Greetings,

With the applications closed and voting started for this years
Presidential Elections, I would like to write a few words to all of you.
First of all, you may wonder why I did not apply to continue as
President. The main reason is that my RL is suitably hectic and busy,
that when I a come home from work, I am struggling to have the energy
and motivation to do what I know I should be doing as CinC / President.

I had this concern already when Frankie resigned and I, as his VP,
stepped up to finish the term. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I
had been hopeful that I would be able to combine it but as things went
nuts at work in May, it became clear I would not be able to continue.
UCIP deserves much more than I can give at the moment in the position of
President, and I loath to hold on to a position for the sake of it and
not doing the work.

Since I was never elected or voted for besides the a confirmation by the
senior staff at my appointment as VP, I didn’t have a clear mandate to
make major changes. We had several projects that I wanted to work on and
which did not get accomplished for various reasons (my availability at
times playing into that).

What I did try to do was stay on top of active and upcoming issues, keep
in the loop of what was going on in the divisions. Support our Division
Commanders and provide stability and ensure that the basics of UCIP
policy were followed, which would strengthen our SIMs. Several SIMs were
granted either development status or (re)gained full approval.
Thankfully, the adverse behaviour displayed within our community has
also reduced significantly in recent months as well, which was also a
goal of mine, and that makes for more fun and happy SIMming for all our
members.

I want to thank everyone to having been given the opportunity to lead
this great group. It’s been an honour and privilege to work with the
staff, and listen and work with all of you that I had the opportunity to
talk to and share ideas with.

I will finish this note with the best part of this job, being able to
hand out some ‘metal’. It is always a pleasure to do so, since these
awards are one of the very few way we can reward people for their
contributions to UCIP.

To start with, I would like to hand out some awards to people working in
the Academy and Services Division. It can be a thankless task at times,
yet they provide a real service to UCIP and help make the SIMming
experience better.

I would like to award Deputy Academy Commandant Kojiro a Gold Plasma
Medal for Exemplary Service for his hard work in the Academy and his
work on creating a new website for the Academy. I would also like to
award a Gold Plasma Medal for Exemplary Service to Jaeneva for all her
work for the Communities department.

I would like to award Academy Command School Dean Stormy O’Brien with a
Starburst Plasma Medal for Exemplary Service for her hard work in the
Academy, being an instructor, Dean and holding the fort when both the
Commandant and Deputy Commandant were on LOA. I would also like to hand
this same award to Advanced School Dean Jim Scott. He works tirelessly
and patiently with Staff and Students alike. he makes the UCIP a better
place to hang out. He’s always here and always available to help
others. Not to mention he is the instructor for a few of the advanced
courses consistently for several years now.

Next, I would like to award Commandant Tailyn with a Golden Nebula award
for her hard work and dedication to the Academy. She has worked with all
the instructors and Deans and has managed to keep the quality standard
of the Academy very high despite the various challenges thrown at her.

As final Services related item, once again, I received multiple
recommendations for an award for RAdm Donald Davis, our Services
Division Director. After giving it much thought, and the fact that
adding yet another Golden Nebula or Legion of Merit to his collection
won’t mean as much as what I have decided to give him instead. Since
there is currently, no organisation wide promotion policy to dictate how
long a non-SIMming member should take to reach the next rank when he is
already a Rear Admiral. So, without further ado, I am hereby promoting
Rear Admiral Donald Davis to the rank of Vice Admiral. Thank you, for
all the hard work behind the scenes that you do, and the dedication and
level-headedness with which you serve UCIP is an example for us all.

Next, I would like to award Jazza with a Legion of Merit for his
tireless work on making the back-end of the Subspacerelay Community
sites work, as well the UCIP and Trek-Ops website and all that besides
his work as first Trek-Ops Division Commander, and later Vice-President,
where he has always presented the best face and acts as a professional
and with wisdom and maturity.

Another person that is worthy of an award and mention is Aza, and I am
awarding him with a Lone Star Award for his work on the Sans Frontiers,
for establishing Precinct 21 to Full SIM Status, and for being a
continuously active and excellent simmer and his numerous postings. The
absolute definition of tireless and dedicated.

There are two people in ISD that I also want to recognise, and I would
like to convey some good news as well in the process. As you all may
remember, we had the news back in early March that Mumacik was involved
in a bad car accident. It took a long time for him to recover, but I am
happy to announce that he has been back on IRC and we had the
opportunity to talk with him. As a small gesture to say, welcome back, I
am awarding him with a Special Services Award!

At the same time I would like to award Acting ISD Commander, Rangi, with
a Legion of Merit for her efforts in holding the fort and supporting the
ISD Division and stepping up when Mumacik was in hospital and off line.
She was always looking at what was best for ISD and its SIMs. Several
SIMs gained approval or were granted development status under her watch.

Finally, I am hereby promoting VAdm Kerry Malone to the rank of Admiral.
Frankie has done a lot of work for UCIP over the years in various
functions including spending several years as CinC / President of UCIP.
He stepped down mid term as President back in February when he realised
that it was in best interest of UCIP, and did so with much dignity he
did it with dignity and openly admitted his faults as to why he was
stepping down. Where his manner in the past, to achieve his goals may
not always have been to everyone’s liking, he did things with the best
interest of UCIP in mind.

With all that said, thank you to all our members for making UCIP such a
great place. Even though I will not be serving as your President come
August, I will still be around and supporting this fine organisation as
we continue to build and rebuild our group.

Suzanna