“You used to be much more...muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.”

Entry posted by Barrie Joplin in Community · November 25, 2016

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Dear All

VATSIM UK is pleased to be able to introduce a region-based community structure of colloquial delights, with a drop of slight insanity better to accommodate the mixed bag of nuts we all make up.

Starting 15th December 2016, you will be invited to join one of the new 9 region-based communities:

Scotland
Northern Ireland
Northern
Wales
Midlands
East Anglia
South West
South East
British Overseas

Region-based communities / Regional Training Scheme (RTS)

These communities are completely separate from the Regional Training Scheme system (you all know and love/hate *delete as appropriate) which is shortly about to be replaced by Central Training.

Members do not have to join a community in which the facility they are training at is based. There may however be benefit for the member to choose the community in which the majority of their day-to-day VATSIM activity (flying/controlling) takes place.

e.g you could be training at Gatwick but be a member of Wales

Why?
In order to be able to provide an engaging experience for all members, a clear line of progression* through to staff positions within the department, and to rekindle a better sense of community and belonging,

We will (in the first half of 2017) be launching a system to begin an intra-region competition, designed to encourage members to fly in/out of and staff up facilities that are less well known/used. In addition to this we will be able better to acknowledge the contributions of members flying in/out of mentoring/exams/events.

Each region-based community will be able to elect their own representative to feed in ideas/issues/concerns and feed back resolutions/progress/answers. These representatives will work alongside the other members of the department, closely monitoring and ensuring the interests of their region-based community are heard and where feasible, promptly acted upon.

Regular digests of activity within each community will be published within the appropriate channel on the forum for all members to read.

*Role specifications and pathway progression will be published before the end of January 2017.

I don't want to join a region-based community
You will not be forced to join any of the region-based communities, you will always remain part of the wider United Kingdom community. Should you change your mind in the future, you will be able to select a region-based community via the UK web systems.

Further information/details
This will continue to appear in this channel in the lead up to the new year. We will also be hosting a number of drop in sessions on our Team Speak server in the coming weeks (dates/times tbc).

Many thanks
Barrie