Opinion: IFVs and the Red Herring of WA Affairs

[Comfed]

IFVs and the Red Herring of WA Affairs
The root cause of the lack of interest facing our Ministry of WA Affairs is that the Ministry doesn't focus on what's important.
OPINION | By Comfed

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During the confirmation hearing for the Minister of World Assembly of World Assembly Affairs before the Senate, Senator Gem made a comment that got me thinking (emphasis added):

I've been MoWAA in the past, and I've been around the ministry long enough to know that the most important job that needs to get done is getting out IFVs consistently and in a timely manner. Staffer training and future proofing are definitely critical to the ministry moving forward, but I've seen us slip and fall many times before when it comes to getting those IFVs out like clockwork.

Publishing IFVs, as Gem alludes to in their post, is currently the primary task of our WA Ministry. Recently (and, let's be honest, less recently) the Ministry has struggled to meet that lofty bar of releasing them "like clockwork." For those who don't know, IFV stands for "information for voters" and refers to the analyses we (in theory) publish for each proposal that hits the floor of the World Assembly. Typically, they are divided into two sections - "analysis," which is an overview of what the resolution is accomplishing or trying to accomplish, and "recommendation," which is a statement of the government's position on the resolution and why.

As we confirm yet another minister of World Assembly affairs to an office that has proven increasingly difficult to fill as of late, we have reached what may be called a reckoning in terms of the future state of the WA ministry. Although activity there has been anemic for months, we seem to have hit something of a nadir; during the term before this one, an outsider to the Ministry (John Laurens) was transferred from managing EBC Radio to the Office of WA Minister, who subsequently had to take a leave of absence for real life reasons and was never replaced while the ministry effectively ground to a complete halt. Right now, in spite of the best efforts of now former Minister Westinor, we currently have an WA staff of approximately two people, those being Filet minion and Industhan.

The state of the WA Ministry right now is very unfortunate, and reflective of a region-wide lack of interest in the World Assembly. Fundamentally, if citizens are not interested in the activities of a given ministry, that ministry will fail; we saw this with the Ministry of Justice, where the plug was ultimately pulled by President Darcness altogether in 2021. However, unlike the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs concerns an important area of our foreign policy that we would be fools to simply discard because of lack of interest.

As a policy matter, we ought to approach questions regarding the World Assembly as inherently a part of our foreign affairs. It's not hard to see why: the WA is a highly visible and sometimes mechanically powerful expression of what could possibly be called (or at least seen as) world opinion on whatever issue it is considering. Our strongest expression of power in the WA is our delegate's vote. Aside from itself counting for more than 200 votes in the WA, the chosen vote of our WA delegate is displayed to every Europeian WA voter on the same screen where they vote. Further, in voting early, the delegate can affect the vote total displayed to all nations who vote, giving the impression of consensus, thereby influencing the vote of every WA nation.

Unfortunately, instead of focusing on efforts to expand Europeian influence in the World Assembly, the WA Ministry focuses largely on the publication of IFVs. I would suggest that the reason that there is such a lack of interest in WA affairs right now is that the vast majority of our effort goes into this utterly dull task. Meanwhile, much like how the work of the FA staff has rather little to do with foreign policy, the actual work of deciding our policy towards important votes is decided not in the WA Ministry, but in regional security and geopolitics circles advising the president.

An IFV produces no substantive engagement with the region at large on WA issues. Instead, it serves as an official rescript from the Ministry on the government's view of a resolution. In many cases, "the government's view" actually means the view of whichever staffer bothered to write the IFV, because they rarely receive feedback from the rest of the Ministry before publication. Much like foreign updates, we write them because we obligate ourselves to, and try not to think about the fact that they are rarely read or responded to at all. Which ties in nicely to another, even more important, problem - IFVs play no role in expanding our WA influence. What expands our WA influence is efforts to increase our WA population, or building inroads with regions that have high WA populations themselves. IFVs play no role, and we seem to have tacitly recognized this, given that efforts to publish them outside the WA Ministry forum (which is only visible to citizens) stopped a long time ago.

The awkward truth about WA policy is that the important parts are not decided in the Ministry of WA Affairs itself. Instead, our stance respecting votes relevant to our regional interests is decided by the president and their top advisors. On truly critical votes, where coordination with allies and partners in places such as the World Assembly Legislative League (WALL) is important, that coordination is, virtually without exception, handled by the administration's foreign affairs team. The WA minister, meanwhile, usually just smiles and waves, and their assistant ministers stand by and do nothing.

When you consider the public's lack of interest in the WA ministry from that perspective, the reason becomes quite clear: the WA ministry doesn't do anything interesting. In the past, yes, we have had a highly productive WA ministry that successfully published a lot of IFVs. The poster child for that period of success is no doubt Greater Cesnica, whose efforts in running our WA ministry earned him universal praise; presidents promised to make no changes to the WA ministry because it was running so well. His efforts were indeed laudable and deserve to be applauded; at the same time, we have to remember that he was a prolific WA author in his own right, so it's no surprise that he would be attracted to the WA department of our region as well.

After Greater Cesnica, there was a period when most of our IFVs were written in conjunction with WALL. Instead of embracing this opportunity to make WALL a more active and dynamic force in the WA commanding more votes than possibly any WA-focused group in history, there was a wave of public criticism against this disruption to the status quo. Kazaman put the issue very well, so I hope he isn't bothered that I'm going to quote him in full:

Why do we hate success so much? WALL was a huge policy problem that people banged their heads over for years. We lamented that there was no real collaboration between members. And now that there's a solid plan to do this, even if it's not everything we've asked for, we're considering bolting to maintain the isolated status quo?

It may seem strange for me to discuss this seemingly minor historical issue, but I think it is reflective of the myopic approach we've generally taken towards WA affairs. In that discussion, many interlocutors made posts emphasizing the importance of writing IFVs "in-house," with IFVs authored in WALL areas (accessible, by the by, to the entire WA staff in the first place) being seen as a negative. This is a backwards opinion of how the Ministry ought to operate; instead of placing first and foremost the advancement of our WA agenda by enhancing the strength and durability of our WA voting bloc, it places ahead of all considerations IFVs "made in Europeia." To be honest, it wouldn't matter if our IFVs were all written by ChatGPT, although it didn't exist at the time; the only relevant consideration in that conversation should have been our ability to strengthen our WA network through WALL cooperation. In effect, we had the opportunity to finally make IFVs into something of usefulness, and there were some who wanted to throw it all away.

Our hyperfixation with IFVs when it comes to WA policy, if they can even be called that, is symptomatic of a Ministry which has lost its purpose in favour of useless make-work. Focusing on the hard, often behind the scenes, and nearly impossible to fully quantify work of building a solid foundation of influence over which WA resolutions pass or fail is, well, hard. It requires a degree of awareness of WA matters, and inter-regional politics more broadly. On the other hand, focusing on an easily known quality, the number of IFVs published, is easy. And so we focus on publishing IFVs, never mind what the purpose of publishing them is, as long as they are indeed published.

This article is already long and a bit rambling, so I'll finish by saying this: I don't mean to degrade the hard work that our WA staff puts into the IFVs. Their effort is valuable and they should be commended for their hard work. But we should direct that energy and enthusiasm for the WA - that which we have left - towards more productive avenues. When it comes to our policy respecting the World Assembly, "information for voters" is nothing but a red herring.

Disclaimer: I am aware that there is an ongoing confirmation vote for the Office of the Minister of World Assembly Affairs. Regardless of any opinions expressed in this article, it would be overstepping my bounds as a senator to impose my policy preferences on the administration. Especially when this nominee will be in office for less than two weeks before the presidential election, I hope this article will stir discussion separately from the ongoing hearing.

 

[Kazaman]

Kazaman put the issue very well, so I hope he isn't bothered that I'm going to quote him in full:

I don't mind at all.

I largely agree with your article (and not just because you quoted me!), with the caveat that most of NS is make-work. There's still a distinction, though, between productive and counterproductive.

 

[Sincluda]

Between earlier discussions on the role of WAA, events in the Security Council, the counter-campaign initiative, and the perpetually unfortunate state of the Ministry, similar thoughts have stirred in my mind for the past few months.

WAA is long past the time of Greater Cesnica, and it's not worth the effort getting it back there. Consistent discussion threads followed by consistent IFVs posted forumside, as dispatches, on Discord, in telegrams, etc. were, surprisingly, feasible back then. That is not the case now, and as you said, IFVs aren't worth the effort of making things that way again.

It's painful for me to say, since rabidly writing IFVs was what got me started in Europeia, but an IFV for every resolution is truthfully a ridiculous expectation. Especially when the GA (the less interesting branch) has been without recess for while, IFVs have turned from measures of success into fruitless weapons of burnout.

I just wrote a lot of words to say that I agree with you, but it's worth more strongly considering WAA's path ahead. IFVs still have their place, at the very least to explain a position on an important SC resolution and whip some gameside votes. How do they factor into the Ministry's potential future--one structured around exercising and expanding WA influence? What work will serve as the foundation for the new WAA (campaigning/counter-campaigning?), and how will it work? How would the GA be treated in this "New WAA"?

These are questions to chew upon moving forward, because I am increasingly of the opinion that WAA needs serious restructuring.

 

[Gem]

Comfed, I think you draw attention to an excellent point, but also have come to the wrong conclusion.

When I was Minister of World Assembly Affairs, and when Greater Cesnica was Minister of World Assembly Affairs, almost all of our IFVs were made in collaboration with WALL. Additionally, and this is an important part, every IFV was posted on the RMB, as a dispatch, and in telegrams. At that time, they served as a means to advance WALL regions' foreign affairs policies, they served as a means to get formerly uninvested gameside citizens interested in World Assembly Affairs, and the exchange of WA staffers between WALL regions largely prevented the collapse in WAA staffing we see today. In fact, when because of a complicated IRL schedule several of our WALL IFVs weren't posted with adequate time in advance, it was a major scandal which drew condemnation from much of the region. Today, we find ourselves in a drastically worse position, with the vast majority of the region not caring enough to so much as pay attention to the crumbling state of the WAA ministry.

Here's the thing though: IFVs are necessary. They provide the backbone upon which a successful ministry was based, they provide necessary context to gameside voters about World Assembly Affairs, and they drive interest in the region, even having brought at least a few people I'm aware of to make a forums account and get engaged with Europeian government.

The issue is, in pursuit of reducing burnout (and also due to the collapse of R3N's tools), we've largely stripped IFVs of all of their meaning and effectiveness. When they're not posted gameside through dispatches, the RMB, and telegrams, they are truly just meaningless reciepts that soak up Ministry time for no understandable purpose.

Furthermore, in part due to largely removing ourselves from WALL following my exit as MoWAA, the time required to make IFVs has only increased, while the circular flow of WAA saffers between regions has halted entirely. Even if we wanted to reinvest in WALL at this point, that program has atrophied in our absence, and is no longer as active as it once was.

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So yes. IFVs are necessary. All IFVs are necessary—if we're going to go the distance and put them in the places where they're visible.

What we need to do now is understand two things:

1. Our WAA ministry does not have enough staff and attention to fulfill its tasks currently. Other regions' WAA ministries, likewise, have atrophied. We should be pursuing fixing WALL or starting another interregional WAA partnership to fill this void.
2. If we do not fix the tools that were used for publishing IFVs, and if we do not actually use them, then you're right. IFVs are useless and will continue to be useless.

 

[Sincluda]

Comfed, I think you draw attention to an excellent point, but also have come to the wrong conclusion.

When I was Minister of World Assembly Affairs, and when Greater Cesnica was Minister of World Assembly Affairs, almost all of our IFVs were made in collaboration with WALL. Additionally, and this is an important part, every IFV was posted on the RMB, as a dispatch, and in telegrams. At that time, they served as a means to advance WALL regions' foreign affairs policies, they served as a means to get formerly uninvested gameside citizens interested in World Assembly Affairs, and the exchange of WA staffers between WALL regions largely prevented the collapse in WAA staffing we see today. In fact, when because of a complicated IRL schedule several of our WALL IFVs weren't posted with adequate time in advance, it was a major scandal which drew condemnation from much of the region. Today, we find ourselves in a drastically worse position, with the vast majority of the region not caring enough to so much as pay attention to the crumbling state of the WAA ministry.

Here's the thing though: IFVs are necessary. They provide the backbone upon which a successful ministry was based, they provide necessary context to gameside voters about World Assembly Affairs, and they drive interest in the region, even having brought at least a few people I'm aware of to make a forums account and get engaged with Europeian government.

The issue is, in pursuit of reducing burnout (and also due to the collapse of R3N's tools), we've largely stripped IFVs of all of their meaning and effectiveness. When they're not posted gameside through dispatches, the RMB, and telegrams, they are truly just meaningless reciepts that soak up Ministry time for no understandable purpose.

Furthermore, in part due to largely removing ourselves from WALL following my exit as MoWAA, the time required to make IFVs has only increased, while the circular flow of WAA saffers between regions has halted entirely. Even if we wanted to reinvest in WALL at this point, that program has atrophied in our absence, and is no longer as active as it once was.

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So yes. IFVs are necessary. All IFVs are necessary—if we're going to go the distance and put them in the places where they're visible.

What we need to do now is understand two things:

1. Our WAA ministry does not have enough staff and attention to fulfill its tasks currently. Other regions' WAA ministries, likewise, have atrophied. We should be pursuing fixing WALL or starting another interregional WAA partnership to fill this void.
2. If we do not fix the tools that were used for publishing IFVs, and if we do not actually use them, then you're right. IFVs are useless and will continue to be useless.

I said this in DMs but reposting here:

im not sure if i agree tbh. we can fairly easily post ifvs gameside without tools (in fact its arguably easier), and this was done under mowaa upc. like discussion threads, this has just fallen out of practice, helped least of all by rarely having ifvs to post.

second, i think youre overestimating WALL/interregional collaboration. in fact, you point out the problem with them well: IFVs declined in consistency, and it requires activity to be pushed forward. since the WAA problem is a lack of staff/activity, building a new interregional system, even with 1 partner, is unlikey to be successful, or wed just rely on our partner(s) too heavily.

additionally, we had a strong, consistent system under Pland Adanna/Greater Cesnica before strongly engaging with WALL, and I'd argue it began to decline once we joined.

you make a good point with IFVs bridging the gameside-forum gap, and i think the falloff in posting them there has contributed the the wider divide today. but there are more meritable things that can serve that purpose, like consistent EBC article publication, or even “job postings” (a minister asking for help with a task).

WAA can keep IFVs, but theyre not worth making them the main focus of the ministry, or measure of success.

 

[Vor]

I think everyone generally agrees that the ministry has been in a bad state for quite a while now, but I don't think it's as straightforward as just directing efforts elsewhere. There's a very big difference between writing IFVs and "building inroads with regions that have high WA populations themselves", for example. You can get someone to write an IFV by writing them a friendly DM asking them to, but if you're talking about expansive influence building projects and efforts, those take a lot more time, experience, and investment to do. I agree with you that the latter are far more useful and productive efforts, but is it realistic to get staffers to do that when we hardly even get staffers to write IFVs?

Maybe I don't have much of a right to speak since I've only written a handful of IFVs in my time here, but they really don't strike me as that difficult or a huge time investment. Even Outreach welcoming sometimes takes more time than an IFV does. It's just a regular task that you need to bug people to do, and for whatever reason the past few WA ministers couldn't be bothered to do so with a variety of people.

I think that we should build WA from the ground up. I think it's fine to focus on a routine task like IFVs first, and then work up that investment and dedication to the more productive efforts you mention. I don't think in our current state we can jumpstart it into major succes, but maybe I'm too pessimistic.

Lately, our ministers haven't really been able to perform ambitiously, be it due to laziness, lack of time, or burnout. The real cause of at least two of those I reckon is the fact that we, the region, don't seem to care until it's too late. We need someone attentive enough to keep track of things before they get completely out of hand. If a massive lag piles up but nobody notices or points it out until it's back-breaking, of course nobody is going to want to fix it. If you call it out timely, and if the high executive is responsive, you'll have a far healthier ministry.

If you care about the ministry, just check in every few days and look whether it's posted IFVs in the right places and is pursuing campaign promises if applicable. If it's not, say something. Surely we can at least try that first before more radical change.

 

[Maowi]

I'm conflicted on this question because I think the WA (both chambers!) can be very interesting and exciting to follow in its own right, but I recognise that not everyone finds it to be so and there's an element of luck involved with who is active in the ministry and what their interests are.

I think WAA really pops when:

1) There is strong region-wide interest in World Assembly Affairs, whether it's explored in media (deep-dive articles, radio shows), promoted through Commendations of Europeian citizens/proposals written by citizens, or framed via its relevance to foreign affairs.

2) The ministry is seen as an entry point to the exciting interregional community of WA enthusiasts. Arguably the Europeian ministry that provides the best chance for regular staff members to engage with our allies is the Navy, rather than FA, but I think WAA should be right up there too. WA officials in TNP have continued to create threads & cross-post their IFVs in WALL consistently, but there is next to no discussion there because they're the only ones who do. I think we're passing up an easy opportunity! WA staff members should be directed to the WALL server, and either the minister or an assigned deputy should be monitoring the server to see if interesting discussion points are being raised. If a staff member writes an IFV, get them to cross-post it in WALL! It's minimal extra effort, and in the best case they might even get into a fun conversation about it with other WALL members. And a little coordination with other WALL members to see if they'd be keen to get their staff in there too could go a long way :>

3) There are consistent discussions between engaged staffers about the pros and cons of different proposals, people give each other feedback on and engage critically with IFV drafts, and generally there's a nice sense of camaraderie and genuine motivation among staff. The minister can try to drive this but it largely depends on enthusiastic and proactive staffers being there. To some extent, the government can try and attract these staffers by making the ministry more appealing with the above points, but there will always be a strong element of chance!

When the last point is not attainable due to lack of personnel, I agree it probably makes sense to stop expecting an IFV on every single proposal that hits the voting floor. When both chambers are at maximum capacity it comes out to one IFV every two days which is a LOT for a couple of staffers to handle. I don't know if I could see the future of the ministry being based on campaigning & counter-campaigning though – as far as I'm aware, that can have some quite sensitive FA considerations so I am unsure whether anything meaningful could be assigned to regular staff (I might be wrong though, please do correct me). I think when staff numbers are low it could be more productive to mentor those few staff members into WA leaders – get them familiar with WA forum norms and prominent authors, involve them with discussions on SC proposal stance decisions, etc. while focusing on driving more region-wide interest in WAA to boost staff numbers and get IFV production back to a more regular flow.

I also think public discussions like this one can be really good at bringing attention to a struggling ministry and motivating people to sign up, so here's hoping this gets the ball rolling :-D (I say with complete hypocrisy)

 

[Pland Adanna]

I’m really hesitant to get rid of the WAA Ministry because it really was my only interest here for a long time, but one idea I have been toying with is splitting up the domains of WAA. Whenever I've been minister, we've usually had staffers who were only interested in Security Council IFVs and some who were only interested in General Assembly IFVs. This makes sense because the two chambers focus on very different things. My thought was that maybe it would be best to let the Ministry of Foreign Affairs handle the Security Council (which is more gameplay-focused) and let the Ministry of Gameside handle the General Assembly (which is more roleplay-focused). Both of these ministries have struggled finding opportunities for staff involvement in the past, so this could be a great opportunity! The staff could put together IFVs for really important or interesting proposals, which (by posting fewer total) could also bring more attention to the ones that get posted.

Now, I don’t think we should get rid of IFVs altogether. I only gained citizenship because I got an IFV telegram and wanted to try writing one! We have plenty of prominent citizens who have spent some of their Europeian career most interested in IFVs and the WA in general. It would be a mistake to cut off the possibility of attracting more people like this by stopping writing IFVs.

Also, while I agree with your idea that we should effectively enjoy our partnerships in WALL, I do believe that it is important to build domestic WA talent. Sometimes, we work on projects on our own, and we should still cultivate that ability within our region, so we have that option.

 

[Rand]

Seeing as the Ministry has struggled for years to keep up an IFV schedule, maybe we should more lean on WALL, which is supposed to function as a shared MoWAA releasing IFVs for all member regions.

 

[Olde Delaware]

I know when I was in the MoWAA I really liked doing IFVs but I never really saw them as all that important. Now for gameside and the RP players sure but we've consistently struggled to get them to the forums so I don't know if their even seeing them to know where we would like them to vote. I suspect any major or crucial vote campaigning such as an ally commend or proscribe or a liberate could be done via Executive Updates on discord. As for keeping it its own ministry, I don't know if it can stand on its own much longer and it might benefit from being folded into FA where more eyes and hands can be utilized.

 

[upc]

Hey Comfed,

WAA is extremely important to me. Besides the fact that I am the current President (and thus care about every ministry ) and Delegate (who cares very very much about the WA in particular), I am very similar to Sin in that WAA was where I cut my teeth in Euro when I joined all those years ago. And having served recently (albeit briefly) as MoWAA under JayDee, I am very familiar with the concerns that are being raised here. I have a lot of thoughts about your article, and while there are a number of parts of it that I disagree with, I appreciate that this has sparked a very interesting discussion.

It is entirely fair to acknowledge that WAA is not at its peak at the moment. But the issues that you highlight with staff engagement are not new (again, as you point out), nor are they unique to WAA. In fact, as the current MoFA of TNP, I am sure that you are distinctly aware that these issues are not even unique to Europeia! Regions across NS are experiencing a bit of an activity drought at the moment, and have been for a few months now. Heck, I even pointed this out in my half platform when I was sick in early January. Again, I don’t think that this is an existential concern for our region or this game, but it is something that we have to grapple with while it continues to hold true.

With that in mind, I do think that it is generally possible for a Minister to organize things such that IFVs are put out for every resolution. My term as MoWAA was not all that long ago, and while I acknowledge that I did not serve for a full term and that a lot can change in only a few months, we had 8 staffers write 12 IFVs in a month. That is fairly impressive staff participation! And frankly I don’t think that the secret sauce to this sort of success was some innovation of mine, nor do I feel like I had to aggressively chase staff down to engage. People play this game because they want to. People join our ministries of their own volition. I think that the best way to succeed is to give people as much time as possible so that they can fit this game into their schedules!

Nor do I agree with you that IFVs are just busy work. I believe that Gem is correct in saying that IFVs are (or can be) a good source of engagement between our forum and gameside populations. You are absolutely correct that early voting is a great way to direct our populace’s vote in the WA. But IFV telegrams can serve the same purpose.As Sin has already pointed out, I put out these dispatches & telegrams religiously during my term as MoWAA.

And I don’t think that relying on WALL is the solution either. Frankly I think it is entirely reasonable to be concerned about what we give up by leaving this task entirely to the organization. If we are already grappling with staffing issues, I worry that using WALL IFVs would just mean that we would be reposting TNP IFVs. And while our interests are often aligned with theirs, the fierce regionalist in me is strongly opposed to that.

I also don’t think that we should expect the Minister of World Assembly Affairs to be a second Minister of Foreign Affairs. I will happily acknowledge that my knowledge of foreign affairs benefited me greatly during my term as MoWAA, but I don’t think that that necessarily needs to be the norm. We have had a number of very good ministers who have had little or no real interest in gameplay/foreign affairs. With that said, I do think that it is important for the Minister to be present for those discussions, rather than receiving directives on votes from the President/MoFA, and I think that your point there is certainly valid.

Finally, I am not sure that WAA should be focused on increasing our WAA population. As I mentioned in my response to McEntire’s most recent Presidential campaign, I think that we should at least consider making this part of the remit of the Regional Security Council. Neither I nor the region has come to any concrete decision on that though, and I think that the RSC, WA, and Outreach all should probably be involved in that process to some extent.

Now that I have done all of this complaining/disagreeing, I would like to briefly outline how I intend to be part of the solution.

In the short term (pun slightly intended – I am referring to the now 10 days left we have in this term), I intend to work closely with FM to help him pick up or put together a scheduling system for watching the WA queue and scheduling IFVs that works for him. I have never considered myself particularly talented as a mentor, but I can always be counted on to infodump when asked (see this post), and I will do everything I can to make sure that this truncated term is a successful one for FM.

In the long term (as in looking towards next term), GK and I are already working with our WAA pick to improve on cross-ministry collaboration between FA and WAA on key resolutions. We are going to make sure that our minister is included in the conversations that decide how we vote on these FA sensitive resolutions, rather than having this information directed at them with no context. The minister will then be able to keep our ministry staff better informed on why we are voting a certain way. And while we still intend to produce an IFV for every resolution, we don’t want to foist this entire burden on our minister, and will be looking to triage, for lack of a better term, the queue in order to determine which resolutions are a priority for receiving an IFV.

On the technical side, I will be working to build new tools that will allow our Ministers and staff to disseminate IFVs, via telegrams & dispatches, from a central nation again, rather than having to rely on individual officers with Comms authority. I don’t have a target date for this one yet, but it is a priority item on my to-do list.

I know that this is kind of a lot, and props to anyone who makes it through the entire thing! I do hope that it is helpful for illuminating some of my thoughts on the current circumstances of our WA ministry and where we ought to go from here.