Attention council members (suggestions from those you lead)

I have been here for some time and watched as people who tried to move forward on projects lost drive because they felt they had no support from their peers- or from the council over the years.

They’d either get told (in a round about way) that their work wasn’t worth pursuing by people in power. I happen to be stubborn, so those calls didn’t dissuade me from the project that I never heard what the results were (updating the Doctrine). While it would be simple to write it off as “Alethea is a bit of a nuisance, the fact of the matter is I heard these stories long before I tried any projects here.

Patience certainly is an aspect of the Jedi Path, but there are points where you have to cut your losses because it seems no one will move. And that’s where the damage comes in for so many. Again, I’m not talking about my circumstances but of the others I e witnessed, and I didn’t contribute to the initial survey.

I can’t say what you do (or don’t do) when it comes to counseling candidates & TMs on how people can improve to get their knighthood- I haven’t hit that point yet. But I can say that in the military it’s a common practice for a candidate of anything to be told how they can improve for the next review- things they need to work on in order to get there. IF this isn’t in practice, perhaps it’s something that should become practice, so candidates don’t feel like they are getting a run around waiting on things to happen?

RyuJin, I understand the “it’s all been done before” argument. And I get that so many people have been upset over things implemented. But let me put a different question forward for the whole council: What values do you wish for TotJO to have and how can those be achieved?

You see, I’ve been listening to a book that talks about getting a church moving forward (it’s by the ,founder of an organization that helps get churches unstuck and growing again, and their formula has been working wonders in these organizations) and the author said something that really struck a chord with me (paraphrased): You can’t make your church a People-Pleasing Church, you should stand by your organizational ethics & values. By sticking by them, the members of the congregation that really value what your church will start to align with them or find they have other needs that can be fulfilled elsewhere.

In short, I feel the council should have a heart-to-heart about what things you want to see in this group. What kind of growth? What kind of transparency? What ethics you believe should be leading the organization. And once you have that- build on tactics for how you can see that happen- and how you’ll hold leadership accountable for their team role in these strategies.

It doesn’t mean killing projects already in place-as an example, the weekly work m on the Discord seems to be doing a lot of good community building.

Thank you, Zero, for realizing that there were concerns and questions happening for people who had no clear or comfortable way of conveying them to the Council. And thank you for having the compassion and courage to volunteer to be that conduit to the Council. This thread has made me realize how vital a service that really was. I appreciate you.