Greetings my fellow Odanites, allies of the Lotus, and dark side spies.

As you may have noticed from the title this report will be a bit different from all the others, as it will be my last report as Consul...for this term at least. But I’ll touch on that later, first we have art and war results!

This month’s featured art is of my NPC Corazon by Selkys (She does NSFW work as well so browse at your own risk). A bit self-indulgent I know, but it’s my last report and I love this piece, it really captures the character’s love of dance and art. Plus I have a feeling people will be seeing a lot more of my smol blue cinnamon roll during my “retirement”

GJW XII

First things first, as you may have noticed there was a little Great Jedi War these past few weeks. I’ve not been in the club as long as some, but I was around for the last war and this one was unlike any event I’ve seen in nearly four years. A vibrant new faction complete with a fleet, an army, and a host of NPCs to battle. If that wasn’t enough we got a brand new bin system with a variety of new competitions and platforms to compete in. Having ran a few clan events and two clan vendettas I can say that this GJW took a tremendous amount of work. Before you do anything else stop and thank every member of the Dark Council (and Atra) for putting this on for us. There will be comments on how to improve future events and stay tuned for information on how and when to give feedback but for now, stop and appreciate how much the current DC has raised the bar.

Second, this was probably the most competitive club-wide event in recent memory. All the clans were well represented in the placements of every event and, from what I saw at least, there was good sportsmanship all around. We came, we gave our all and above all we had fun (even if we were exhausted by the end). Gaming and ACC especially got pretty competitive. So Odanites, please join me in congratulating all the other clans on a hard fought war.

When all the results were tallied COU emerged as First Clan of the Brotherhood. This is an historic day. There was a time when we dreamed about just being a clan. People said a light side unit shouldn’t exist. First clan wasn't even something we whispered among ourselves. To have come so far...and the beautiful thing about it is it was truly a team effort. New members, old farts, long time COU'ers, recent transfers, all came together, supported one another and proved that our values could not only thrive but win. What I’m most proud of is how well you all did in participation but I think the GM put it best:

COU's performance was absolutely outstanding with participation levels higher than any Clan in recent memory. The large majority of Clan's members contributed to this victory and they should all be exceptionally proud of their collective team work. I have been Grand Master for almost five years now and I cannot remember such a dominant participation performance. - Grand Master Pravus

Wow. Pat yourselves on the back because you, yes you, earned this. Teamwork and mutual support carried the day and I couldn’t be prouder to be a part of this Clan. Not only have you set a new standard for performance in a GJW but you have conducted yourselves like true champions after the fact, being gracious in victory, offering the same encouragement to members of all clans. Again, I couldn’t be prouder of you all.

To commemorate the occasion, we have been awarded a possessions ring

We also get a custom set of clan robes and a clan weapon from the Herald. Please participate in the telegram discussion on those items and a poll will be conducted once we have a few suggestions to go with. Not to mention we have roughly 60 million credits to expand our clan military. If you have suggestions for those purchases please pass them to your summit.

Awards and promotions are on-going and will be coming out in a trickle as we process them over the next week or so. But before I move on from war results I’d like to recognize Maximus (Landon) and Aurora (Blade) as second and third heroes of the war respectively. Aurora also kept the ACC championship title with COU in a hard fought bracket.

I’d also like to spotlight those who participated in every bin during the war!

• Alethia
• Aurora
• Droveth
• Edgar
• Ethan Martes
• Ka Tarvitz
• Maximus
• Seraphol

Give these members a pat on the back as well!

Goodbye

“The people will hear from me one last time”

With the war concluded I have a bittersweet announcement (punctuated with Hamilton quotes because reasons): I am stepping down from COU Consul. My resignation has already been tendered and accepted so expect an announcement soon from the Dark Council on the next Consul. In the interim I will be hanging around in the Consul spot to wrap up some post-war admin stuff like pushing awards. I will defer all decisions that affect the future of COU to Arch and the rest of the summit.

“If I say goodbye the nation learns to move on, it outlives me when I’m gone”

This has been in the works for a few months now. The clan is healthy and the summit is as strong as it’s ever been. I began to feel like I was holding the next crop of young leaders back. Two members of our summit earned hero titles in the war and two more participated in all the bins with extremely strong showings from the rest. That’s just one example of the caliber of people we have right now. It’s time for me to step aside and see where the next generation can take us.

I will not be going away, just moving into a support role. I’ll be available to help and support the current and future summits as they take COU into uncharted territories. I’ll also get a chance to be a regular member again, which is important. I’ve been back in COU for two and half years and I’ve been on Clan summit the entire time. I’ve never been in either House (they didn’t exist when I was in HOU for my Journeyman and BTL time). I’ll be around to help you guys, answer questions, mentor up and coming leaders and generally just hang with you.

The club is entering a period of transition after the war, both in terms of lore and improvements to the club’s systems. In the lead up to the war it became clear to me that this would be a good point to change over to new leadership with a fresh vision for the Clan’s future. I have no doubt whomever the DC selects for COU Consul will provide that vision with the support of our top notch summit. I look forward to seeing more of you stepping up into leadership roles and staff roles in Dark Council offices. There is so much talent in COU and you need to share it with the world! The future is bright for us and I look forward to enjoying it with you.

”I wanna talk about what I have learned, the hard won wisdom I have earned.”

When I reflect on my terms in Clan leadership, both as Proconsul and Consul there are many things I’m proud of and many more I might have done differently. It’s been a high honor to serve such a fine group of individuals. You all make this job easy. But there are a few nuggets of wisdom I picked up this tenure I’d like to pass on.

• Talk less, smile more - I have a tendency to get passionate at times when arguing my points and it’s easy to get carried away or jump into full advocate mode without knowing all the facts. There were many times during my term where I had to later go back and apologize. I would tell young leaders to pick your battles, take a deep breath and don’t send that email or message if you’re upset. There are times when you need to advocate for policy position or for your people but make sure you’re doing it respectfully and in the most effective way possible. Sometimes it might feel good to jump in with both barrels when a more diplomatic approach would get more done.

• Invest in your people - As a club leader people are your most essential resource, take care of them! All of them! Talk with your members and subordinate leaders one on one as often as you can. Listen to them. They will tell you what their concerns are, what their goals are and what they like best / want out of their club experience. I can’t stress this enough for your subordinate leaders as you move up to the house and clan levels, they are your money makers. The biggest morale killer in both members and leaders is feeling like they’ve been overlooked, not listened to or fell through the cracks. It’s your job to ensure that doesn’t happen.

• Don’t judge a book by its cover - If you look at COU’s ranks you will see many members who came from other clans, sometimes under less than ideal circumstances. Some may have made mistakes or had negative reputations they wanted to get away from. It’s tempting to just judge based on those reputations and write someone off rather than take a chance on that person. That’s a mistake. Look deeper. Be willing to take that risk on someone who has a genuine desire to learn from their mistakes or turn over a new leaf. Some of our greatest leaders were members who were given second or third chances, myself included. There’s an LoR on my dossier, there was a time when people said I should never see leadership again. People generally don’t say that anymore. The club is a very forgiving place, especially now, as a leader you should be too. The drive to prove oneself or redeem oneself can be a powerful force.

• Meet people where they are - Leaders need visions to, well, lead. That’s an essential part of leadership. However, it’s important to temper your grand ideas with not only what’s logistically feasible with your time and people resources but what the members actually want. Don’t get too far ahead of them. You are here to serve them after all. A leader cannot please everyone, but if a strong majority of your members are going one way it’s probably not wise to run counter to that. This mostly comes up in lore, but it can affect things like what types of competitions to run, systems for member experience, etc. The best example of this principle from my tenure is how we adjusted COU’s identity from being Jedi (old school light side Jedi) centric to a “rebels” identity that was more inclusive of gray path and NFU characters. It also happened to align with Star Wars Rebels and Rogue One. I had my vision of where I wanted the the clan to go, but I set that vision by looking at where most of my members were and that was playing more gray-type characters instead of traditional Jedi. I play a Jedi character and COU had been Jedi centric for most of its existence, it would have been very easy for my vision to remain that way without carefully considering where my members were.

So take what I’ve said with a grain of salt. Find mentors and latch onto them, take advice from multiple points of view. Always seek to improve and learn from your mistakes.

AskTurel

Atty - #askTurel favorite memory of your Consulhood?

Probably the ACC prelim and working with Arch, Blade and the rest of the summit on helping people gain confidence in the ACC and their writing.

Atty - #askTurel simple question, possibly hard answer - did being Consul make you happy?

Certainly! Being Consul is a very rewarding experience, but can also be challenging at times. When a member stops and thanks me for what I said in an award, or for a piece of advice I gave or just believing in them, that really makes my day. Any frustrations from the job fade away when I think about all those times.

Mako - #askTurel where do you go from here? Best moment and worst moment during your term? Any thoughts and or advice you would like to give to members and Future Leaders?

Where do I go? Regular member for a while, do some project work for the clan (like our wiki and the Okami clan) and generally just relax for a bit. I’ll likely get involved in some DC staff work when my COJ terms ends later this month. I’m practically banging down Atra’s door to let me help with ACC stuff because I love that so much. I miss being a judge and helping members improve and love the ACC as much as I do. Best and worst moments? The best was the ACC prelim, the worst...well, that’s a personal moment I’d rather not share. I will say it was a policy type argument that got heated between myself and someone I deeply respect and consider a very close friend. There was no permanent harm and we are still close but at the time it hurt, a lot. Nothing in club business is worth damaging a friendship over, no matter how right you feel.

Droveth - #askTurel with all the progress that has been made with Odan Urr since you became Consul, what path do you think it will take forward? What changes would you recommend be made to the next Consul? Also, do you intend to continue in other leadership roles with COU or the club in general?

I think COU will continue to adapt to new changes in the club and in Star Wars lore in general. Episode 7 brought a great deal of change in the current SW canon and I foresee 8 will be just as significant. I think we’ll see new definitions of what it means to be light side which will affect us. Within the club we have the new Collective storyline and a very fertile field in the Kiast system for new stories to tell. Aside from what I’ve said above I would tell the next Consul to carefully consider where the club is going and align COU with it. It’s a hard balance to stay true to who we were and where we’ve been with where the rest of the club is going.

As far as me in leadership, I will be back in some capacity.

Closing

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as your Consul. Thanks for indulging the sentimental ramblings of an not-so-young man (I’m not as old as some, but I’m not spring chicken either). I look forward to forging the future of COU alongside you!

Turel Sorenn

Consul, Clan Odan-Urr

Never gonna give you up