The Economist ~ Iain Keers for Party President
Spite313
Dear friends,
I come to you as I came five times before, to offer myself as a candidate for the Party Presidency of TUP. I’m not going to write a long article about this, since party internal machinations are tedious at the best of times, but hopefully I can give you a brief outline of where I think TUP is now, and where I’ll be taking it should you choose to elect me.
A few weeks ago I looked at where TUP was now, and it wasn’t a good position. We’re languishing in second place, and our membership has been in a slow decline for months. Many of our members, including myself, are overseas exploiting bonuses (or being President of Poland, eh Marvin?). In addition our proportion of “young” players under three months old is relatively small, around a fifth of the parties active membership. Though we’ve performed well in elections, we are definitely the second place party in the UK right now, and that has to change.
The reason I’ve decided to run again this month is hopefully to kick start TUP in much the same way I did back in early 2009. We will be taking a long hard look at the UK as it is now, and moving ourselves to better represent the UK population. We are obviously not resonating with the voters as we once did, or at least not as well as UKPP. To fix that problem we have to suck up pride and admit that we have made mistakes, we have not come across strongly enough with our views and we’re not providing the vision of the future the UK has come to expect from us.
After that doom and gloom, let’s look at the positives. Unlike other parties in similar situations we’ve not seen a collapse of membership. In fact, far from it. Our core group of players remains more or less stable, at around 100-120 active, involved fighters and citizens who are over a year old. That group of players provides us with a stronger backbone than any other party. They give us the ability to pass on wisdom and knowledge to a younger generation- which is the primary function of any political party.
On top of this we have the structures in place and the experience to rebound. Our main failing at the minute as a party is point of contact. Anyone involved in recruiting knows that these days a new player is contacted within the first few hours of their life- by the same 2-3 recruiters from other parties. They usually get offered money or items in exchange for membership. For most players, who aren’t into the politics to begin with, this seems like a good option. After all, if you don’t care what party you’re in, you might as well be in the one who will pay you the most to join.
However this is a flawed strategy. It is good for making your number appear bigger on the party page, and might even increase your votes. However bribed players are not going to be loyal, they’re not going to get involved and they’re certainly not going to want to contribute anything back to the party. A customer relationship is all this creates, and buying members is not good for the player or the party. In TUP we’ve always focused on the quality of our training and the opportunities we offer. We don’t offer money (though new players can get help if they ask, regardless of their party), but we do offer the opportunity to prove yourself.
So for the future what I’d be focusing on recruitment-wise would be to present a better, more attractive TUP for people investigating the UK’s political parties. There’s no point trying to fight over citizens by offering bribes, but what I plan to do is make TUP attractive so that when players are grown up and looking for options, TUP jumps out as the party of choice. We can occupy that position, and we do provide an unparalleled access to experienced older players who can support new players with advice and support. That wealth of experience needs to be used to its maximum.
If elected I’d also be focusing on communication, but not in the way we use it now. Nobody wants a boring mass PM about nothing much (vote vote vote!) so I’ll be sticking to non-party business for all my messaging. We’ll be looking to inform and educate both our membership and the wider citizenship without actually talking party politics. Our mission statement is to educate, agitate & organise and that’s exactly what we’ll be doing. We’ve learned the lesson that ingame messaging does have a strong role in party-player interaction, so we’ll be bringing our knowledge ingame through messaging. In addition to this I have 9 major articles planned over the course of my term designed to be beneficial not just to TUP but to all citizens of the UK. I hope you enjoy them.
Much to the contrary of what most expect, I hope this term to be a term of compromise and working with other parties. Only a fool would claim that every position they’ve held is ever perfect, especially in the face of the public’s opinion. We need to come together as a party, unified under strong leadership, and mould ourselves to fit the modern UK, or risk falling behind into obscurity. TUP is a great party with great members. Even to this day it’s viewed by the other parties as the one to beat. We need to pull ourselves up, reform, and smash back onto the stage with renewed vigour and purpose. And for that I need your vote on the 15th, and your help for the rest of the month.
Yours in Unity
Iain
Comments
Good luck Iain.
o7
Voted.
Emporium!
Emporium Armani!
Lol'd - somehow I don't think you meant what the word actually means
"a large retail store, especially one selling a great variety of articles"
thatsthejoke.jpg
It's a pun on "Imperium" which is frequently posted by TUP members
voted
HAIL EMPEROR KEERS \o/
[removed]
I deleted my comment ):
Looking forward to TUP's new era...
or New Era's TUP
That doesn't make sense
I have been UKRP PP 6 times, nice to see someone will match my record 😛
Assuming direct control
he never left.
Voted, good luck Iain!
lol'd
good luck Iain
Iain
good at what ?
good person.... good in life... and elife
It's the sex.
In all sincerity...good luck and I'm sure you'll do a good job
Voted.
Good luck, Iain! : )
I just noticed that I used that exact "I'm Back" pic for one of my articles a while back. xD http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/i-039-m-back-1-1998718/1/20
Iain's a boss
some guys need bosses...
Well, surprisingly, this time we may even be "friends",... nah, but perhaps allies.
I'm sure you have seen:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/size-matters-2211368/1/20
and yes, now your party is not so bad.
but remember that:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/talking-penguins-important-president--2211333/1/20
and behave with colours:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/ideas-not-colours-2211302/1/20
anyway, your party irredeemably suffers from:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/talking-penguins-voting-idiocy-2211248/1/20
(even more THAN MINE).
Good Luck from the eUS
Dont let UKPP become complacent \o/
BAWWWW EVIL KEERS BAWWWWW
But seriously, welcome back! I just hope you don't start another huge flame war...
Spamicans at the ready
We've needed somebody to raise our ingame profile, for quite some time. It's good to see you addressing this and other issues.
gl m8 !
We could have a return to the good old days where Iain and Goku are both PP and attack the corrupt institutions of state like we did in early 2009!
For you newer players, yes this actually happened. We boycotted the Military and House of Lords (both now destroyed).
The reforming parties back then were RFA, MDU and... TUP! Much like OV, UKPP and New Era today.
What reforms have the 'so-called' reforming parties achieved?
There's very little reforming to be done. Its more a simple willingness to try different things. Parties such as UKPP and NE have turned peoples attention slightly back in game rather then being solely focused on the forum. When I first joined the media was dead and the forums were thriving, now it appears to be the other way round. That's a pretty big one right there. There's been a marked increase of Government/Congress interaction (my first 3 congress medals consisted of nothing but forum posts) and a much more interesting place to play the game... So yeah, what have we achieved?
That was a trend that was in effect before any of those parties addressed it and had little to do with any of their policies. It definitely wasn't a result of any 'reform'. 😉
No it is a direct effect of me buying epic numbers of votes for drama and flame articles and controlling the media until all of the conversation moved in game to stop me.
LOL