Initiative Updates - April 2022

[bob the builder]

Good day, everyone.


On behalf of the executive team here at the SubCommittee, I wanted to offer some updates, insights and general comments about current and future initiatives that are getting worked on. I'll try to keep this as "point form" as possible in order to avoid you having to read through a book's worth of verbiage:


Executive Team Q&A Live:

• When we first took the reins, the new team set up a well-advertised, live Q&A session that could be viewed via online video or called into by phone. The hope was to relay our vision for the organization and our areas of focus for the coming year. Any guesses as to how many of you showed up? Two. Yes, two of hundreds of members and thousands of registered users here.
• We will be holding our next online Q&A session next month. The time and details will be announced shortly. Please take the time to stop in and listen to what we are doing and have planned for the future. There will also be a significant Q&A session. This is your chance to be heard. Do not waste it! For anyone not able to attend, we will record the meeting and post it online for viewing later on YouTube. Feedback will be solicited via a specific topic here on the forums.

Membership initiative:

• The SubCommittee has sponsored a series of trophies for submarine-related categories at the upcoming IPMS national meeting in Omaha, July 20th to 23rd.
• We are also hosting a booth at this event.
• The IPMS national meeting typically has over 10,000 attendees, and the synergy between those attendees and our new focus on submarine modeling, history and memorabilia is a perfect fit. It is our hope that we will be able to entice a new host of members to the organization

Social Media initiative:

• We have gotten amazing traction with some of our social media initiatives, most especially Facebook, thanks to the hard work of a couple of key individuals volunteering their time.
• We need to increase this outreach with an intentional and organized strategy to create the social face of the SubCommittee. This includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube (and others?)
• We are looking for someone who is saavy with social (or has the willingness to learn) to take the position of SubCommittee Social Media Manager. This would involve regular updates to our social media platforms and strategization with the SC exec team during our regular meetings.
• Interested? Email me at president@subcommittee.com and let's talk!

Website initiative:

• The new website is basically complete and ready for launch. The last thing needed (and it's a big one!) is to port existing membership across platforms to populate the website. That may take some time, depending on data formatting and importing issues, but it's the last hurdle and as a last resort, we can do that manually.
• Features include an up-to-date member list, SubCommittee promotional items for purchase, instant access to all past SCR issues, and a new and intuitive membership management portal.
• I realize that this work has been in process now for a while, and we have been getting a lot of flack from people who are concerned over the amount of time it's taking to launch. Understand that creating a new site from scratch is not easy and it's not fast. Mostly, however, understand that all of the work going into the redesign and launch is done by volunteers, not paid professionals. We do the best we can with the time we have.

Forum initiative:

• The old forums were, to put it bluntly, an utter disaster. They were at least four versions out of date and that issue was a major security concern. Because the updates were so far out of date, upgrading was not a simple matter. You can't just go from the current version to the latest, you need to go through all of the versions in between as well, each one fraught with its own issues and concerns.
• Fortunately, the upgrade is done and we are now running on the latest VBulletin software.
• The new software has many new features, but rest assured, most of the old ones are in there as well. We have been getting basically nothing but complaints about the new layout, which was expected when the old is replaced by the new. For those of you aching for the old layout, I can't say much except please take the time to fully explore the new layout and features before you pen a knee-jerk post about how whoever created the forums doesn't know anything (yes, someone actually did that...).
• We are fully open to working with membership to evolve these new forums into something better and better. What you're looking at now is the first iteration of that vision. We could have taken more time, posted up snapshots of the new layout, solicited feedback, and stretched out the rollout for another six months, but we decided to launch for the sake of efficiency and security.
• If you have suggestions, there is a dedicated thread in the "Forum Hints and Tricks" section specifically dedicated to this. Please be sure to have fully explored the forums prior to posting up, and we'll keep the dialogue moving there.

As a general signoff, I want to implore everyone to take the time to help make this organization better. Don't like the forum layout? Please post a constructive suggestion. Better yet, step up and volunteer to help implement it. All of the work that you're seeing done is being handled by your Executive Team with the exception of some of the heavy IT lifting. Five people should not be saddled with the weight of running and improving the entire organization. Response to our calls for help have, with exceptionally few exceptions, gone ignored.

This is YOUR organization. Now is YOUR time to be heard and help create the SubCommittee of tomorrow.


Bob Martin
SubCommittee President

[jefftytoo]

All extremely well put, Bob!