Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf

Join our 9th Annual Halloween Avatar Contest! Here's the quick-and-spooky: Each crew chooses a theme – like "Nightmare Before Christmas," or "Mugshots," or "Sesame Street" – then, each person on the crew is assigned a character and changes their forum avatar to an image of that character. A panel of judges (one person from each ship) helps decide the winners! HOW TO ENTER THE COMPETITION Each crew must pick a theme. If you haven't seen anyone on your ship's OOC email list start a brainstorming thread, check your ship's forum to see if there's a thread started there. If you can't find one, open a thread in your ship forum titled "2019 Halloween Avatar Contest - YourShipHere" and start a discussion on what theme you should pick! For a member of the crew to be considered part of the team, they must: change their avatar here on the forums check in to crew's official thread in this forum (more on that below) with a funny quote, quip, or greeting. (i.e.- "Trick or treat!"). Please keep any other extraneous posts out of this thread as it will be used to count the ship's participants. Regarding check-in threads: The second post in the check-in thread must an announcement of the ship's theme. Check-in threads will be locked until October 1, when the contest begins. Participants must be checked-in to their ship's thread in this forum by Sunday, October 20 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. Avatars must remain in their costumed forms until at least Thursday, October 31 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. Each crew entering the contest must upload their avatars to the wiki following this tutorial to the letter. Please follow each instructions closely and exactly – your crew will be disqualified if you do not follow the instructions! JUDGING SCORING Originality of theme: You may not use a theme that involves Starfleet crews we've seen onscreen or in beta canon – so no Enterprise, Voyager, DS9 crews, etc.! You are welcome to use other Star Trek themes if you want. Beyond that, just get really creative! Design quality of avatars: Check out past entrants and winners for some understanding of what we're looking for. Important note on design: Avatar designers should ensure that the avatars, as they appear on each person's check-in post, works best. Many ships create a "unified graphic" with all the characters on it, and then just slice that up. But this often leaves text unreadable once each person puts the avatar onto their profile. So focus more on making the avatar appear correctly on the forums. Keep in mind that the unified graphic is not judged or required, so while it's a bit of fun to bring all the avatars together and show the theme, don't assume that unified graphic will win you the contest! Number of crew members checked in: This is a multiplier to the previous two qualifications. For example, if the official crew roster (maintained by the ship CO and FO) says there are 12 crew members, and 5 people are checked-in to the thread, then your multiplier is 42%. JUDGES PANEL We'll ask each ship to send a volunteer – they can't be the ship's CO, and they must not be on more than one ship. Each judge will rank every ship's entry on the originality and design quality per above. Judges will not be able to rank their own ship in the first position. We'll use Ranked Choice Voting to determine the winner for each category. Once we have the scores for each of the two categories, we'll add them together, and then multiply by the number of crew members checked in, per above. The crew with the highest score, total, wins the competition. We'll also announce the runners-up. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS » How do I change my avatar? A detailed tutorial is found here. » What's the deal with the funny quote, quip, or greeting required on the check-in thread? It could be a quote from the character you're using, or something funny that you just make up on the fly. But make it good -- ask your teammates for help if you need inspiration! » Can my team use a theme that's previously been used? Yes, as long as you use new images. » Where do we get avatar images if none of us on my team are good at graphics? Check out the graphics request forum. Ask nicely for best results! » Do the avatars have to look like the characters? No. » How is participation counted? What about secondaries and disabled members? The number of possible participants will be pulled from the official ship roster (maintained by CO and FO) on Monday, October 22. We will discount properly marked secondaries and any members who are disabled and cannot access the forums, as per the CO of the ship. » When will winners be announced? Near the end of October/beginning of November. » What do the winners get? A forum badge everyone can put in their signature, and serious credibility. » What if I have other questions? Post them in the discussion thread!

DATES: The class began on August 26, 2019 and ended September 4, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy4 COMMANDING OFFICER: @Sal Taybrim as Cmdr. Ishreth Dal FIRST OFFICER: LtCmdr. @Jansen Orrey GRADUATES: Branna O'Toole G'Dok Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

DATES: The class began on August 19, 2019 and ended August 26, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy2 COMMANDING OFFICER: LtCmdr. @Jo Marshall FIRST OFFICER: LtCmdr. @Toryn Raga GRADUATES: @Vlokinth @Kano Risha @Gavin Kinnear Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

DATES: The class began on August 19, 2019 and ended August 26, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy3 COMMANDING OFFICER: LtCmdr. @Ayiana Sevo FIRST OFFICER: LtCmdr. @Serala GRADUATES: Avarak Riordan Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

DATES: The class began on July 15, 2019 and ended July 24, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy3 COMMANDING OFFICER: LtCmdr. @German Galven FIRST OFFICER: @Sal Taybrim (as LtCmdr. Shar'Wyn Foster) GRADUATES: @Ev Hathur James Wright Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

DATES: The class began on July 8, 2019 and ended July 15, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy1 COMMANDING OFFICER: LtCmdr. @Lael Rosek FIRST OFFICER: GRADUATES: LtCmdr. @German Galven @Ravenna Carter @Kel Terran Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

DATES: The class began on July 8, 2019 and ended July 15, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy1 COMMANDING OFFICER: LtCmdr. @Jo Marshall FIRST OFFICER: LtCmdr. @Gogigobo Fairhug GRADUATES: @Solaris Welcome back to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

DATES: The class began on July 1, 2019 and ended July 9, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy4 COMMANDING OFFICER: Lt. Commander @Serala FIRST OFFICER: Lt. Commander @German Galven GRADUATES: Nali Talia @Artinus Serinus Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

Well that's a wrap! This year's Awards Ceremony comes to a close as we take stock of the past year's worth of writing and fellowship in our community. It's been an amazing 25 years forging these traditions and building Star Trek stories. Before taking a few moments to thank the folks who made this ceremony possible, I want to recall last year's ceremony: Like so many things we do, the end result comes off like a song – impeccably managed, orchestrated with grace and ease, tied up with a bow and looking like a commercial product put together by a team of paid professionals. But as you will often hear us staff members remind some of our newer members: Everything you see here has been done by volunteers who are putting in their personal time for a love of the game, and a love of the community. It's easy to forget that it must have taken a lot of time and effort to put all this together. The Awards Ceremony, in particular, is one of our grandest hills to climb each year. The process begins more than two months before the ceremony is presented, as the Captains Council reviews the last year's ceremony, discusses changes that need to be made to the awards, and thinks about ways we can improve what we're doing. We have a manual that details not only each step in the process, but also the roles involved, which include the Awards Facilitator, and the Awards Committee Members. And that doesn't even consider the burden of your ship's staff, who are asked to rally every crew to nominations, then review the nominations for General Awards, help compile the Length of Service Awards, and more. We have detailed templates for our news posts, forum posts, and the final, complete wiki presentation that all have to be filled-out properly – a single character mistyped can mean we end up debugging for longer than I care to admit. And then, once it's all said and done, the wiki's records must be updated accurately, otherwise feelings will be hurt, or worse, more work will be added to next year's roster as we're forced to track down and verify missing awards and determine why they weren't recorded. So you see, like an opera, there are set pieces moving in every direction, actors hurrying here and there, costume and makeup being donned, and all of it must arrive on time, correct, complete, and parseled in both a just and fair manner. It's no easy task, and I do hope – for just a moment – you'll consider all these moving pieces and spare some appreciation for everyone involved, who are putting in the work to ensure that everyone below is thanked and recognized for the creativity they've put in over the past year. It's really quite incredible how much work goes into this whole thing, so I'm hopeful that we don't take for granted any of the people who helped make it happen. Awards Facilitator Jared Thoran has these words of special recognition: In addition to what he's said above, I'd like to add my thanks to: Awards facilitator Jarred Thoran. It's no surprise he won a number of awards this year considering how well he managed to facilitate the ceremony and process. He managed to move all the set-pieces perfectly into place with quiet efficiency, and that's incredibly helpful to all the staff that relied on him to ensure they were told what was needed from them, by when, and delivered it into the proper places for presentation. Congratulations to him for a job very well done – and huge thanks to him from all of us! And once again, huge appreciation for every member of the fleet who took their time to write a nomination. Without you, it'd be impossible for us to have this kind of recognition process, because each of you helps to assemble those memories about ways that others have contributed. You're so wonderful for that – thank you! Congratulations to all the winners of awards this year! Your hard work has paid off, and you'll go down in our history books as a part of our history and community, showing that you made us what we are.

The Staff awards are only for those members who have achieved the rank of Commander or higher. These awards recognize the hard work of our community members who go above and beyond to ensure that everyone has a great experience here. There's so much behind-the-scenes work required to keep the engine of our community running, and these folks are a central part of that. Just like with last year, the first officers of the fleet were asked to vote on the nominations for each staff award, providing recommendations to the EC about who should receive each award. We’re so happy to have this valuable feedback and guidance for our staff awards! Special Commendation Quinn Reynolds, Roshanara Rahman Presented by Tristan Wolf on behalf of the Executive Council: "This year we had an interesting set of nominations for Quinn Reynolds and Roshanara Rahman, nominating each of them for the Great Bird Award. The Great Bird is the highest honor given to any officer, and is intended to be given to those folks that push a paradigm shift in our way of thinking. After reviewing the nominations, the Executive Council felt they didn't match exactly what we're looking for with the Great Bird Award, the criteria for which is very specific. But these nominations had their heart in the same place: Wanting to recognize people who've made incredible, deep contributions to the group that have had an outsized impact on the nominators and should be recognized accordingly. We know that one of the weaknesses of our awards program is that the longer you're here, the more likely you are to have been awarded nearly everything. So we want to just take a moment to recognize – here at the top of the Staff Award presentation! – that we've heard your nominations and know that many want an opportunity to show these staff members how important their contributions are. The Executive Council is going to consider, for next year, if there's another award we can add that can match the intention of these nominations. But until then, we just want Emma and Rich to know how much we appreciate their contributions, and how glad we are to have them as leaders in our community. It would be hard for me to say anything at this point that hasn't been said about Emma or Rich already – you only have to go back to last year's Picard Award, or T'Pau Cluster presentations to learn about how much we value the expertise, wisdom, and care Emma brings to our community; or to last year's Christopher Pike Pendant presentation for Rich, or 2017's Staff Member of the Year presentation, to learn how his innovation, skill, and enthusiasm for new ideas has brought us to new horizons. So more than anything, we just want to emphasize for Emma, and Rich, on that people are watching the love and care they put into our community, that they are recognizing these contributions, and that we are all thankful for them." Staff Member of the Year Award For staff members who have contributed tirelessly to the organization through any number of OOC channels, while maintaining excellence in simming on their vessel. Tristan Wolf, Executive Council Presented by Quinn Reynolds: "The winner of this year's Staff Member of the Year is someone who is always visible, yet the dedication and countless hours he puts into the group often flies under the radar — to the point where I assumed he must have already won this award! Tristan Wolf leads or has a hand in almost every major OOC effort that we have: the Academy, the News Team, the Publicity Team, the Chat Team, and of course the website, forums, wiki and Discord. But wait, there's more! In the past twelve months, he's been a driving force behind the launch of multiple ships, supporting the fleet's new commanding officers with teething problems and unexpected situations. In fact, he is always on hand to offer guidance to captains both new and veteran, offering thoughtful and practical advice that can be instantly implemented, helping them through all kinds of difficult (and sometimes unusual) circumstances. Of course, it's not just the staff he supports, but members too. He's a dab hand at the art of placement, finding our new graduates or transfers a home where they'll have the best chance to flourish and have fun. Every new cadet is welcomed to the fleet and extended a genuine invitation to come to him with any difficulties. Close to my heart and that of many others, he's always making sure that all our community environments are a considerate, safe place for all. It's fair to say that this fleet would not be the place it is without his dedication, leadership and vision, and so for this reason I am honoured and delighted to present Tristan Wolf with the Staff Member of the Year." The James T. Kirk Cross Given to new Commanding Officers who show outstanding potential in the field of commanding. Mei’konda, USS Astraeus Presented by Roshanara Rahman: "This year’s James T. Kirk Cross recipient, Captain Mei’konda, celebrated his promotion to captain recently, the culmination of his journey towards command that he and his writer Aaron began two years ago. Since his first days as an ensign, Aaron demonstrated a knack for leadership in-game, most memorably when he was given the opportunity to take command of his ship the USS Mercury early in his character’s career to complete a mission. Yet while his simming and storytelling remain as impressive as ever, it is the skill and effort that Aaron demonstrates each day since having assumed a command of his own last year that has earned him this recognition as an outstanding new commanding officer. Since his transition from a supporting ship’s staff member to the role of a command staff officer, I have witnessed Aaron’s development as a mentor, teacher, and leader, first as FO for the USS Veritas and now as CO for his own crew. His kindness, patience, and ability to pinpoint an issue for him and his crew to focus on serve as a model for the members under his command now learning to become leaders in their own right. He has honed his communication style that is gentle yet direct when giving feedback to others. The positive roleplaying environment he has created aboard the USS Montreal and USS Astraeus is reflected in the enthusiasm of his crew’s simming. Through it all, he remains humble and seeks the advice of his fellow COs as he continues to learn the intricacies of command. It has been a great privilege to write with Aaron since he was first assigned to the Mercury after his graduation in 2013, a great honor to serve as his command mentor for the past two years, and now a great joy to call him my fellow captain. Congratulations, Captain Mei’konda on all of your achievements and godspeed as you and your crew embark on the next chapter aboard your new vessel!" Shuvalis Diamond of Recognition For long-term achievement in leading the Publicity Team. Jarred Thoran Presented by Quinn Reynolds: "This year, one of our most decorated officers will be Jarred Thoran, a seemingly tireless community member, First Officer of the Columbia, and even the Awards Facilitator for 2019! One place he was highly nominated was for his work on the Publicity Team, where he has been dedicated to expanding our reach, organizing the team, and finding new channels for recruiting. This led to the discovery of Reddit as fertile ground for nostalgic Star Trek fans, and dozens of new applications that helped bolster fleet membership just when we needed it most. One nomination said he 'injects with his own energetic love for ushering in new blood to SB118,' which seemed like a delightful way to describe it. And there are more fun projects on the horizon that Thoran is facilitating with the hopes of expanding our reach even further. So for all this ingenuity and diligence, awarding him the Sarek Star seems like the exact way we need to honor his work. Thank you and congratulations, Cmdr. Thoran, for everything you're doing to help our community grow and thrive!" The Sarek Star Given to a command officer who shows great diplomatic ability in working with members and staff. Theo Whittaker, USS Columbia Presented by Sal Taybrim: "The Sarek Star epitomizes a Command Officer’s ability to work with others, and recognizes extreme effort put into building communication between crewmates, ship staff, the Captain’s Council and the Executive Council. No command officer better exemplifies this award in 2019 than Captain Theo Whittaker. Over the past year Captain Whittaker had worked through a number of hurdles that are common in roleplaying games and have the potential to either break a game or make it stronger. And in even circumstance, Captain Whittaker rose to the challenge. His crew strongly recognized his efforts to work with a disruptive player, all the while protecting the rest of the players from the disruption. They recognize his calm and supportive mentorship, as well as his ability to build up new staff members when experienced staff need to take an LoA. Captain Whittaker had done an exemplary job in supporting and training his command staff and creating a fantastic mentorship program for new leaders in the SB118 fleet. Captain Whittaker also made great strides in building strong positive communication with his fellow Captains and the flag officers. He reaches out to his fellow command staff for help early on so positive solutions can be implemented before a crisis happens. This not only builds stronger bonds and better trust between command officers, but it also protects Whittaker’s crew and makes sure the game on the Columbia stays fresh and fun. I am so proud of everything Mikey has done over the past year to ensure the success of the USS Columbia and this award is so richly deserved. Congratulations, Captain Whittaker!" Christopher Pike Pendant Awarded to commanding officers who command their ship with honor and dedication, and help to provide a creative atmosphere which fosters outstanding simming. Jalana Rajel, USS Constitution Presented by Toni Turner: "Of all the awards presented, the Christopher Pike Pendant is one of the most coveted as it symbolizes the things that every commanding officer in aspires to do - command their ship with honor and dedication and help to provide a creative atmosphere which fosters outstanding simming. And Fleet Captain Rajel certainly has accomplished that goal as anyone can tell, from the sims her crew submit. They are comfortable in the environment she has created. It is evident that this talented lady takes pride in her work and strives for perfection in everything she does to enhance the entire community through the collective and her writing. So it is my honor to present her with the Christopher Pike Pendant and give her my sincere congratulations for her accomplishments." Chief’s Citation Recognizing the essential staff members whose determined work has benefitted the group In Character, and/or Out Of Character, even while their primary service was not as the Commanding Officer of a simming installation. Inspired by the non-commissioned and enlisted personnel who are the backbone of any starship but were rarely recognized in Star Trek lore in favor of the officers. Alex Blair, USS Constitution Presented by Tristan Wolf: "It's always a pleasure to recognize someone like Alex Blair (Jeremy) who has been a member for quite a while now, across a number of ships. In his case, this recognition comes for his quiet and reliable service in a number of OOC roles where he's been an invaluable pillar. If you've never simmed with him, then you almost certainly know him from our weekly email newsletter, which comes out every weekend with a roundup of the last week's worth of Community News and reminds everyone about upcoming events in the fleet. Jeremy has been assembling the newsletter for over two years – dutifully preparing everything we need and delivering it on time for review. It's been a benefit to the fleet as more people know about what's happening around the community, and Jeremy's help has been invaluable to me on making it happen! But that's not all – in addition to the newsletter, Jeremy's also the Chief Academy Statistician. This is a role that requires keeping careful notes about not just every new and returning player that comes through the Academy, but also about all the Training Officers. In this role, Jeremy has helped us keep track of when each trainer finishes their requirements for promotion, but also just ensuring that we rotate trainers properly each week with new classes. As thanks to him for all of his work over these past few years, we award this Chief's Citation. Congratulations, Cmdr. Blair!" Please join us in congratulating these members of the staff!

Hello and welcome to the 24th annual awards ceremony in our 25th year of our community! There's so much I always want to say, year-after-year as part of this introduction. I'll try and be quick so that we can dive in! First, at the end of the ceremony we'll have more detailed thanks and recognition for the process of getting all this done – so please be on the lookout for that on the last day. But right up front I just want to say thanks both to Cmdr. Thoran who was this year's awards facilitator. It's a really huge job and he handled it beautifully. And thanks to all the staff who took so much time to help prepare. We couldn't have done this without them. Second, I want to thank all of you who took your time putting in nominations. It's such a joy to read them as they come in, learning about how you see each other in this community, and what you value and appreciate. Please know, more than anything else, that this community is filled with love and appreciation and that so many people here are thinking deeply about how their peers are contributing writing and their personal time to build what we have. At the end of the day, our Awards Ceremony is simply a distillation of all those nominations into the consensus we can find among everyone, but each and every nomination is a little love letter and all of you are valued and appreciated for what you contribute. Third and finally, I hope you all enjoy this, our longest-standing tradition outside of simming itself. In our 25th year anniversary of founding this is a special moment to really think about what it means to have a legacy like this, built by Star Trek fans and writers who share a common vision of a more peaceful future, where human potential is limited only by our imagination. -Jordan FltAdml. Tristan Wolf

Yes to all that stuff about Ash but honestly I think the bigger problem is just how convoluted his – and the entire – story is. I watch Discovery with my boyfriend who's as big of a Star Trek nerd as I am – he has a photographic memory and can name any TNG episode just from a few words describing it – and even he didn't really understand Ash's story. We spent a lot of time just trying to rehash the plot to understand whether Ash is a Klingon in a "human suit" or what. Like... did they tear apart the Klingon to make him look like a human and then put a human consciousness in him? Or is he a human they somehow put the Klingon mind into? How would those of us watching at home really know? But every story so far is like that. Every episode has five fake-out flips. Every season has 100 different degree plot turns just to get to the finale. The whole thing just feels very frantic to me at times.

DATES: The class began on June 3, 2019 and ended June 10, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy1 COMMANDING OFFICER: Capt. @Oddas Aria FIRST OFFICER: Capt. @Sal Taybrim (as LtCmdr. Shar'Wyn Foster) GRADUATES: Molko Trevinien Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

That happened back in April technically

DATES: The class began on May 28, 2019 and ended June 3, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy4 COMMANDING OFFICER: LtCmdr. @Jo Marshall FIRST OFFICER: LtCmdr. @Ayiana Sevo GRADUATES: Caitríona Cayne Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

Awards Ceremony season is upon us, and it's time to get all dressed up for the big event! As we launch our ceremony, we'll encourage everyone to change their forum avatar to their character wearing glamorous attire like the kind you'd see on the red carpet. There's no need to get things perfect – lots of players just find a picture of their character's actor somewhere on the web and use that, like so: But if you're looking for something more spiffy, you can also head to the Graphics Requests forum and open a new thread asking for some help. Make sure you leave plenty of time for the team there to help get something that works – best to start earlier than later! Once you have an image you like, you can change your forum avatar by following these instructions.

DATES: The class began on May 20, 2019 and ended May 26, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy3 COMMANDING OFFICER: Lt. @German Galven FIRST OFFICER: Lt. @Jarred Thoran GRADUATES: Tesan Aeryn Rebecca Owens Gervan Bollore Jason Holza Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

Great award nominations from last year to give you some inspiration for this year: https://www.starbase118.net/2019/award-nominations-help-2019/

Guidelines have been updated a little to reflect new norms and whatnot.

Last year, we added a question after the nominations form asking what you thought we could improve about the nominations process. Here are some of the questions we got and how we handled them: I'd really like, if it's possible, to be sent an email with my nomination submission on? I think that would improve it overall and help keep track of it. We've added an email notification that sends you your nomination. Let me know what you think this year. Make it easier to find the nomination page. A link on the forums or to the OOC lists, included in the nomination announcements, would be handy. Places we link to it: Hall of Honor/Awards page ("Nomination Panel" in the right-sidebar) Community News post announcing the nomination period open Email to the fleet that goes out when nominations period opens "Everything you need to know about the 2019 Awards Ceremony" thread #awards2019 chatroom pinned items Forums announcement - at the very top of the page once the nomination period opens Any other ideas of where we should put it? Not sure why the Picard Award has a box for a sim submission. To me, it is a purely OOC contribution to the group. You're right. We're hiding that field for that award this year. Possibly just aesthetic changes. Make the form more attractive, possibly bigger font. More attractive how? Was unable to submit nominations with adblock enabled. Try turning Adblock off. It would be helpful to have a link on the awards nomination page to the Google Group, or the archive to assist in providing examples. We've added links to the currently active ship Google Groups in the field where the sim link is requested. Leaving award nominations open all year round, but promoting it just before the awards panel convenes. This makes it easier for players to nominate those whom are eligible for an award all year round, rather than madly rushing to find appropriate sims of those whom may be nominated only around award season. We'll take this one under advisement! I would be more convenient if award descriptions were listed before the list of previous award winners. I think that's the way we do it now unless I'm misunderstanding your suggestion? For example: Prantares Ribbon. It would be helpful to sort the list by award as well as by name. We've moved the Complete List of Award Recipients to a Google Sheet. You can sort and filter to your heart's content. Create a drop down option for 'non-stationed' players, like Wolf, so we don't have to pick random ships to nominate him or any others doing admin only. Aww, thanks! Just put "Starbase 118 Ops" for me. 😃And for anyone else, use their last known ship. We prefer to keep it this way only because we don't want a situation where we add a "non-stationed" option and then folks start putting that for people who are on LOA – we'd rather make sure those nominations are routed to their most recent captain. Hopefully that makes sense? It would be nice if we could vote for multiple awards on the same page. Couple people proposed this but I'm just not sure how to make it happen using the current form software we're using. The problem is that we need to be able to dispatch notifications to the user of the nomination they made, and also dispatch an award nomination notification to our email archive for each nomination, which isn't easy to do if we have more than one nomination on the page. But I recognize this is a bit of an annoyance and apologize for that. If anyone has ideas regarding how to make this work with GravityForms, let me know. I'd love to see the option to summarize/describe a scene or story as reference to the nominee's simming, rather than trying to search through all the posted sims for the moment the nominator is thinking of. In many cases, I couldn't find it after about 15 minutes of search and gave up. Sim links are not required. Implementing a way of automatically checking if a proposed nominee has already received an award in the past might be an excellent, if challenging, implementation to look at in the future. Having a drop down of ships and their assigned crew members, with each member linked to a database of their awards from previous years might make this possible. Not sure how to do this without quite a bit of development work which feels like it would lead us down a road of having to maintain a piece of software on our own, which we're not very good at. Hopefully the new spreadsheet makes it easier to find the people you're looking for with filter views? Thanks to everyone who put in their suggestions! Keep 'em coming using the form! Feel free to also respond here with other suggestions or to follow-up on the items above.

Nominations for the 2019 Awards Ceremony open on Monday, May 20 at 12:15am Pacific Time and close on Monday, June 10 at 11:45pm Pacific Time. If this is your awards ceremony with us, welcome! This is a tradition that dates back to 1996, wherein we honor the people of the fleet who are simming really well, or contributing OOC. Back in the "old days," we would gather the entire fleet onto one email list (we were a lot smaller then...) and sim together an award presentation; now we do things a bit differently. Here's how it works today: Everyone in the fleet submits nominations for consideration. The group staff (ship COs, EC members, etc.) review the nominations. Each ship has their own awards presentation on their OOC email list for awards in the General Awards category. Award in this category can be given to one person on each ship. Then, we have a fleetwide presentation of awards here on the forums. Awards in the Duty Post, Special, Staff, and Length of Service categories are presented over the course of three days. One person in the fleet can receive each of the Duty Post, Special, and Staff categories. How to nominate: We rely on each and every member of the fleet to submit nominations so we can recognize the best members of our community who are putting in the time and effort to make this a fun place to be. So we need your help! If you don't nominate your peers and mentors for awards, they won't get recognized. We want to encourage everyone to be really free with their nominations – there's no penalty in putting in a nomination that doesn't ultimately get the award. But ships that have fewer nominations tend to end up having fewer award winners – so don't be shy! Multiple nominations from members of a ship for any given award can help send a signal to reviewers that a certain person is really deserving, but also one really great nomination can be the deciding factor for someone to win an award. Follow these simple instructions to get started: Check out the wiki Hall of Honor to see the list of awards and learn more: https://wiki.starbase118.net/wiki/index.php?title=Award Consider who you want to nominate. Then do a quick check on the list of past award winners to make sure they haven't won the award before: https://wiki.starbase118.net/wiki/index.php?title=List_of_Award_Recipients (You can sort the table by clicking on the column headers, or you can use your browser's "Find" feature to quickly find a character anywhere on the page – on PC, use CTRL+F, on Mac use ⌘+F.) If the person hasn't won the award before, head to the nomination form: https://www.starbase118.net/members/personnel/forms/award-nomination-panel/ Enter your information and select the award. Then write a nomination reason. For some awards, we'll ask you for a link to a sim if you have one readily available that helps justify your nomination. Don't stress out about finding a sim, but if you have one, it could help. If you feel really confident about your award nomination, chat with others on your ship who might also feel the same way and recommend they make a similar nomination! Writing a good nomination: Remember, your nominations are going up against other nominations from your ship (for General category awards), or from the entire fleet (Duty Post, Special, Staff category awards). So the better you make your case for why your nomination should win, the more likely it is that it will help your nominee end up getting the award. Last year, we put together some nominations that helped nominees in 2017 win. You can check them out for some inspiration: https://www.starbase118.net/2018/award-nomination-examples/ (We'll post some more from last year – 2018 – in the next few days.) All that being said, don't go overboard! If the case for a nominee self-evident, or clearly shown by a sim, it's okay to write less in your explanation and allow the evidence to stand on its own. How to get a sim link: You can grab a link to a sim by going to your ship's Google Group archive (the link is in the footer of every sim). Awards Ceremony schedule: June 27, Thursday: PRESENTATION: Introduction, General Awards June 29, Friday: PRESENTATION: Special and Length of Service Awards June 29, Saturday: PRESENTATION: Staff Awards June 30, Sunday: PRESENTATION: Duty Post Awards, finale/acknowledgments, complete ceremony posted on the Community News, in an announcement to the fleet via email, and on the wiki. Questions? Head to the Discord chatroom, where we have the #awards2019 room where you can ask questions of other members. Or, ask your FO or CO for help – they're happy to answer questions and have been through multiple ceremonies!

DATES: The class began on May 6, 2019 and ended May 13, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy2 COMMANDING OFFICER: Lt. Commander @Jo Marshall FIRST OFFICER: Lt. Commander @Ayiana Sevo GRADUATES: Qrath @Tamyr Ioe @R'rraww Hontrú Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

DATES: The class began on April 29, 2019 and ended May 6, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy1 COMMANDING OFFICER: Lt. Commander @Serala FIRST OFFICER: Capt. @Oddas Aria GRADUATES: @Kyrrha A. Tereen Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.

DATES: The class began on April 22, 2019 and ended April 29, 2019 LIST: sb118-academy4 COMMANDING OFFICER: Lt. Commander @Ayiana Sevo FIRST OFFICER: Lt. @German Galven GRADUATES: @T'Gan O'Sullivan Sakinth Welcome to the fleet – we're so glad you're here! My door is always open if you ever need anything.