Well folks, it's that time again, so let's run down the month of April.

I apologize for the lateness of this e-mail -- things got a bit crazy for me at the end of last week, going into the weekend, and then I wanted to let Licah and Blastfire finish the server migration before I sent this out.

Anyway, on to our announcements.

General RS: As Cody posted on the main news page, the RS is now on Twitter! Feel free to follow us @rsorg. Members of HC have had the login information for a week or so now and have been adding their updates. If you're interested in erm...tweeting...for the RS, feel free to let me know. We're being somewhat selective with who's given access at this point, so don't feel bad if you're turned down. On the other hand, we do want a nice cross-section of RS members, so...maybe you won't be turned down. Either way though, if you're active on Twitter, feel free to follow us and keep up to date on what's happening day-to-day in the RS! Also, thanks to Blastfire's awesome work, the Twitter updates are also available on the main page at rebelsquadrons.org

Division News:

Well, none of the Division COs submitted Division Reports this month, which is okay, because I've been threatening to make things up for a while, and this month I finally get to carry through on my threat.

PSG: The RSTOD mission is out for X-Wing, and I've heard recent scuttlebutt that Castor's PSG specific tour is ready to go. I've had high hopes for this set of missions, so get out there and fly. Also, Spokes and Castor fought a dragon this month. You probably didn't hear about it as it was an RS classified secret until now. Spokes distracted the dragon by trying to steal its treasure while Castor shot the weak spot on its belly with a homemade bow and arrow.

VSG: RS203 wrapped up this month with a lot of technical issues -- we're trying to get them resolved but the aged status of our flight sim games are causing some issues. If you're technical minded and have some work arounds, I strongly encourage you to post them on the VSG forums. It's frustrating when you really want to fly a mission and can't due to technical issues. I'm one of those people, unfortunately. Despite all that, there was a decent enough showing, but of course we're always trying to increase that. Kirghy discovered this month, much to his dismay, that the internet occasionally contains pictures of naked people engaged in acts of an adult nature. Outraged, he's writing an e-mail to US President Obama and plans to CC the entire RS.

RF: Zealot seems to finally be back in the swing of things, with a few older members (easy, Sarr, I mean veteran wise, not ...y'know, age-wise) returning to write some a post or two up. Currently our intrepid Zealots have managed to barge their way aboard a space station and take some hostages. If you're interested in participating, I don't know how Cody wants to handle that, but I'd recommend getting in touch with him once his LOA ends May 6th.

On the RID front, the beta for 204 is still waiting on a tester -- so if you like EaW and are looking for a way to help out, let Markus know.

Speaking of Markus, he became fed up with his current job this week and decided to embark on a new occupation. He's now working as an arms dealer, providing citizens of 3rd world countries with the means to wage genocide against each other.

ABG: Things are still rolling along in the ABG; Markus, Davin and myself each have campaigns going and Fiona has new members in the academy ready to do training sims and getting things worked out. In addition, charsims seem to be happening, as usual, on a fairly regular basis. Also, Cyrel and I have been playing Castle Crashers, because we're awesome.

Executive Office News:
Internet Office: The Internet Office has finished the migration to our new upgraded server. The site should operate much more smoothly now, including things that have previously lagged, like the RS Wiki. In addition, like Licah mentioned, we're going to be able to host game servers and have expanded storage capacity. Licah put in quite a bit of work to get this accomplished and has already mentioned people he would like to thank. In addition to that, I want to give special mention to two RS members who are most responsible for this new and exciting change, RA Snappleguy and CPT Joak Drysso.

Snap has been quietly bankrolling rs.org for a few years now, even after retiring from the club at large (though I did see him pop onto the forums a while ago, and was quite glad to see he's still around). He also administrates the RS finances and keeps the domain registered in his name.

Joak, on the other hand, was definitely the impetus to get the ball rolling on this server upgrade. A few of these SotRS' ago, I mentioned a need for donations, and Joak stepped forward almost instantly to pledge a monthly donation to the RS that more or less enabled us to even be able to do this. I asked for a little bit of money here or there from any member who feels inclined to help out; and he volunteered to provide a significant amount on a monthly basis to help sustain the RS. Without that pledge, we likely would not have been able to move forward like we have.

I plan to speak with High Command and issue a separate letter to reward both of these individuals with some sort of commendation that we don't currently offer -- ASCII text doesn't make up for an actual thank you though; so if you see one of these two guys on IRC or feel like sending them an e-mail to express your gratitude, I'm sure it would be appreciated.

Likewise, since the entire club is more or less being financed by a few people, any other donations are always welcome and appreciated.

Operations Office: Max and Dismal are planning to once again attempt to resurrect the RS Newsletter. They've made a post about it at the forums that I encourage everyone to check out -- they're most definitely looking for writers, so if you have anything you feel like you could contribute to the RS at large, I encourage you to get in touch with the operations office. I personally think it would be cool if someone wrote a monthly column reviewing the missions in our rs.org missions database. I plan to write a column of some sort as well.

TacOps team: Beta testing is currently underway for RS 204 and we hope to have these missions released shortly. With any luck, we should be back on a standardized mission release schedule within the next month or so.

Anyway, that's going to be it for right now, because I'm quite honestly pretty strapped for time. You'll notice that I've omitted my usual section for promotions and awards in this e-mail -- it's not necessarily because I don't think there are those worthy of promotion and recognition, but more because I would like a little bit more time to review the recommendations that have been sent to me and confer with a few people about what sort of recognition would be appropriate. More than likely these promotions/awards will be done either in an addendum to this SotRS or in next month's.

Thanks again, and as usual, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

-RA Sienn Sconn,
Rebel Squadrons Fleet Commander