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Post by Lombardy und Venetien on Jun 9, 2014 10:46:54 GMT
Greetings, good nations of the SLU! I am here to present myself as your candidate for the position of Minister of Domestic Affairs. First, a few qualifications and achievements: I currently hold the office of Deputy Minister of Domestic Affairs, and in the past have been Minister of Immigration. I am responsible for the creation of the popular FIFA World Cup sweepstake, of which half the places have been filled.
Domestic Affairs is arguably the most important department of any region, as it is responsible for the very crux of a region's existence: the provision and running of a safe, stable environment for a nation to prosper, with an active community to boot. From forum roleplays to the RMB, the DA Minister is responsible for the day-to-day organisation of a region's infrastructure, and should arguably be the most active minister in the region. With my newfound free time and activity on Nationstates, I feel it is now the right time to through my hat into the ministerial ring.
My plans:
1. Expansion and promotion of the role-play system - role-plays form a vibrant part of any region and indeed Nationstates as a whole, as proven by the NS Forum, and indeed in our own region we have an great number of roleplays. Unfortunately, to my mind there are not enough nations participating, with only a core of nations taking part in roleplays regularly. We need to create more roleplays and expound their merits to the region, through the promotion of roleplays on the RMB and further encouragement of nations new to the SLU to sign up for the forums.
2. Cooperation with Immigration - our region is one of greatness, both past and present, yet numbers have almost halved in recent years; a slide which needs to be addressed. In co-operation with the Minister of Immigration, our region has to be a presentable and inviting place for new nations to come, especially considering the number of liberal and democratic socialist nations extant on Nationstates. Whilst Immigration can handle the recruitment and telegramming of nations, I feel Domestic Affairs should be active in welcoming new nations to our region. Welcome telegrams are an obvious example, but perhaps a voluntary system of mentoring can be implemented, with new nations having a specific person to go to and telegram with any questions or queries.
3. Increased involvement of Deputy Ministers - speaking from experience as a Deputy Minister, I feel that their function is seemingly only to provide back-up to the Minister. In my eyes, this is something that has to change. Deputy Ministers should be assigned specific roles within the region, in order to involve them further in the decision making process. If other departments do not wish to implement this, then I as a Minister certainly would. The further involvement of Deputy Minister has to the potential to increase the strength of our regional democracy, as the taste of a full Ministership might stimulate Deputy Minister into running for office in the next elections, thus widening electoral choice and not making our elections a one-horse race.
Feel free to ask any questions regarding my intentions, this has been Westerheim, your candidate for Domestic Affairs, you stay classy SLU.
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Post by Chameliya on Jun 9, 2014 11:51:05 GMT
Great platform! Thanks for running.
Just wondered if you're in favour of the SLU City of Culture competition idea that NAR is working on and other competitions of that sort (sporting events etc.)?
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Post by Lombardy und Venetien on Jun 9, 2014 11:56:35 GMT
Yes, it seems a good idea to me, and all current RP projects will not be scrapped without a vote in Parliament.
As for sporting events, I'm all in favour of them, sport is one of my passions, especially rugby and football, so as well as getting some actually fantasy leagues going when the (English) Premier League starts up again in September, I would start sporting competition role plays. I believe there was an attempt at an Olympiad a year or so ago that never really got off the ground, to my mind because registration was so much effort, so I would try again with different sports and easier entry.
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Post by North American Republics on Jun 9, 2014 13:36:34 GMT
I want to preface this by saying that I'm glad that Westerheim has thrown his hat into the race. We are now able to have an actual election for Minister of Domestic Affairs and I'll have to face a well-qualified candidate. If that doesn't scream democracy, I don't know what does. My plans:
1. Expansion and promotion of the role-play system - role-plays form a vibrant part of any region and indeed Nationstates as a whole, as proven by the NS Forum, and indeed in our own region we have an great number of roleplays. Unfortunately, to my mind there are not enough nations participating, with only a core of nations taking part in roleplays regularly. We need to create more roleplays and expound their merits to the region, through the promotion of roleplays on the RMB and further encouragement of nations new to the SLU to sign up for the forums.
I just want to point out that we've had expansion of role-play in the past (a few of us are still around for when we has space RP) and it ended up not working out. We also used to promote the role-play events to the region through the RMB in the past as well and while I'll toss my support to that suggestion, it wasn't very successful in drawing enough states into the fold. Activity in the various regional affairs has always been a problem in the region, but hopefully we'll overcome it this time around.2. Cooperation with Immigration - our region is one of greatness, both past and present, yet numbers have almost halved in recent years; a slide which needs to be addressed. In co-operation with the Minister of Immigration, our region has to be a presentable and inviting place for new nations to come, especially considering the number of liberal and democratic socialist nations extant on Nationstates. Whilst Immigration can handle the recruitment and telegramming of nations, I feel Domestic Affairs should be active in welcoming new nations to our region. Welcome telegrams are an obvious example, but perhaps a voluntary system of mentoring can be implemented, with new nations having a specific person to go to and telegram with any questions or queries.The region can auto-welcome members to the region and that capacity has unfortunately not been utilized, but hopefully it can used now that it has been brought to attention.3. Increased involvement of Deputy Ministers - speaking from experience as a Deputy Minister, I feel that their function is seemingly only to provide back-up to the Minister. In my eyes, this is something that has to change. Deputy Ministers should be assigned specific roles within the region, in order to involve them further in the decision making process. If other departments do not wish to implement this, then I as a Minister certainly would. The further involvement of Deputy Minister has to the potential to increase the strength of our regional democracy, as the taste of a full Ministership might stimulate Deputy Minister into running for office in the next elections, thus widening electoral choice and not making our elections a one-horse race.
From prior experience as both Minister and Deputy Minister, the Deputy Minister of Domestic Affairs is free to be an active deputy. DA is one of the free-est ministries for officials. Communication with the Minister for help with a new idea is always encouraged; it's the culture of the ministry.
Feel free to ask any questions regarding my intentions, this has been Westerheim, your candidate for Domestic Affairs, you stay classy SLU.
As for a question: would you make future RP projects (including new RP types) subject to Open Parliament authority? Also: would you make use of the auto-welcome feature that NationStates provides the region's WA Delegate? |
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Post by Lombardy und Venetien on Jun 9, 2014 13:45:43 GMT
Not sure if you're questioning my proposals or not, but you seem to be in some agreement with me, so I'll leave that be. ;)
As for future role plays, I don't think they need to be subject to Open Parliament authority, nations can be free to open their own RPs. I guarantee the existing role plays with a parliamentary vote, as I see no point in abandoning a RP simply due to a change of administration, unless people have a burning desire to, which I doubt.
Regarding your second question, yes, I would strongly advocate the auto-welcome feature. However, I myself would be happy to manually welcome each new nation with a telegram - it's not as if we're getting dozens of new nations every day, which would leave me swamped.
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Post by North American Republics on Jun 9, 2014 15:18:49 GMT
I'm not questioning, just providing some elaborations and reasons for things is all.
And through some testing I just undertook right now, it does not appear as if the entirely automatically sent. Still, it would only take the WA Delegate one click a day to send it out to all new members.
Re Q1: I see. Thank you very much for the clarification!
Re Q2: I see agreement here.
Thank you very much for answering the questions, Westerheim. I can't wait to find out the results of the election.
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Post by Lombardy und Venetien on Jun 9, 2014 15:28:26 GMT
No worries, good luck!
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