Spears sitting behind his desk in his new office, made a mental note to remind maintenance to remove the rest of these damn boxes Kaianns possessions that where cluttering his new office. Looking up from his desk he saw his Praetor Anshar Kahn and his Magistrate Dranik standing at the foot of the desk, Anshar with a datapad in his hand. As Spears took the datapad, Anshar began to speak It appears as though Lord Cotelin has approved your plans for rebuilding and expansion.
Standing from behind his desk Spears, issued both Anshar and Dranik their orders and let them get to work on the long process of rebuilding and expanding the Shadow Academy. The vicious assault by Infected forces on the Academy had left it in rubble. However Spears did not see this as a setback, rather he viewed it as the perfect opportunity to expand the Shadow Academy into areas of the Education and the Force it had yet to touch.
OOC
As my First act as Headmaster, I would like to thank the Shadow Academy staff for all of their hard work. The Shadow Academy would be nowhere without their time, effort, and most of all their hard work. Keep an eye on your inboxs for a small token of my gratitude.
As my second Act as Headmaster I have appointed Anshar and Dranik as my Praetor and Magistrate. I am currently looking for another Magistrate.
The requirements are as follows.
1.No rank requirement
2.Minimum of 3 months of activity
3.Skill with either HTML or PHP (sites you have designed or maintain should be included in your app)
4.A desire to make the Shadow Academy better.
Please email applications to SpearsTarentae at gmail dot com and randomviola at yahoo dot com and feel free to CC lord_Dranik at yahoo dot com
As my Third Act as Headmaster I will be instituting several new programs that will fall under project Education Expansion Initiative. A lot of people view the Shadow Academy as simply a place to take exams, get promoted and to exercise their ability to copy and paste. I plan on changing that as well.
1.Project Financial Aid. A new section of the Shadow Academy will be built where members of the Brotherhood will be able to submit links to Financial Aid resources, be they places to apply for grants to contests where students may submit things to win scholarships. These links will be available to all members to help them in their aims at furthering their educations. All sites in all languages will be accept, however they will have to be reviewed for content so non English language sites may take longer to be approved. Also this is not fictional financial aid, I want these to be actual sites for our members to use. Real Life education is expensive and anything we as a group can do to help each other succeed in Real Life is more important then what our characters can do in a game of JA.
2.Project Lecture. A new section of the Shadow Academy will be built where members who have moved beyond school and have entered the work force will be recruited to answer questions about various occupations. This Q&A session will be handled over IRC and through questions received in emails. They will then be compiled and posted in the Shadow Academy. The goal of this project is to give our members insights into various careers the ups the downs the pros the cons. I will be putting out a call in the future to our elder members to assist in this program.
3.Project Understanding the Force. Gilkane and his lectures within the Message Boards inspired this Idea. A new area of the Shadow Academy will be built housing the ideas of the Elders of the Brotherhood in an attempt to further out understanding of the Force. Members will be able to write their ideas about anything related to the Force and the Brotherhood and submit it for approval. We will then gather these together and allow members to open their minds to new outlooks on the Force.
All of these projects are still just getting off the ground, however I will be asking for members who wish to add to these projects in the near future, so keep an eye out for that.
KE Spears Tarentae
Headmaster of the Shadow Academy
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Umm maybe it's just me, but this isn't a real life club. It seems like adding real life things to it would be weird. If people want to experience real life, then they should take some time out of this club and go experience it. It really seems like a waste of space to me to have these types of things.
I disagree, Shar. I think this club gives a lot of opportunity for people to learn towards real life and can be a good source for learning skills and whatnot that they can apply there.
For instance: How many people have learned a lot of their leadership skills here? I know I have. How many people have learned how to probgram web sites through here?
I think that the things Spears wants to bring in, while outside the realm of Star Wars, can really help the members.
I agree that this club teaches you real life skills in many ways. However, you learn those directly from doing club related things. This is just kind of out there. Before we know it we're going to have an eBay and a web search engine up. I don't think we really need to go outside the realm of our club just to satisfy people that don't know how to use google.
Yeah -- but the thing about that is there are 3 million and 2 different tutorials for each thing out there. This will be a place where people who have gone through them before can submit the best of them.
Further -- we will be making out own and putting them up too.
A scholarship database? Very, very weird.
I don't know how povvo American schools are, but Australian schools have career and further education guidance counsellers who are there to provide information on scholarships and career paths and such. I imagine you guys have that too, or is that just a little too optimistic?
Personally, I don't see this particular aspect as a positive change. Sorry, but its too left of centre for my liking. Should we design a Brotherhood charity bin as well?
Yes. Give to Jac. Good cause.
Yes, there are career councilors and what not here in the United States. My school calls the entire thing the "Career Development Center" or CDC, not to be confused with the Centers for Disease Control (the real CDC), about 1 1/2 hours south of here.
Yeah, I have to agree with Sharad on this one. Though I can see how it would be beneficial to many younger members to put up links to sites like this, I fail to see how it has a whole heck of alot to do with "The Dark Jedi Brotherhood". If you wanted to do something like this, I don't see why it has to have the DB name on it. Just seems a bit to weird, even for my taste.
Why shouldn't it have our name on it? If it helps members, then I would gladly put our name on it.
THis isn't for everyone and we don't expect it to be. There are members out there though that may find this beneficial, and if it helps even just a few people I thin the small effort it wil take to put up is worth it.
And if you don't like it, don't concern yourself with it. This isn't an in-your face thing that you really need to worry about.
Personally I dislike the idea for two main reasons...
If people have those sort of problems we should be encouraging them to get out of the DB and get their real life sorted. They need to be reminded this place is not something they should be worrying about if they are having serious financial difficulties.
A lot of people use the DB as an escape, bringing in aspects of real life only asks for all kinds of real life grief to spill into the club with people bringing their problems here where the majority of us would rather not listen, given that this is escapism to an extent.
Still, I can't say I'm all that bothered, only that I do think if people have problems there are a lot of far more knowledgable official bodies that we should be pointing them toward, not trying to run things ourselves- especially given the backlash that could have if things go bad and the responsibility we somewhat have to ensuring people don't rely on the DB for everything in their life but understand they need to get out of the DB at times and make use of other providers elsewhere in life.
Count me in for writing a LOT for the Force-section. People just don't know how it works nowadays.
Wow I think people really missed the boat on this on. The ideas are to setup a page where the information will be available to those who want to look at it.
It will be an off shot of the Shadow Academy page and will just have a list of links and a short description of what the link contains. It is not going to be shoved down anyones throught and in fact if you don't visit the SA you will probably never see it. However it is another resource that members can use as they see fit.
"A scholarship database?" No, Where people know it or not there are alot of organizations out there that run contests each year, where people can write essays, take pictures, and all sorts of other things. These contests often have scholarship prizes or just straight up cash for the winners. Maybe some of you where/are not scrounging around for $10,000 or much much more for college but I know I was. Not to mention the fact that these contests tend to have some creative ideas, just because we are a Star Wars Club does not mean we have to JUST be a Star Wars Club.
Some of you may also have a clear idea of what you want to do when you go to college or know what you want to when you get out of college. There are alot of people who don't know, also alot of people when they get out of school realize that what the job they thought they would be doing is alot different from what they are doing. The "Lectures" will give people who would like some insight into a particular career get one. For those who are not interested well the answer is don't go to the Lecture and don't click on the link on the SA pages that will read Lecture Hall (or some such name). These things will all be held in the SA and in #ShadowAcademy on IRC. For those who think it is to Real World for them it is easy enough to avoid completly, for those who are interested well it is easy enough for them to get involved.
Like everything in this club, these programs are all voluntary and are aimed at helping members. Use the resources or don't it is up to you. If it helps you that is fantastic, one thing if for certain it is not going to hurt you.
Would these things be divided into things for the US, things for the UK etc? I don't think most of our British members (me included) would benefit too much from information on US stuff. :P
Yes in the short description following each link the Country of Origin will be listed.
I kind of have to agree with the unsure people here.
We're an alternate reality SW club. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not qualified as a career guidance counsellor, and the DB as an organisation certainly isn't. There are websites out there who specialise in this. Lets leave it up to them.
If we start heading into RL, I could put up links to poetry gatherings and story competitions (yeah, I did just put one in the news, but that was the first time, and it was a pretty cool one ;o)), we could link to computer game design courses, alternate chat engines, etc etc.
That's not to say I don't like the idea, it's just a bit outside of the DB remit....
If people are really keen on this, I'd be willing to see how it goes for a trial period, but I'm a little worried that it may open a can of worms, so to speak...
If nothing else, maybe it's an attempt to make sure people don't disregard real life (as some members have done before), and maybe it's a plug from the DC that people should consider going to, or getting back into school. Quite honestly, I think that makes us a better club if we're trying to make our members consider all of their options, while providing them a fun atmosphere. I mean, really, does it hurt so much to have a few reminders that people might consider signing up for college?
"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not qualified as a career guidance counsellor, and the DB as an organisation certainly isn't."
We are not trying to be career guidance counsellors at all think of it like this Member X is thinking of getting in IT work, Member Y is an IT admin. Seems to me that Member Y could give Member X, an idea even if it is a limited on as to what IT work is really all about.
"If we start heading into RL, I could put up links to poetry gatherings and story competitions(yeah, I did just put one in the news, but that was the first time, and it was a pretty cool one ;o)), " Yes and you used the news page to post this. All of the things I am talking about will be on the SA site, if a member is interested they can come and get it, if they are not it will be quite easy to ignore. I am not planning on shoving this down anyones throat. It will simply be a resource available to those interested.
As I keep saying this stuff will be left to the SA page and will most likly be listed under a Non-DB link, for those who wish to keep the DB purley an escape they can, but if they would like to use the links they are more then welcome to.
I understand that this is a Fictional Reality that people use to escape for a while. As I keep saying this won't be on your news pages and it will be kept in the SA away from those who don't like it. The only time you will even see mention of it most likley is when I ask if there are any volunteers.
"If people are really keen on this, I'd be willing to see how it goes for a trial period, but I'm a little worried that it may open a can of worms, so to speak..."
What can of worms is that exactly? If people have questions chances are they will be sending them to me, so I fail to see how this is could open a can of worms for anyone but me. As for the trial period suggestion, well I am going to be putting it up, that part is pretty simple, If people don't like it well they can ignore it and I am sure it will go away all on its own.
I really don't like these scholarship and lecture ideas. Part of our Mission is to encourage strength of mind - but this isn't the approach to do that. It is not our place to tell people how to live their lives, nor are we here to coddle and babysit. We are here to provide a fun environment.
Australia has a scholarship system called HECS. Its a government sponsored loan open to anyone, to cover university fees. Your loan debt is marked on your tax file, and when you get a job that earns more than... I think $26 grand per annum, a small amount is added to your tax until you repay the debt. All you need to do is front costs for materials, books and transport. http://www.hecs.gov.au/ is the website for information.
...Good luck.
The point of this isn't to babysit or coddle people. This is just one more resource people can turn to. Sure, schools and governments have information already posted, but hey...why not offer another area to reinforce this? It isn't like Spears & Co. are going around offering transfer agreements to MIT or Cal (UC Berkeley, none of those other UC's that aren't anywhere near as good as Berkeley). If you don't like it, you don't have to use it, as has been said previously. If it doesn't work, or doesn't look like people are using it, it will most likely be removed.
It isn't being force fed down your throat, relax.