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In my recent State of the Region address, I outlined the goals and visions that I had for the region as Monarch, and what I wanted to do to get there. Having said my piece, I feel that now it's my turn to listen and collect feedback from our Citizens. To start that process, I'd like to perform a SWOT Analysis of the region with our community. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and in a SWOT Analysis we basically list things about the region that we feel fall in one of those four categories. What are our strengths and weaknesses as a region? What are the opportunities and threats we face going forward?

I will serve as facilitator and moderator of this topic when the need arises, but I will not be offering any of my opinions or comments in this topic and will attempt to remain neutral to anything that comes up in here. I've already talked enough. I would like this to be your platform to evaluate the region and help us make the region even better for you as a Citizen.

With that said...go!

Strengths
Open community that works as a team (A. Pierangeilli, Weissreich)
Citizen opinions are listened to (A. Pierangelli)
Youthful region (A. Pierangelli)
New cultural events (Weissreich)
IRC empowers sense of community (Weissreich)

Weaknesses
NS can be intimidating to newcomers (A. Pierangelli, Varselius)
Cultural activities need more support (Weissreich, Varselius)
Non-forum regulars aren't aware of cultural activities (Varselius)

Opportunities
Experienced players helping newcomers (Mentoring, direct them to where they can get involved, etc. (A. Pierangelli)
People interested in lore and culture (Weissreich)
Effective Storting(Weissreich)

Threats
Losing nations to other regions (A. Pierangelli)
Nations ceasing to exist (A. Pierangelli)
Potential complacency in the future (Weissreich)

Hmmm. I like this idea. I'll throw a couple of ideas out on the open, in no particular order (and not quite following the SWOT standard)

Strengths: For one, I'd say Wintreath's quite an open community that is always willing to listen to its citizens, and the creation of this thread is a sign of this in itself. Another strenght I'd point out is that we're still quite young as a region and thus not only have lots of space to create new activities or areas to engage citizens but also that space is up for anyone to take.

Threats: Having said that, I think one of the threats we face, community-wise, is losing people to other regions or seeing nations ceasing to exist due to inactivity. I'd say nations ceasing to exist is a bigger threat between the two I've just mentioned, though. Some people might create a nation, play it a bit, move to Wintreath but eventually notice the game isn't their cup of tea, or life gets in the way, or they don't feel engaged in the game or the community enough to keep playing.

Opportunities: To try to mitigate the threat of people losing interest in the game or in the region, I'd suggest that us, as people that have been playing longer than the newcomers (okay, technically I'm a newcomer too but you know what I mean ) help them in getting acquainted to the game and the region. We have the guides, but do newcomers check those guides? We have the forums, but are we making sure people are getting involved in what we have here or are heard? I know time is lacking sometimes, but I think that while we are open, we've got to be welcoming as well. The idea of mentorship Wintry mentioned on his address is a great one that could work, and another thing I thought is the creation of polls to see what people would like to see in here or create in here. Another idea is make sure people check the Bulletin Board once they've been accepted as citizens so they can see where they can begin dipping their feet in.

Weaknesses: This is not really a weakness in Wintreath itself, but more of a NS-wide one, and maybe it's not even a weakness, I just didn't know where to put it.  Anyways. When I first joined, I've felt (and still do at times) that the game seems (or can be) quite daunting at a first glance. I think this is something that might contribute to nations ceasing to exist or people not participating as much as they might - they just don't know where to go or where to start because there's so much. Mentorship could help here as well, in directing people to areas or activities they might fit better instead of wanting to try everything at once.

I dunno, just my two cents for the time being.

Strengths
The fact that we're willing to have such in-depth discussion is a great plus for our community. We talk things through and move forward with ideas that come from everyone, keeping most of us happy and the region moving nicely along. The new cultural activities are hopefully going to start attracting attention soon which will be a boost as well. Overall, however, it's the great sense of community we've got going on here - the chatbox is an important part of that, for sure.

Weaknesses
The cultural events, as Mootles called it, need far more support. If we're going to have a lively RP element in this community, which would just be another string to our bow in terms of attractiveness, we're going to need to put a little work in, sort out some ordering etc and get involvement up. This includes things like that "Oh, The Places You'll Go In Wintreath..." thread and the map designing currently being done by myself and Alterra, I believe.

Opportunities
We've got people interested in doing lore and culture side of things, which we should definitely capitalise on. The Storting is great and running efficiently, and I'm looking forward to hopefully being involved in that soon enough.

Threats
Uhm, I don't know really. Complacency, I guess? We need to all stay active and positive minded

Thanks! I've summarized and added your responses to the first post.

Weaknesses: Reaffirming what was earlier said, which would be "NS is Intimidating to Newcomers" (IE: Me, hiding in the Winterath region, not actually using the NS forums) and "Cultural Activities need more support" (IE: We have cultural activities?).

Varselius! Thanks for your input.

To answer that question, if you will look in the "Howling Wind Tavern" forum, you'll find our current cultural activities. Currently we have Wintropolis, a comic-book RP that's currently in Hiatus while Butterspring finds someone else to run it, and Forests of Tauria, a DnD-style roleplay that hasn't started yet and is still accepting sign-ups for when it does start soon. The Wintreath Chronicles is our attempt to create a database of Wintreath locations, people, lore, etc that other RPs that want to take part in Wintreath can utilize.

I also believe I heard talk of a national-RP coming soon, and we occasionally have movie nights Saturdays at 7PM Eastern Time. That just about sums it up for now.

I'll add a strength and a weakness. 

I think one of the strengths (which may be fading) of Wintreath is how highly active some of its leaders are in other regions.  While this could be taken as a weakness, I think you can tell that Wintreath has benefited from the wide experience of its leadership.

A weakness I've seen, and this is because it is new, is the lack of consistency and the lack of precedence for the legislature.  It is a really hard thing, forging anew, but I'd like to see efforts made in the upcoming term for a regularization of legislation and procedure.  Things like that, to strengthen the Storting.