First 90 days

New Sky Marshal. New Battle Plan.

I want to see a pace for rapid change with the new executive, and the planning for that needs to start before the elections are completed.

Key themes for rapid transformation of Pirate Party Australia.

1. Separation of Executive Governance from day to day operations.

Every small little thing we do does not require executive approval. We must shatter the inertia of a culture of risk aversion that is currently embedded in the party. It is not a constitutional requirement that small operating details are approved by the executive, there is nothing actually preventing us from moving for change at speed.

We are a party that as libertarian takes the stance that in general, small government is good. It starts here. This does not disregard the importance of political and compliance risk management, in fact makes this more important, but your going to hear a lot less ā€œnoā€ and a lot more ā€œwhat do you need, how can we helpā€ from the executive.

2. Strategic Recruitment

To run daily operations of the party we are going to need enthusiastic, energetic members and types of members we have tended to not either attract or retain historically. We are going to target a broader range of key members to direct or help run operational aspects of the party. Some of them at first we are going to have doubts about. Some are going to have different views to you on big things. We will survive. They will learn and also we will learn and we will all become stronger as a result.

3. Geographic Social Meetups

Face to face with a beer, rum or cup of tea is essential to the rapid emergence of a culture of connectedness, trust, understanding and action. Pirates that drink together stay together. No excuses, there will be Pirate parties.

4. Direct Action

We are going to build capability of the party to sustain continued actions on multiple fronts. It starts by doing small things, learning how to manage and control the teams, the message and the fallout. We must not be afraid of f*&^ing up and not be afraid of blowback. By doing, we get better at doing. Start small. Learn. Get good. Then go bigger.

5. Diversity

Related to points 2 & 3 we will target key recruits and empower them with support to influence our culture as it is undergoing transformation. This is the Pirate Party however. It is not failure if it does not look like other left gender diverse political groups. We are going to have female and diversity PIRATES not a facsimile of diversity activism in general. Our diversity culture will be UNIQUE and EMPOWERING.

Iā€™m interested in your thoughts and debate, and as you know I love people telling me Iā€™m wrong. So have at it.

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@edeity, you are all kinds of wrong :slight_smile:ļø, but your message above seems about right for now.

The creation of promotional materials has to comply with the AEC rules in some circumstances, mostly at times we have to spend money. Videos and printed materials in particular require authorisation. Here is the AEC info on promotional materials. You have to scroll down to the authorisation bit. Any pirate could theoretically approve the materials, but their name and address has to go on it, which many people balk at. I wonā€™t do it due to meth addict who has stalked me in the past and may go crazy and do it again for EG.

I suggest a 3 pirate approval process. If three consecutive people think it is a good idea, it is probably a good idea. This is the Swarmwise suggested rule for approvals.

This is good for people in capital cities, or nearby. We are very geographically dispersed though, with a lot of rural pirates. We can get them in too with some effort.

The tallship party for EG was going to get in quite a lot of rural pirates, there just wasnt enough interest early enough to pull it off. If we go large, with ample notice we could get around the distances required for travel because the party promises to be worth the effort.

Face to face meetups are undoubtedly important, but as @Frew says. weā€™re geographically spread out and will remain so until the party has a chance to grow a lot more, particularly beyond our current IT white guy membership. In the meantime, we can and should be trying different ways to help members participate and interact using technology - Social Media, Webinars, Hangouts, etc. Weā€™re a technology-focused party and we should be leading the way in ā€˜virtualā€™ collaboration.

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I agree. Its a many vectors approach.

Our excess of nerdy people, irrespective of their gender or skin colour, means that we tend to deal with the creation and evaluation of online communications quite well. Thereā€™s at least two new systems being tried at the moment, just that I know of.

Some emphasis on IRL meetups is warranted.

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You know i love telling you youā€™re wrong, @edeity. So be prepared :wink:

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:+1:

@edeity: looks like we have a lot of interest to get some ā€˜quick winsā€™ in improving internal comms (irc issues). I mentioned at Congress Iā€™d like to have a 12 month-ish NC strategy, so could you outline what we should do to complete the strategy development started at congress so we have more of an action plan we can start applying to improve Party functions and keep it visible/open to everyone?

@edeity, how goes the analysis of the strategy session?

HI all.

As you may not be aware, I ended up with full blown pneumonia, and am in the final stages of getting over it (while catching up with a massive bank up of work from nearly 2 weeks off).

Iā€™ll be on it as soon as my brain has ceased melting. Apologies for the delay.

@edeity Take care of yourself first, and then come back to us all charged up and healthy.

What @AndrewDowning said

damn dude. get well soon