September 2012 FISD Newsletter

Greetings Troops,

This has been an exciting month for the Legion, with Celebration VI in Orlando, Florida, the 15th anniversary Imperial dinner and bash, Dragon Con in Atlanta, GA., and then the announcement for Celebration Europe II in Germany for this coming July, and in 2014, the return to Orlando, Florida for Celebration VII.

It was great to be able to meet, face to face, with all of the TKs. By the turnout at Celebration VI, it was easy to see how the numbers are growing with the EI and Centurions and how everyone is taking pride in the Stormtrooper. I was truly proud to see this because the Stormtrooper has been kind of an underdog when it comes to costuming excellence. So a big salute to all of you for going that "extra mile." Also, I would like to convey a special thanks to Brian Muir and his wife Lindsay for taking the time to be a part of the TK photo shoot. Brian conveyed to me later that it was an honor for him to be a part of that and to thank all of you.

Just a side note about the FISD brochures: we had 2,500 of them printed for CVI and by the last day, when I was helping break down the 501st room, there were less than a quarter of the 2,500 brochures left. I was informed that it was the number one hand out at the information desk in the 501st room. Will be making this brochure in a PDF form so anyone wanting to have it professionally printed or be able to do it on their home PC can do so.

I also want to take the time to say how proud I was of and to thank the staff members that were at CVI (Ingrid, Brian Robinson, Terrell, Luis and Paul) for their unquestioned loyalty and dedication, and tireless efforts in getting the word out to everyone they came in contact with about whitearmor.net. If I could give you all a bonus, I would.

I believe that the White Armor panel that was held on Sunday at CVI was a success and wanted thank Paul, Brian, Ingrid, and the TK models: Tim, Nicky, Diana. There were only a few chairs that were empty, which meant a lot of people were truly interested in becoming 501st. I hope that we do this for CVII, because I am already jotting down ideas for it.

I would like to announce that we have four new staff members that will help moderate sections of the White Armor forum. The FISD is a very large site that requires a lot of help to ensure that it is on track. The title for the new moderators is "Imperial Sentry." This team is headed up by Bobojuice and Matt Black. So please give a warm welcome to the newest members of the FISD staff:

Mark (Captsafe66)

Matthew (samskara)

Tim (TrooperTim)

Joey (TK-2126_MD)

We will be looking to add a couple of more people to this new team.

In other news: The phase III, TK CRL is being worked on and we have a Trooper, as I write this, working on the model. Plus, the other TK CRLs with better verbiage in the updates should be coming out very soon. It has been an arduous task, but it is something that was not taken lightly nor could it be done correctly in a short span of time.

There is a lot of work to do before the end of the year and we will be seeing an influx of new members wanting to join the TK ranks. I ask all of you to give them a warm welcome and a hand in finding their way to becoming a Stormtrooper, as our unwritten motto states, "Troopers helping Troopers."

So, everyone to your post!

With Unquestioned Loyalty,

Tom Gardner

TK5940 “RogueTrooperâ€

Executive Officer

This month saw a rise in reported field training exercises, which gives a strong boost to the FISD community. Thanks for posting, and keep 'em coming.

The staff has been busy with CVI prep and other business, and appreciates those who held down the fort in our absence. We had a staff meeting in person on Sunday morning (8/26) with Luis, Paul, Tom, Terrell, Brian, and Ingrid and tried to skype in to the others but couldn't make the connection happen. In any case, it was a decent breakfast and a good opportunity to meet f2f.

We had a great representation at the White Armor panel, Troop-athlon, and the Shoot-a-Trooper charity booth supporting the Peter Mayhew Foundation. Thanks to all the troopers who gave their time to help out with these important events.

Public Relations - our online communities are becoming quite active. Share your missions, unique finds, and tips with other troopers and the world at large. Tom estimates we gave out over 1250 FISD brochures at CVI. These will be available for download/print on the forums soon for general distribution.

FISD Briefing

• August Centurion Awards: 12 (total 54)
  
• August Expert Infantry Awards: 17 (total 250)
  

• August Fire Team Tally: 1 new, 8 total
  
• Newest Fire Teams: Texas Imperial Rangers Fire Team
  

• August Attache Tally: 6 new
  
• Newest Attaches: Nassik (Shawn, Terror Australis), Bigironvault (Keith, Canadian), Seantrooper (Sean, Redback), Dr.Senf (Sven, German), Faie (Jose, Spanish), Solcar23 (Carlos, Midwest)
  

What's an Attache? Someone in your garrison who represents FISD with the friendly "Troopers Helping Troopers" spirit!

A special shout-out to all the garrisons that send their prospective members to FISD. Being active one's garrison is important, but a good partnership with the detachments makes all the difference in costuming excellence, getting help, and the 501st community as a whole.

• New members in August: 190 (total 5712)
  
• Active members in forums: 433
  
• Reported Field Exercises: 15
  

Field Exercises: Traverse City Beach Bums, Rogers Cup Troop, Neighborhood Walk, G-Force Test, Easter Egg Hunt, Great Lakes Loons Game, Wizard World, "Something's Missing," "Got my kids," Silver Snail Comic Shop Moving Day, GenCon, FanExpo, and Star Wars Celebration VI.

One last shout-out to Jacob "Jabob" French, TK 6283, best known for his TrooperTrek across Australia. He joined us in the FISD photo session at Celebration VI and we are proud to stand behind and beside him in our group photo.

• Number of Twitter Followers as of 8/31: 435 - over 100 new followers!
  
• Number of Facebook Followers as of 8/31: 1356 - over 50 new followers!
  

With Unquestioned Loyalty,

Ingrid Moon

TK-6818 “LadyInWhiteâ€

Public Relations Officer

FISD Armor Mythbusters Tackles the Expert Infantryman!

We've responded to posts, chatted with you at cons, and talked to you all in person. While the Emperor is quite pleased with the results of number of good looking EI TK's in the Legion, he has felt a disturbance in the Force. Yes, there is much mis-information among the ranks on what Expert Infantryman and Centurion programs mean, and what the qualifications are. In this column, we aim to dispel those myths...

Myth #1: My GML says my suit is not good enough for EI and said not to bother applying.

Fact: Your GML may not always have the latest information, so as a cross check, do come to FISD and check out the latest CRLs. I met two great looking troopers at Celebration who could easily be EI and was surprised when I heard this comment. When in doubt, always feel free to post pictures of you in your suit and let FISD help validate your kit.

Myth #2: I have FX armor and it can't go EI.

Fact: The EI standards were written so that any maker of armor can go EI. It takes about $50 and an afternoon to convert an out-of-the-box FX suit to Expert Standards. Making it Centurion takes a little more work, but it's not that costly and certainly others have done this. There is even a good tutorial available that walks you through this step by step.

Myth #3: I'm a girl, girls can't go EI.

Fact: They certainly can, and Centurion on top of it. There are already both EI and Centurions in the Legion who are female. There are several great threads that can walk you through this step by step.

Myth #4: It's not worth it, I'm close enough.

Fact: Possible, but that's also like saying you don't need a degree when you're 3 credits shy of graduating. Getting your Expert Infantryman not only qualifies you for some cool swag (gold coins, certificate, patches) but also your achievement is commemorated on the rolls of EI. Part of being a stormtrooper is uniformity, and having the little details right makes everyone look good, including you. TK's are the backbone of the Legion, so stand proud, trooper!

Myth #5: I'm too fat for EI.

Fact: Not true. The standards allow you to shim the side gaps which is a super easy mod to do with a little velcro and $5 of spare ABS. If you're gap is pretty close, it need not be perfectly closed either and there is allowance for a small gap which is okay.

Myth #6: The EI standards are uber accurate. I don't want to be a snob.

Fact: Not true! The EI program was created to create a path and recognition program for those that want to take their costume one step higher than base CRL standards. It's not intended to be hard, expensive, or ultra accurate. Think of it as just pimping out your suit a bit.

There you have it - some common myths debunked. As it turns out, going EI has never been easier and inexpensive as it is today, and costs nothing extra to do for new builds.

Still have questions? Send them our way and we'll include them next month on FISD Armor Mythbusters!

With unquestioned loyalty,

Paul "Daetrin" TK-8020

Detachment Founder

2012 will henceforth be known as the "Year of the Web Server Hopping." For those who have not been following along the FISD forums moved off a shared hosting server along with most of the other 501st detachments. The account on the shared server was overburdened. We, along with the Imperial Officers, Mos Eisely Police Department, and the Sith Lord Detachment, pulled the ripcord and migrated over to our own hosting account.

A few months went by and for some unknown reason FISD and MEPD started using more server resources. Our hosting provider was very patient and allowed us try everything we could to tame the forum software. At long last Daetrin and I cried "Uncle!" and migrated the website to a different server where we do not have to compete with any other web sites but our own. As of the writing of this newsletter the FISD forum is running slightly faster than it was on the other server. Many mahalos to all the TKs I banned or otherwise hassled while trying to find the source of the bandwidth spike.

Remember last month when I said that I could not figure out why we had an increase in traffic this year? It turns out I was absolutely wrong. Brent PM'd us and pointed out that when we migrated the first time I changed the forum's URL from forum.whitearmor.net to www.whitearmor.net/forum. Of course there were more visitors suddenly because I wasn't taking into account the logs from forum.whitearmor.net. When you add the two stats together everything checks out. Duh me. We still do not know why the forum software did what it did, but for the moment we are good to go.

The FISD forums have not been running Google Analytics for very long. Eventually I will post visitors trends over time. For those of you who like to nerd out on such things, the image below are the traffic patterns from August.

You can see that nearly 80% of our traffic are return visitors. Seeing as we get a fair amount of traffic that number represents a huge amount of unquestioned loyalty and questionable amounts of white plastic addiction.

If anyone has any questions about the web server and it's visitors please let me know.

With Aloha and Unquestioned Loyalty,

Eric Brager

TK-9674 “DarthAlohaâ€

Chief Tactical Officer

It seems clear that many people wanted to achieve EIB and Centurion status prior to Celebration VI and Dragon*Con. It may also have been a kick in the pants after Paul "Daetrin" Hoeffer's article in the August newsletter comparing our low percentage of achievement awards with MEPD's higher rate. Whatever the reason, obtaining EIB or Centurion status is not as challenging as many people believe. So bust out the tools and make a few adjustments - and join the race to 300!

To prove a point, you will find some amazing photos here of the FISD presence at CVI (about 150 TKs) including a huge group of EI and Centurion troopers. (Thanks to Christian and all the folks who have been posting the photos. We are in the process of obtaining the official ones.)

With Unquestioned Loyalty,

Ingrid Moon

TK-6818 “LadyInWhiteâ€

Public Relations Officer

and

Mathias Rodstedt

TK-2959 "Locitus"

Deployment Officer

Trooper of the month for August 2012 goes to Solcar23 (Carlos Mendoza TK-5924). Carlos managed to receive his 501st basic approval then submit and achieve Expert Infantry and Centurion within a 24 hour period. I suspect that it might have happened within the same day if our Deployment Officer did not live in Europe. The interweb paint was still wet on his red centurion badge on his posts when Carlos raised his hand and said "Hey! I want to help other TKs look their best." He is our newest FISD attaché roaming the streets of Chitown handing out split rivets like the first taste of a drug.

Carlos' achievement is a solid example of building your TK with an eye to Centurion right from the start. New recruits should use this as a model during the planning stages of becoming a Stormtrooper. It may seem like a lot of points but they are all easy while you are building.

It is a little known fact (to those of you who did not stalk his Facebook page performing research for this award) that not only is Carlos a music educator, he was the fifth Beatle.

Aloha and congratulations, Carlos.

With Aloha and Unquestioned Loyalty,

Eric Brager

TK-9674 “DarthAlohaâ€

Chief Tactical Officer

The month of August resulted in 15 field training exercises reported. While most of them were public events, not specific to charities (our favorite kind of troop), we did end up with some amazing stories and photos of troopers having a lot of fun. If you haven't seen them yet or need a little inspiration, check out all the great stories in the Field Training Exercises area of the FISD forums.

Roger's Cup

One not to be missed is the Rogers Cup tournament in Toronto featuring the Executor's own Imperial tennis champion.

Wizard World

Probably overshadowed by CVI but very popular is Wizard World, in which Trooper of the Month, Carlos TK-5924, debuted his Shiny White Centurion.

Indiana State Fair

Indiana State Fair was another gem... sporting FISD Attache Mark "captsafe66" Ryner in his newly minted Officer uniform (don't know what he was thinking... it's hotter than a TK in there!).

There are so many great troops we simply couldn't pick just one. So read about them all and post your own troops. We love to live vicariously through our troopers around the world!

With Unquestioned Loyalty,

Ingrid Moon

TK-6818 “LadyInWhiteâ€

Public Relations Officer

Don't Forget We're on Facebook and Twitter!

Facebook: www.facebook.com/whitearmor

Now with "tip of the week" and other ongoing discussions. If you're on FB, stop by and say hi, ask questions, and share stories!

Twitter: www.twitter.com/@FISD501st

From crazy TK merch findings to minute-by-minute Death Star climate control updates, follow FISD on Twitter!

With Completely, Totally Unquestioned Loyalty and Job Satisfaction,

Ingrid Moon

TK-6818 “LadyInWhiteâ€

Public Relations Officer

On behalf of the 1st Imperial Stormtrooper Detachment Command Staff.

End Transmission.