Good Evening All,

The days seem to be moving incredibly quickly, owing to time off during the Christmas break and, in my case, a subsequent week on holiday. It seems hard to believe I am now over a month into this new role, but nevertheless, your staff team have been hard at work, and I would like to provide a quick update on our progress over the last month.

Firstly, we have seen a number of recruitments to our staff team. @Adam Arkley's appointment as ATC Training Director and @William Jennings' appointment as ATC Training Manager should hopefully come as no surprise to those reading this post, and I was delighted to see work begin in earnest in order to understand the areas in which ATC Training can be developed and improved. The findings of this work have been neatly summarised in Adam’s Review Findings and First Steps post and, if you haven’t already, I would highly recommend reading this post should you wish to understand more about the future direction of ATC Training in the UK. It is also great to see the large mentoring effort which has returned following the Christmas break, along with a number of recent ATC exam passes. Key to this success are our ATC Training Instructors, where we have seen yet more appointments. @David Woodward brought a wealth of training experience to the Department following his appointment as Enroute TGI. In addition, @Adam Arkley, @William Jennings, and @Fraser Cooper have all accepted invitations to join the Division Instructor Team. The role profile for our Division Instructors has also been updated to place a greater emphasis on currency, activity, and mentoring/examining across the ratings. These appointments and changes can be viewed in more detail here.

Elsewhere in the Division, we welcome Tarik Merrylees into his new role of Advanced Flight Instructor. Tarik is working alongside the rest of our Pilot Training Department to produce and update syllabi and training documentation for our P3 course. Towards the end of 2023, our PTD underwent an external audit by VATSIM.net, and we received a number of recommendations regarding our P1 and P2 courses which, I am happy to report, have all subsequently been implemented into our training system.

As some of you may be aware, our Web Services Department was rebranded to the Technology Department earlier this month. Calum and his team have been performing essential upgrades to our systems behind the scenes which are nearing completion. I look forward to discussing current and future tech projects during the next DSG Meeting to better understand how their work will impact the Division in the future.

Following the successful implementation of 8.33kHz spacing and the introduction of TC Midlands, our Operations Department has turned its focus towards standardising and updating vMATS for our training aerodromes. Excellent progress has been made on MTMA airfields in 2023 - Scottish TMA airfields will follow suit in 2024, and I am confident these changes will greatly benefit our students as they move across different airfields throughout their training journeys. Applications were also opened, and have since closed, for a number of positions within the Operations Department. Further information will follow from Kieran at a later date, however I would like to thank all candidates for their interest and time in applying to these roles.

Our Events Department has also been working hard to create our 2024 event schedule. As I take a step back from the Department, I am happy to see @Luke Thompson and @Thomas Hallam operating at full-steam-ahead. To allow for a smooth transition, an event planning process has been introduced to ensure that knowledge is transferred between future appointments and resignations from the department. In addition, the creation and implementation of an ‘Events Team’ will follow prior to the appointment of a new Marketing Director. More information will be provided on this change at a later date, however this team will become responsible for our rostering and flow management, as well as providing support during events.

Finally, I am pleased to announce that interviews for the role of Member Services Director will be conducted shortly, with the view to appoint a successor to @John Batten within the next two weeks. Although he still has a few more weeks in post, I would like to thank John for providing leadership and guidance to the Member Services Department throughout his appointment. As mentioned previously, Marketing Director applications will follow suit, which will complete the appointment process for all Division Staff Group positions. In addition to driving the recruitment process forward, I am keen to continue progress on the topic of Moderation to ensure the Discord experience is enjoyable for all our members. I have seen a marked decrease in disruptive behaviour since the introduction of the Moderation team, and I am keen to continue with this progress to ensure momentum is not lost. It was a pleasure to meet with the DSG for the first time at the beginning of this month - the minutes from this meeting have been published here for those of you who are interested.

That is all from me at this time - as always if you have any questions or concerns, please do get in touch via the Helpdesk or Discord DM.

Ben