Hello all. Welcome to my tree mail.

My name is Enzo Dek, but most people just call me Dek. I’m the new Knight Commander (Clan Magistrate) of COU.

A little bit about myself: I am a full-time 11th and 12th grade teacher. I also have a healthy relationship with the outside and touching grass. I ride my bike across state lines of NY/NJ everyday to go to work for a total of 2.5 hours. While I joined the DJB in 2006, I quit in 2010 vowing never to really come back. As with everyone who promises that, I came back in 2015 and have been here ever since (my attempts to perma-rogue have always failed). I was in CSP from 2015 to early 2023 and decided to make the launch to COU a month or two before the GJW. With all this in mind, I’ve been a gamer since I was 5, playing The Treehouse. I always won the Jazz Jackrabbit tournaments I played with my siblings. I frequently told my younger sister and brother that they needed to be entirely out of the room so I could beat the Donkey Kong Country 2 boss battles. I also utterly wrecked the emotions of my brother when I “bought a useless game” while he watched my play the original Myst. Suffice to say, I’m the epitome of the rejection of the sunk cost fallacy: I’ve devoted my entire life to this form of entertainment that I really don’t see any point in stopping.

That’s not why I’m here though.

I’m here because I gave my vision to Revak and Gui and that vision was chosen as one that had it’s stuff together. I have two main goals and quite a few objectives, which I will share with you now.

Goal 1: To create a mostly authentic gaming community in Clan Odan-Urr.

What this means is that by April 30th of next year, I want there to be an authentic and thriving gaming community in COU that involves very little top-down management (hence the mostly). Some form of guiding light will always be needed, but creating a thriving community is important to allow members to feel welcome and have fun here.

Goal 2: To build upon the position of Knight Commander so new M:KC’s can continue the legacy with a leg up.

Leaders should not have to “start anew” every time they enter a position. Building capacity in leadership is important. It’s difficult work, but capacity building is important to the skilled longevity of the club as a whole. Essentially, the next Knight Commander should have all of the tools I currently create and use without having to start a whole new gaming survey and try to guess at what happened in the past. Working documents based on continuity is important.

I also have 6 objectives I’d like to accomplish in my time here as M:KC:

1) Facilitate the recruitment of 10 members by April 30th, 2024 who would achieve the rank of JM4 at least.

2) Have 10 Odanites participate in the weekly gaming night with at least 1 hour of play each by April 30th, 2024.

3) Have at least 20 people in the running for the Scimitar of Hoth in a 2 month span by April 30th, 2024.

4) Have 20 Odanites submitting gaming events at least once a week over a 4 week period by April 30th, 2024.

5) Have 30 members submitting to the Gaming Survey by November 30th, 2023.

6) From April 30th - May 30th, 2024, having 70% of Odanites saying they “Agree” with the term that they feel Gaming is a priority for COU on a survey of our membership (when I do a survey of our members at a time where I believe I can reevaluate the position and goals for myself, or if I’m still needed for the position).

The purpose of these goals are to measure and assess the success of a community semi-independent of my purpose as Knight Commander. This will be data intensive. But as I said, I’m a teacher. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard the term “data” in my job, I’d be worth at least $100,000 at this point. I live data. I swim in it. I breathe it. It’s in my blood, and I have no choice but to interact with it (or else I don’t get paid). So there will be lots of tracking, trending, and organizing.

I mentioned all this in my application. I’m a big believer in transparency and that’s part of what I’m trying to do and to build.

Part of accomplishing this means getting to know your gaming history a bit better. That means delving into your gaming library. All of it. Including the single player games. Yes, including the visual novel games. I want to see it all! And you can submit it here through this dainty little form I've created for all of you:

HERE

This data will help me create awesome competitions for you, like to one's mentioned in the Clan report.

Well, that's it from me. My character is now a tree. And I can grow to 3 meters tall. Hence why I have a hovel of mail.

That is all.