The First Army Assembly

Place: The Army House
Time: 13th of December – 28th of December.
Present: Laebeth, Aurëthil, Rilómë, Laivindil, Idril, Ellenan, Mor and Lilu.

Questions discussed:

1- What do you think of the changes in your regiment from the time it was on ezboard and until moving to the houses?
2- What do you think would improve your regiment?
3- What do you think of the training system and ranks?
4- What opinion do you have on officers and Generals? What do you think they should do to improve?
5- Do you enjoy the actual system in RPGs the army uses? If not, why?
6- Do you feel your ideas are heard? If not, why do you think that?
7- Would you change anything in the way houses are displayed? Do you think you have enough threads to use in your troop?
8- Is there something you miss from the old army that we have skipped in this one? What would you suggest to do to get that back?

1. Changes From The Time Of Ezboard Until Moving Into Houses

Overall, people are satisfied with the change. Some members miss the flexibility ezboard offered when it came to thread number, secure forums for officers and titles beneath member names. The Spies are missed, but we hope to bring back some of them as soon as the Elite Training opens. In spite of some downsides, however, everyone now feels that we are involved in Rivendell to a far greater extent than we once were, and that the change has been positive.

2. Suggestions For Regiment Improvement

The officers need to interact more with the soldiers, and the soldiers need to interact more between themselves. We feel a need to find our way back to a group-spirit, and hope to implement this by opening a join feast for soldiers of both regiments, which will be lose IC. Some Elves also want more activities in Rivendell to be open for all the soldiers instead of having a limited number who can join, and others have suggested recruiting more newbies who are fond of RPG’ing.

3. Training System And Ranks

Some believe the training system is excellent, but others have a more negative view. We have not had any graduates in over 5 months, and soldiers who are lining up in queue to join do not get swift enough responses from the trainers. Training is often stalled because both trainer and trainee activity drops, and this affects the “assignment system” where soldiers complete improvised assignments. We hope to discuss training more thoroughly soon, and if we find it to be needed we might revise the whole system. When it comes to ranks, these have been changed so many times some soldiers find them difficult to get used to. Hopefully we will be able to work on this by putting our ranks at the top of our posts as well as making sure the officers keep updated rank lists in their regiment’s HQ.

4. Officers And Generals

The soldiers seem to be satisfied with both Officers and Generals, but both Officers and Generals miss more activity from officers in especial. Officers are a crucial part of what binds a regiment together, and in order for their regiment to develop any kind of group-spirit, they need to be present more than they are at the current date.

5. The Army’s RPG System

Most people like the RPG system the Army uses, though it is often seen in war that no one listens to the officers. Of course this needs to be changed! We are hoping to create some RPG and GM guidelines in the future.

6. Ideas

People feel that their ideas are heard, which is wonderful. However, it is a problem that too many ideas are proposed and very few of them actually put to life. The Generals are currently dividing tasks between them, and implementing ideas will be one of them. Hopefully this will prove to be effective!

7. House Display And Thread Number

No one has anything to say about the way the house display, but some wants a larger thread number. This, however, is a double-edged sword as some officers already find it to be a lot of work to catch up with the threads we already have. There is also the fact that we are not enough soldiers to warrant more threads than we currently have running, and having more would become overkill.

8. Things That Are Missed And Suggestions

~Communication: The Army needs to work more on communication. We have a large flow of communication, but it does not always reach everyone it is supposed to reach. Making sure everyone is informed is something we will begin to work on immediately. Another thing we have done to make communication more effective, is that we have opened a Hall of Announcements in the Army House.

~Advertising: The Army will also get two advertisement managers, who can stay in contact with the various newspapers on the plaza, as well as advertising in different threads like the Newbie Hall, CofA, etc.

~Thread variety: As addressed earlier in this summary, some miss the variety of threads we had on ezboard. This is unfortunately not something we will be able to do much about as we only have a limited number of threads, and more threads would mean overkill.

~Lose IC thread and Animal Habitat: A joint, lose IC, feast will be opened for the soldiers of both regiments, and the Stables and Exercise Yard will be developed into an Animal Habitat where people can train their animals.

~Army Census: We will also open a census, where all soldiers will be able to present themselves, as well as give a list of their weapons and armours for the Smithy and a list of animals for the Animal Habitat.

~Buddy system: A mentoring/guardian/buddy system for the soldiers has also been suggested. This is something the officers will discuss between themselves, so no final decision has been made at the assembly.

~Tactics and Strategy: The Army also needs to sit down and work out some strategy and tactics for battle. So far we are almost in total lack of this, and a committee will be put down shortly to work on it. Tactics will also be better implemented in training.

~Newbies and FAQ: The newbies are sometimes having a difficult time finding their way around the Army. To help them out, a Soldier’s Guide has been made. We have a complete Army FAQ, and hope that the officers will write own regiment FAQs in the future.