complaints /appear/ to be ignored after he sends them in . . . but in reality, every one of John’s concerns are being noted, answered, and dealt with. Simply, for privacy sake, he isn’t being informed of any outcomes that result in punishment. Manuel actually gets away with pretty much nothing. Manuel has a history of corrective action and responds well to the feedback he receives.

[18:37:48] Aryte Vesperia: This scenario is particularly tricky—but it happens. The only individuals privy to the whole picture are those in the highest stations of power. The Ordo believes heavily in due process and confidentiality, unless an issue is so grand that it requires publicity. However, every complaint, if properly filed, is addressed.

[18:39:29] Aryte Vesperia: Avoiding the aforementioned is a bit tougher: it takes faith in those entrusted with order, but further, it stresses the importance of documentation. By that, I mean: keep track of things. If a matter pops up, write it down, collect the pertinent evidence, and use it as necessary. Do not, however, take complaints and use them as reason to vent or use uninvolved individuals as a sounding board. You only extend/create a problem by doing so. You can /certainly/ vent to an individual responsible, who will use the information to handle the situation.

[18:40:31] Aryte Vesperia: In closing, I remind everyone the importance of treating conflict appropriately. One of my favorite people, Marcus Aurelius, once said: if you don’t want something to offend you, it won’t offend you. I believe that entirely. There’s a lot of people out there that’d do anything to get under our skins, so it’s crucial we don’t let /each other/ get under our skin by accident or by misunderstanding.

[18:41:34] Aryte Vesperia: That said. You are dismissed. Thank you all for coming.

[18:41:35] Aryte Vesperia snaps his fist to his chest, presenting a brief salute.

[18:41:38] Shizzerk Kostolany salutes!

[18:41:39] Riff Petrov salutes!

[18:41:40] Radryl Allen salutes.

[18:41:41] Huttser Ishelwood salutes, "Victory needs no explanation, defeat allows none."

[18:41:41] Mackenzie Macbain salutes! "Ultio et Virtus!"

[18:41:42] BurrWolf Qin salutes! "For the Glory of the Imperium!"

[18:41:43] Eliza Yatsenko salutes!

[18:41:43] Kurama Bingyi pounds his fist in salute, "Imperium wihae!"

[18:41:43] Pr0wer Miles salutes!

[18:41:44] Tonet Millar salutes!

[18:41:45] Tala Spingflower salutes :}

[18:41:45] Liam Macalroy stands at attention and salutes "Ehre und Ruhm im Namen des Imperator!"

[18:41:47] Hokusai Otsuka salutes! o7

[18:41:47] Achtai Coronet salutes!

[18:41:48] Azimuth Summerwind salutes!

[18:41:51] Marc Gravois salutes!

[18:41:53] maddog Jonesford salutes!

[18:41:57] piDelia Magic salutes!

[18:42:00] Heavy666 Bolden salutes.

[Aryte]

* NOTE: Insidiae was on a 2 hour raid right when the data for the challenge was being compiled. As such, it was not included in the record. However, if it was, Insidiae would have tipped over Evalidus in TOTAL TIME spent. Insidiae would be the actual victors in that case. So kudos to them!