2024-02-08 Reflections & Rambling

Owned by Daniel Puratich
Last updated: 2024-05-14 by R D
3 min read

Intro

Please bear with the ramblings as some of this content is actually interesting. My apologies to the people who will need to read this. This will be discussed in the next leads meeting Feb 12th 2024 so hold off on discussion until then though feel free to ponder. If your a cool future person go find those meeting minutes.

Policies

As the team has gotten bigger, people like me have seen it fit to write policies to improve organization and help onboard new members. In reality this leads to more confusion and restriction on what is the really important policy of “be a good person”. Perhaps there is a balance to be struck here, please provide feedback. Where is policy too stringent? Where can we improve? For a starting place, check outPolicies . Let’s improve this in the spirit of Keep WARG non corporate! .

Objectives

WARG isn’t a group defined by getting together for something that’s pleasurable while it’s happening. I more see it as the group where we all work ridiculously hard on top of our already busy university and co-op defined lives to accomplish something fulfilling such that we’re able to learn and grow throughout the process. Maybe that’s a little deep, but that’s what it is, the stuff you’re all doing is tough.

While WARG does have Socials , it’s not the main objective. We really are here to do something, so let’s make it something we all want to do. Related if you want further reading is Keep WARG Engaging! .

When WARG was restarted by a small group a few years ago the focus was survival. However, we never slowed down to establish long term objectives or goals for the team as we’ve become more alive. You’ll notice Team Charter (2021-2024) really only cites basic education as the purpose. We’ve all kind of assigned our own purposes to what we want WARG to be or do, but it leads to people being scattered in objective and conflict between goals.

I hope to fix that with everyone’s help. Take a moment and consider what you think the objectives of the team as a whole and your subteams should be. Consider items to accomplish in the next four months, in the next year, and in the next five years. Dream big, everything takes time.

I’ll give some examples, but as leads you steer the bulk of the team, please give your thoughts. In the next year I would like to see a RPAS on entirely custom electronics fly. In the next few months I would like to see a improved placement in competition from last year. In the next five years I want to see our core member count double.

Hopefully in the leads meeting we can come to some consensus on core goals. Then these can be amended into team charter. Put simply, let’s put something great into the sky is too broad.

Past

The team has been perpetually improving over the last four years, due to you: the leads, the PMs, and the members. We have more members, more core members, more airframes, better tech, a nicer bay, more equipment, a wider skillset, and the list goes on and on. If your bored maybe read History. Maybe we take a moment to reflect on some of our favorites? You should all be very proud.

Future

The team is changing, it always has been, and it always will be. The team has always been passed down from generations of students as we all come and go, it’s a part of the cycle. If you’re a lead maybe skim Lead Term Guidelines , we don’t want you to stagnate. Currently, following this competition/term, there will be a change in directorship which opens the door for a fun update in overall objectives.

Anni and Megan will be stepping down effective end of term with their successors being brought up toward the end of this term and throughout next term. We will be voting soon (with “speeches” and proper deliberation) for these roles and have a few people interested though director roles in discord won’t be given toward the end of the term. Feel free to start penciling into Lead List .

I will be stepping down at the end of S24 or F24 term depending on how I’m feeling so there will be another director slot soon. I will be onsite for both of those terms. My apologies for being MIA during leads this term and resorting to monologues, being offsite moment. Thank you for coming to my written ted talk.