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"STARFLEET as a Family?"
by Tom Restivo: USS HIGHLANDER: Region 7

It's just a Fan Club. A Star Trek Fan Club.

Why do some consider it a Family? Why is there offense in considering it one way or another? Maybe because of the past few years. Maybe because we've been to the brink and back. Maybe because we have seen the depths of despair, embodied in the Hell that was Atlanta in 1995, and we have seen the Euphoria that was Cherry Hill in 1997. A club where dissolution was a viable option can now boast of a debt-free future. Do we have a new divide? Those that have been there and through that, verses those just coming into the club, just wanting the six Communiqué's and Membership Handbook?

Hopefully, those that have been here in the club can let the hard lessons of reality
learned be passed down. Those that just come into the club should benefit from the experiences of others. They should receive the foreknowledge that what we have should never be taken for granted, and to be watchful to know the proper signs and portents when it is threatened to be lost again. But the past should be used as a lesson of teaching, not a badge of superiority.


With that -- and with a nod to J. Michael Straczynski -- I submit the

Declaration of Principles - STARFLEET VERSION

Fandom speaks in many languages, but only one voice. 
The language is not Lexington or Maat or Rutledge or 
Avenger or Malverne or Majestic or Osiris. 
It speaks in the language of hope. It speaks in the language of trust.
It speaks in the language of strength, and the language of compassion.
It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul. 
But always it is the same voice. 

It is the voice of our First Trekdom speaking through us. 
And the voice of our Next Generation of Fen waiting to be born. 
It is the small, still voice that says we are One. 

No matter the rank, no matter the position, 
No matter the ship, no matter the Region, 
We are One. 
No matter the pain, no matter the darkness,
No matter the loss, no matter the fear.
We are One. 

Here, gathered together in common cause 
We agree to recognize this singular truth and this singular rule: 
That we must be kind to one another. 

Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us, 
And each voice lost diminishes us. 
We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation, 
The fire that will light the way to a better future. 

We are One. 

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