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September 25, 2013

Hello eIreland,



Wow, seems like only yesterday I wrote my last report, but I suppose it's really been more than a week. Well this whole CP thing has been keeping me on my toes, and events have taken more than few exciting turns. Time to shed a little light on what's been going on in the government offices.

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A New Look For Government

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Before we dig into the serious matters, I just want to take a moment to show case the new government look that's being used. Back before I was elected CP I'd had some designs lying around which I stumbled across this month. I'd noticed that lots of other countries have features to their government articles that link to other government publications and assets - we're at least as good as them I figure, so I decided to finish my old project. You first saw the new look in my last Taoiseach Report.

After polishing them up you can see the end result.

All departments now have their own government seals and headers. Underneath the headers we've got a banner with links to all government departments, administrative affairs, the national military unit, and the various community resources such as the library and irc.

My hope is that this link banner will be helpful for all citizens and to anyone looking for government information or community assets. It might seem like an extravagance but I think presentation counts for something, and by putting in the extra effort we're also showing some national pride.

Here's a list of the government graphics for your viewing pleasure:
http://tinyurl.com/IrishGovGraph

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Dáil Éireann

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Dáil has continued their hard work and discussion. You should see how long both of the Dáil threads are! It's real evidence of our living breathing government.

Tomorrow we will have a brand new Dáil term. All candidates and party presidents are encouraged to friend me as soon as possible so that we can make the transition to a new set of Dáil threads as easy as possible.

I'll be continuing with the mixed model Dáil threads which I believe have worked very well this month. This means that each thread will have as close to as possible as 50/50 split of each parties TDs.

One of the things that has been discussed is what can be better done to support citizens new and old. Among other things, what stood out to me was the idea of somehow investing in citizens to help them upgrade their training grounds.

I believe this is a good idea. Every citizen has a free training ground, which they can train in each day without daily cost. Upgrades to this facility provide substantial increases to the daily strength added to your citizen. Over time this is an incredibly smart investment - and on a national scale it could result in a powerful boost to our military strength.

But first we need to recognize the real challenges around this. First, it's a risky investment! If we want to start a program like this, we need to find ways to discriminate against high risks - risks such as the player quitting the game, misusing the funds granted, or failing to train smartly and ending up in high divisions (at which point no amount of free training will save their immortal soul).

There are ways to do this, but I will need to continue discussions in Dáil and with key cabinet members to work out an effective method. This may not be done by the end of my term to be honest, but I will invest real effort so that it can be passed on to next terms staff at the very least.

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New Citizens and Education

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During my campaign, education reform and improvements were a key goal. As a long-time Minister of Education, I've got almost a passion for getting useful information into the hands of our citizens, and training our new citizens to be the best they can be.

We have gotten started on these reforms, as evidenced by the new location of our updated National Library. The first step of the grand plan will be to utilize the University of Ireland government organization as the new paper for education and new citizens. This way all of our DoE matters will be well organized, secure, and truly the property of the Irish people.

Goals for this education reform include:

- Releasing an updated New Citizens Message before the end of my term
- Adding articles about beginner missions for our new citizens
- Creating a reference article for new citizens
- Developing a strength based training system to turn our new citizens into D1 monsters.

So the first thing I ask, is that if anyone has good reference material (articles about beginner missions, guerrilla fighting, etc) please pm me and share! One of the difficult things about writing for new citizens, is that you need to view things from their perspective. It's been a while since I was brand new so any existing articles would be huge help.

Ultimately, I doubt that I'll make all the progress I'd hoped for education this month. The important thing, is that we've gotten started, and that we've committed to further improvements.

In the meantims, Raven Anarcho has been looking further into methods for new citizen recruitment. We've designed some ads and have done some great investigation into where best to invest our time and resources. I'm extremely impressed with this project so far and I'm optimistic that Ireland may have some kind of baby boom in the near future.

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Community

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This Department has really performed amazingly this month. Right now I believe they are waiting on me to help develop this month's community awards. As I said during my campaign articles, this month I want to do community awards a bit differently. While there may still be a community voting aspect, there will be awards given out by certain members of the community which will be chosen by the specific individuals (example: the MoD's award for best soldier, etc). As I said, I think this will be a fun way to mix things up.

I hope to design some cool award graphics too, but if anyone else is up to the job I wouldn't mind the break!

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Outlook on eUK Matters

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Over the last few weeks I have been in talks with the eUK, and we have even been discussing a potential treaty. Ultimately though, I don't believe that a treaty will happen this month, as we are nearing the close of this term and the eUK hasn't been receptive to longer term arrangements.

This month I was not planning to re-sign the non-aggression pacts - generally as a step toward greater independence and more equitable relations with our neighbours. At the same time I am disappointed that the original treaty which I drew up with WookieO could not be passed.

This original treaty would have been a three month non-aggression pact where the eUK would return all eIrish regions by December. I feel this would have generously benefitted both sides given that December is about when Ireland would certainly be best able to retake our regions by force in the absence of such a treaty. Unfortunately a three month treaty turned out to be too great a commitment for the eUK parliament, who felt it would be pressing too much restriction on their future leaders.

A later one month non-agression pact proved to fizzle out due to a lack of enthusiasm and the ticking clock which would have made the treaty good only for another week or so.

I must say that WookieO and the government of the UK have been very friendly toward Ireland on the whole this month. However, we must not let our guards down. It is known that a considerable faction of the eUK's population want war with eIreland.

Knowing the threat of attack which looms over us, the government has been conservative in saving resources for the event of a conflict. Supply and events continue to be funded by donation for this reason.

With our sizeable war chest and the largest national defence shield in the world, Ireland is ready to defend herself. The time will come for Ireland to retake all original regions, and we can all sense that war is on the horizon. I would much prefer a peaceful agreement, but the current situation will not do us for much longer.

Cheers,
Ian E Coleman
Taoiseach of eIreland

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