Administrative Changes

“Trustees should remove trustees, staff, or judges who are not fulfilling their duty or who are violating the trust of the Simming Prize.”

In accordance with Section 2.1 of the Simming Prize Handbook, two Trustees and the Administrator are hereby relieved of their duties and removed from their positions for multiple violations:

• Failure to facilitate periodic replacement of Trustees (2.1)
  • Two Trustees have remained in their positions since the Trustee model was instituted for 2013
  • Replacements of inactive or departing Trustees were not made, leaving only two Trustees as of 2021
  • Attempted to refuse to seat without valid cause a replacement selected by a departing Trustee in 2021
• Failure to ensure that the ranks of the Trustees reflect the breadth and diversity of the simming community (2.1)
  • Only two Trustees serving as of 2021
• Failure to ensure that the ranks of the Judges reflect the breadth and diversity of the simming community (2.1)
  • Refused to seat a qualified Judge and attempted to limit judging to only Trustees for 2020 (also 2.3)
• Failure to fill multiple vacant positions of Simming Prize Staff (2.1)
  • Multiple positions have remained unfilled for multiple years as of 2022
• Failure to ensure a timely review of eligible nominations (2.2.1)
  • Winners have frequently been introduced one year or more later than they should have been announced (also 4.6)
• Failure to set a date at which time the nomination period will close and failure to ensure sufficient public notice is provided prior to closing date (3.2)
  • No dates were announced for 2020
• Attempting to award a Simming Prize to an entity that was awarded a Prize within the last three years (3.3)
  • Attempted to award a Prize to the same entity for both 2019 and 2020
• Discussing a nominee outside of the e-mail list (4.1) and failure to keep nominations confidential (5.1)
  • Publicly disclosed a 2020 nominee before an official announcement had been made

Furthermore, the Trustees & Administrator have:

• Published erroneous award citations for multiple Laureates
• Attempted to award Prizes to two entities for accomplishments that they had already been awarded Prizes for
  • One of which is a sim hosted by a Trustee (which would be the sim’s third award for the same accomplishment)
• Generally run an opaque and insular program

The decision to remove two Trustees and the Administrator was not taken lightly, but unfortunately is now necessary to maintain the trust & integrity of the Simming Prize, one of the oldest and most prestigious awards in the role playing community. To replace them, we hereby formally introduce the following new Simming Prize Trustees, two of whom are Simming Prize Laureates and two of whom previously served as Administrators, including the first Administrator under the Trustee model:

• Charles Star, as of January 19, 2021
• Amanda Rose, as of February 10, 2022
• October, as of February 10, 2022
• Eris, as of February 10, 2022
• Iggy (will also serve as Administrator), as of February 11, 2022

In addition, we hereby unanimously approve a new Simming Prize Charter, which replaces the Simming Prize Handbook. We hope this will help correct some of the deficiencies of the recent past. We also hereby commit:

• To honor the best of the simming and online role playing community with the Simming Prize
• To faithfully follow the Simming Prize Charter and do things the right way
• To always keep the Charter and our names public
• To allow nominations to be made at any time
• To be transparent and engage the broader community: We want you to be a part of the Simming Prize!

Charles Star also hereby resigns as a Trustee of the Simming Prize. His resignation will take effect immediately upon the selection of a replacement. We thank Charles for his service and leadership to help right the ship during these challenging times.

Finally, we thank you for your continued interest in and support of the Simming Prize. Together, we can honor the past and present as we build toward the future.

-Charles Star, Amanda Rose, October, Eris & Iggy