Greetings Region 3!

There is a LOT to talk about this time – so please grab a drink, and hang on until the end!

2021 Doesn’t seem to be treating us any better than 2020 did, but yet we push on! Many of our folks are still suffering from the snowmagedon we had, with damage to their homes, and the time and energy that it will take to repair. Also – we’re still living with, and reacting to COVID and its trickle down effects.

Due to COVID, an how that impacts people’s travel plans, the International Conference in Florida has been postponed a year. Stay tuned for dates on that, and what virtual events will replace it for this year.

 
Similarly, our Summit shall be pushed back, until June 3-5 of 2022. This is out of caution for our members, and both Summit chair, and I felt it was needed. It makes me sad – but not as sad as we’d all be if folks caught this horrible thing at our event. Let’s stay safe one more year. We will do our own virtual summit, similar to last year, and try to make it even bigger and better.

This decision was made just last night, so plans are in their very early stages. Also – please be patient as we adjust the website yet again to reflect these dates. If you registered (either this year, or last year…) your registration will carry over to 2022. But please contact the hotel if you have secured a room already – that will need to be handled by you. Registrations and dinner orders will be carried over automatically. 

For that virtual summit – we’ll need to announce some awards. But we can’t do that if there are no awards to give out! We need your nominations! 
http://awards.region3.org/ 
You have until March 31st! Please recognize your people – we all need some good news to cheer about here soon, and our awards are a big part of that. 

There are some changes on the website, mostly the back end, but all our forms have changed, or will change. This is due to the app we used for forms is no longer supported, and is a vulnerability that is actively being exploited. Please stand by as we adjust to keep things safe and secure – but also functional. 

As the CO’s of the region all know by now it is time for RC elections! The first phase is nominations – you need two nominations from chapter CO’s to run. You will need OTS, OCC and the new SFDPP courses complete as well. The nomination phase continues through the end of the month. After that, if no one candidate has 50%+1 of the total possible nominations, we proceed to 30 days of voting/campaigning with the highest number of votes in that period winning. If you have any questions please contact the IG (ig@sfi.org)

I do plan to run. Should others wish to run, we will conduct any ‘campaigning’ on Discord in a dedicated channel. This keeps it off facebook, contains it to those that are interested, and accessible to all. Per our data protection policy, I cannot mass sign people up for email lists, as has been done in the past, and our General list is practically empty (save for staff members). So discord will have the most reach, with reminders about it going out on facebook and email periodically. 

So a lot is going on! R3 Staff and i are busy as ever dealing with all these changes – but our door is always open. Please email me if you have any questions!

Jeremy Carsten
Regional Coordinator, 
STARFLEET Region 3