Minutes of the 19 April 2025 meeting

Roll Call

Zach McCauley, Lisa Wiedemann, Justin Dupras, David Westover, Nathan Camarda, Colin Lloyd, Benjamin Wagner, Cindy van Wyhe, and Chris Hollaway

Approval of the Minutes from the last Executive Committee Meeting

Passed during AWM

Committee Reports (reports added below)

EVP

Discussion on the process to find replacement for 6SL

BuPlan

Looking of Con & Hotel Services Director

MantiCon is in the works for 20th Anniversery

BuShip

Apologizes for delay with email, will be working on them today.

Discussion on transferring chapters between fleets.

GUAEP is going well

BuComm

Discussed the plan for new email system

BuPers

Discussion about “hats”

Discussion on job descriptions

BuTrain

no discussion

BuSup

Discussion on tariffs

Discussion on new products (dice, tree cats, lanyard, etc.)

Old Business

Review of Interim Actions taken between meetings –

Approval of February Meeting Minutes - PASSED

Recission of AOs 1102-09, 1511-03, and 1308-04 - PASSED

Rescind AO 1504-02 and replace with BuPlan Directive - PASSED

Rescind AO 2203-02 and replace it with an appropriate Executive Committee Policy – PASSED

Motioned - Wagner/Seconded - Lloyd – Vote to Confirm

New Business

Selection of Fifth Space Lord

Nomination of candidates

Discussion and vote – motion Hollaway/ second Dupras

Wiedemann - Yes; Dupras - Yes; Westover - Yes; Lloyd - Yes; Wagner - Yes; Van Wyhe - Yes; Hollaway - Yes; McCauley - Yes

Motion to open continuing Action Without Meeting Session

Motioned Lloyed / Second Wagner – Passed

Any further new business

none

Next Meeting

07 June 2025 3pm CDT

Bureau Written Reports

BuComm Report

April 2025

Current Projects:

Emails - Received final feedback and have proceeded to planning a new email structure based on that feedback. Will begin transfer of emails to the new server and creation of new email accounts by the end of the month.

LMS - System has been deemed unrecoverable. New application is currently being planned. Coding should begin by the end of the month.

Chapter Tracking - System has been deemed inadequate for BuShips needs and wants. New system is in the works and actively being coded.

WIKI - working on a plan to reorganize and finalize a move to a new server. New structure will focus on the idea of usability by new members, the creation of publishing standards, and training for all editors to use those standards.

Forums - consolidating it into one server with medusa and Bolthole. Will be working on a plan to reorganize the information structure for ease of use.

Medusa - After weeding out Bolthole tickets that are too old to complete and having the EVP and President step in, some updates to Medusa should be appearing in the next couple of weeks.

As described in my previous report our information infrastructure is all over the place. It would appear that everytime staff was hired into BuComm, including SLs, they left previous things alone and then just added their new ideas onto it. There has never been any overarching plan for how our systems work to interact to help the org complete its goals and mission. Coming up with a documented information architecture plan is a long term goal. We have enough systems that there needs to be an operation plan and vision for the future laid out and documented so that everyone is on the same page.

David Westover Großadmiral, KAM Vierter Raumlord, Büro für Kommunikation

BuPers

Membership Breakdown:

Members: 7158 (+14) Enlisted: 5428 (+12) Officer: 726 (+2) Flag Officer: 128 (-1) Civilian: 841 (+1)

Branch Breakdown: RMN: 4133 (+4) RMMC: 869 (+3) RMA: 324 (+3) GSN: 544 (+2) RHN: 131 (+1) IAN: 316 (+0) SFC: 325 (+0) RMACS: 53 (+0) RMMM:66 (+0) Civilian: 397 (+1)

We have seen some good interest for both the Director OMS and Awards and hope to have those positions sorted out soon. I will be performing the last audit of my watch for SFC and the <= E6/C6 promotions on all chapters in the coming weeks.

The number of disagreements about hat counts has been increasing as of late. My normal method for determining it is: Command Triads/Squares (when you get to Fleet level+ and CoS gets added) is typically 1 hat Being in charge of an Office is 1 hat Normal staff can be between 0.5-1 hat depending on amount of work involved in the position, as discussed with the CO for the position (For example Fleet Personnelman encompasses XO Holding Chapter and BuPers Liaison as part of it, so instead of 0.5 hats it counts as 1) Other than Command Triad, local chapter billets are 0 hats

No failed background checks have occured yet.

Marksmanship office has submitted an in progress classification of games to D5SL and passed to BuComm for entry into the database. I am hoping this is enough that we can get to beta testing the platform soon, as more can be added through the interface once it has gone live.

-- Vice Admiral of the Red David Misener, GCE, KCR, MC, SC, DSO, CGM Fifth Space Lord

BuTrain

April 2025

BuTrain has had several issues to deal with in the last two months, most of which relates to the fact that our internal infrastructure was dependent on the outgoing 4SL.

The Staff List ceased working, taking with it our awards tracking system and personnel list. We have manual records of our awards in longstanding spreadsheets, so the data is not gone, just not as neat or accessible as it used to be. The new 4SL has got a replacement on wiki (thank you) and we will have a couple of edits, but we've at least got a contact list up and going.

The LMS system that was in progress, has been deemed by the incoming 4SL and his team to be irredeemable (and was in the same system as the staff list). We have had discussions with 4SL and his team, who will be starting fresh. 4SL was intimately involved in some of the internal work, so I am confident in his insight, but we are in the process of making sure that no assumptions are wrong.

We have had cases of instructors not responding well and have only found out about it months after the fact because no-one was using the escalation system. Nearly always when someone gets really upset... it's because the escalation system wasn't followed.

INTRO to TRMN - we did a rough beta test of the interim Google form version. This allowed us to iron out some kinks in the IT side of the system. One of the questions also asks people to log in to the main discord, and we had issues with the invites had expired so managing that will be an ongoing process. Intro 1 complete, Intro 2 awaiting Laura, Intro 3 substantially complete (we have an interim video ready to go).

As was posted on the forum, I have submitted a request to resign to the chairman, and the process of looking for a new 6SL has started. My intention is to remain in BuTrain to assist as needed.

Colin Lloyd, KDR, KDE, MC, GS, QBM, CBM Vice Admiral of the Red, RMN Sixth Space Lord Earl New Ayers

BuSupp

Hello all,

Here's our report please feel free to let me know if you have any questions

Updates on previous activity Factory order is slowly progressing, we've still had delays on approvals I've been putting together the specification for treecat's for quotes

Risks and issues Headline is the political situation with regards to tariffs in the USA. This is changing on a near daily basis and creates a lot of risk for us. I'm looking into whether it might be cheaper to ship to me and pay UK Tax, then reship to the USA and pay UK - USA import duty, rather than paying China to USA duty, but things are changing quickly (literally there was a tariff change while I was drafting this email). GSPR - I've not made progress on resolving the issue with EU shipments as the USA tariffs have been taking up all of my time. We're still having slow downs on artwork coming through and artwork approvals. As well as pushing the factory order back we're still waiting on art for swag that's been pending for months now. Ongoing issues with Paypal are making paying for things difficult but we're working around it as best we can. Recruitment is still tough, we've done several rounds of recruitment both classic job adverts and more "come work for us" posts, but haven't had anyone follow through. Alongside this one of our storekeepers was seriously injured and is still recovering so isn't able to assist right now.

Future plans My replacement as ship CO only has a few more tests to do so they should be able to take that over from me soon. Hoping to start the quote process for potential treecats soon, there are 3 potential suppliers lined up to quote so we can get some comparisons. Be=yond that our primary goal is to just restock/replenish supplies and try and drive sales as much as we can.

Thanks Benjamin Wagner PMV Vice Admiral, RMN Seventh Space Lord

Treasurer

All,

Attached is the financial report for the 1st quarter of 2025. I also attached a copy of the report for all of 2024. We did have a positive first quarter this year and hopefully the new and replacement inventory items that have been ordered will prompt additional sales in the store. In addition, the Fourth Space Lord is making changes in our various internet services and storage that should reduce our expenses in areas.

This will be my final Executive Committee meeting as the bylaws were changed and removed the Treasurer from the Executive Committee. However, there will still need to be communications between the Treasurer's Office and the Executive Committee since your input is invaluable to drafting the annual budget for TRMN. From my report, you will see that we have almost $9500 in cash assets. While some of this amount should be earmarked for contingencies, there are funds available for use to benefit TRMN. In the December 1, 2024 meeting, the Board of Directors did authorize investigating areas in which these funds could be used. I had mentioned several different ideas: A convention box for each fleet that would have various recruiting supplies, swag, and a generic TRMN banner that could be shared amongst chapters within each fleet for conventions. A small discretionary fund for BuPers to pay for background checks for those members whose job requires one and who found it to be a financial burden. Look at what expenses each bureau was incurring on TRMN's behalf to operate and look at taking over the financial responsibility for those expenses. Sponsoring the production of ribbons for the Sphinx Forestry Commission to encourage and engage our youth members. As of the most recent BuPers report, there were 325 SFC members, about 4.6% of our membership. If you have any thoughts or suggestions about this, please share them with the Executive Vice-President who can then relay them to the Treasurer's office.

Christopher Hollaway, GCE, KCR, OC, DGC, NS, CGM Command Master Chief Petty Officer, RMN Chancellor of the Exchequer