| The One-Zero Division |
| CL7 Kayana and Dmitri |
Hello there! I half felt like I should start off with “Ahoy hoy!”, Brady’s favorite opener, considering the number of times I have seen it in the Yearbook but this time around it is just me so hello there it is! This year has been a tumultous one for the One-Zero Division; we’ve gone through a lot of changes and shake-ups but I’m proud to say that we’re still going strong and I’ve been very happy overall with our performance this year. Starting in November 2006, CL8 Iain left his post as ST DSC to head up InDev. I was chosen to take his place. I was really excited to step up to the post of ST DSC. While I have been a long term member of OTF for over 5+ years and have been in numerous departments from ISA to Tribune this was my first direct leadership experience. It was a bit scary but fun at the same time- I loved how the OZD worked, I enjoyed the ST genre and best of all as ST DSC, you get to have all the fun and none of the worry- that is what the SC is for! Sadly enough that didn’t last long as in February 2007 CL8 Brady decided to leave the OZD to focus on his graduate studies. I was really sad to see Brady go- Brady has been in OTF since almost its inception and his guidance and advice to me starting out was invaluable. Brady’s been ST SC for 5+ years if I’m not mistaken, making him the longest serving genre SC, he conceptialised and intitiated the department of Entertainment and he’s been active in and around the Outpost in so many forms that if anyone deserves to be the next Admiral my vote would go towards Brady. In 2005 Brady won the Gene Roddenberry Award giving you a sense of the high esteem the OTF community holds towards him and this year Brady will be awarded the One-Zero Division’s Agent of the Year commemorating all of his work in the ST Genre and more specifically, in the OZD. I still see Brady on MSN now and then but he’s pretty busy these days and I do indeed miss him; most especially his wise words on mailing lists. I often feel like I’m muddling along when I think about Brady’s ability to phrase things diplomatically and get people to work together. After Brady’s departure I was put in the hot seat as ST SC and I had to choose a new DSC. There were a lot of great applications and I think it points to the high calibre of applicants that CL9 Hongjun, CL8 Daecrist, CL8 Brady and I took over a month to come to our final decision as to the new ST DSC: CL7 Dmitri! CL7 Dmitri had been AM2 of ISA for quite some time now as well as ex-TL of the Artist’s Guild and we were all impressed by Dmitri’s ability to resolve problems in the chats diplomatically as well as his talents in the field of webprogramming. Sadly, we were unaware of his little “revolution” in the making (check out his OTF webpage) and little did I know I was letting a socialist viper into my capitalist pigsty...(It’s been a longstanding joke between Dmitri and myself as Dmitri is an avowed socialist and I would have to say that my own views lie right of free markets and open boundaries!) Now that the ST SC/DSC issue had been resolved -we had beaten off Polson’s bribes and Hobbie’s request to switch genre posts- it was time to settle down and get some work done! I bribed Polson to take over my role in writing for the Blue Report and Aeon Now back to the OZD...First off- after a long time in the works, the OZD had a new webpage done and we added Bajoran and Borg ranks to the ST chats. The OZD page was a combined effort between CL8 Brady and CL7 Dave (thank you guys!) with the addition of Agent Profiles which was the work of CL5 Ayanna. The OZD page also had the special addition of the OZD Hall of Fame which was produced by both CL6 Aeon and Cl5 Polson. Check it out here. Thank you all seniors for contributing towards it! And for all ex-OZD agents I invite you to email me or CL7 Dave so we can add you to our “Former Agents Profiles”! The Bajoran/Borg Ranks were the original brainchild of Cl6 Raine and were eventually launched after the combined efforts of Cl6 Aeon and Cl8 Iain. Giving us our favorite Bajoran rank ever: Major “Pain in the Ass” Krillen! April’s Fools Day came and went...sadly Iain came along for the ride. Featuring a repeating ST soundtrack and rotating color schemes OTFers got to enjoy OTF Iain-style. Hmm, I wonder if this is how Iain sees OTF in his head?? In June, the OZD jointly hosted OTF’s first Firefly Weekend with the SW Senate. Jointly co-organized by CL6 Mezoti and CL7 Amanda Sielu Paris the Firefly Weekend in the CCC featured over 100 Firefly avatars, new ranks (noticed the chinese symbols?) as well as my favorite event, “Dear Crazy Knife-Wielding Madman AKA Jayne”. Kudos to all! Later on in June the OZD launched its annual Amazing Race Contest. CL5 Ayanna ran this year’s event with the winning word being “schematics”. Thank you Ayanna as well as her helpers in Engineering and InDev for running this massively successful event! And of course, congrats to the winners CL4 Lzrman, Cl6 Blake and Cl6 Mezoti! In July the OZD Murder Mystery Game was launched for the first time ever. Featuring six mysterious “murderers” OTFers had to guess who the murderers were by watching who got “murderered” (L1’d) in the chats! Featuring numerous clues and mysterious guest chatters, the game eventually ended with CL6 XgermeZ as the winner followed by Cl4 Isabella and CL2 SrColt. Thanks to all for participating in the event! And for the curious, the murderers were: CL7 Osiris, Cl4 PR Moore, Cl7 Luc Deathstryke, CL6 Krillen, CL5 Naberrie and CL4 Polgara. The entire Murder Mystery Story will be featured in the Writer’s Guild so head over there if you missed the entire Murder Mystery Game! Within the OZD we had a lot of changes as well. In November, CL5 Polson and CL8 Babel joined our ranks. CL8 Babel left our ranks to head up Guilds and we invited CL5 Bocky, CL6 Cinna and CL4 The Green Knight to fill up the OZD team! Sadly, CL6 Cinna had to leave to focus on RL and to add to that, CL5 Ayanna left the OZD to focus on her departmental work (Ayanna is Phoenix DL- kudos!) and CL6 Aeon was stolen from us by the Wizards. Curses! That said, many of our OZDers remain on our mailing list and I’m happy to say they still help out round the place. After all, SOMEONE’s got to water the plants.. In August, Dmitri updated TF’s voting sites (GO VOTE!) and he has a plan or two up his sleeve for further advertising TF chats. Dmitri, Mezoti and myself also buckled down and finished this year’s Anniversary Awards which was quite a task as this was a first time for all of us. I am proud to announce that this year’s recipient of the Gene Roddenberry Award is CL8 Iain in recognition of all his work in OTF- from keeping the servers in fine tune to help coding the majority of projects around this place. Thank you Iain for all of your hard work and we look forward to working with you in the months ahead! To end off, I’d like to thank all of you OTFers for your various contributions to this site. Some of you I’ve mentioned in this piece but I am sure there are many more I haven’t. A lot of work goes into this site from running it to something as simple as chatting in the chats and keeping it alive. We try to recognise all of your effortts in the Anniversary Awards but sometimes they go amiss. So thank you all for your efforts and keep on chatting! Regards, CL7 Kayana ST Sector Commander Dmitri's audio speech |