[EMBASSY] Refugia

This thread shall serve the purpose of Consulate between [region=Refugia] and [region=The East Pacific].

EDIT: As of March 11th, 2021, the Consulate has been upgraded to an Embassy.

Hello directionally-eastern friends! I’m here to bring you good tidings and news from Refugia.

As this is the first official Foreign Affairs missive from our region, allow me to introduce us. Refugia is a left-leaning (mostly eco-socialist) region focused on environmental issues and community building. We aim to provide a safe, happy place for our residents and member states, where they can feel free to discuss any interest they have on or off Nationstates in a stress-free and happy environment. The region is run by a group of five Councillors, each overseeing their various departments (Foreign Affairs, Culture, Operations, the Interior, and our Arch-Administrator) in a mostly sovereign fashion, though some minor checks are in place.

Since refocusing our efforts on building our region six months ago, Refugia has seen some incredible growth. On 1 May, 2020, Refugia had no active Councillors and only 13 nations. As of writing this dispatch on 31 October, 2020, we are at 114 nations, 40 of whom are enrolled in the World Assembly. As a region, we are now 27th in the world for average International Artwork value (the only region above 20 members to place so highly) and 28th for highest average endorsements. Several members of the community have expressed interests in playing for stats and becoming card players, and have found assistance in pursuing those goals through guidance and advice.

Throughout October, our Arch-Administrator has run two campaigns to increase endorsement on our regional WA delegate, pushing our regional vote to 32, a record for our region. She also oversaw an endotarting campaign so that, instead of 1-2 endorsements on our lowest nations, we now have ten. More nations than ever before are getting involved with GA/SC proposal discussions in the RMB and our discord server. We’re also seeing an increase in nations submitting amendment and referendum proposals to our founding document, the Refugia Revised Statutes.

After passing a recent referendum pushing our elections from September to October to ensure our Operations Councillor didn’t have to oversee N-Day and Z-Day in the same term, Refugia has spent the past month voting on its new Councillors. The results, once they were counted, have shown the following:

  • Sylh Alanor, beginning her second term as Councillor of Foreign Affairs

  • Refuge Isle, beginning her first term as Councillor of Culture

  • Chacapoya, beginning her second term as Councillor of Operations

  • Melenavenia, beginning his second term as Councillor of the Interior.

In global news, Refugia has seen wonderful success in site-wide events. As part of the alliance Ba Sing Se in N-Day, we assisted our allies in reaching third place overall, and being the highest-placed faction with zero radiation! And for the second year in a row, Refugia has seen success in Z-Day, curing ourselves of all zombie presence in a matter of hours. After 2019’s impressive five-hour clear time (with 18 total nations), a cure missile strike force led by our Operations Councillor fully disinfected the region in seven hours this year (with 114 nations).

I sincerely hope you’re having a wonderful autumn, and look forward to delivering even more good news in the months to come.

Sincerely,
[nation=Sylh Alanor]
Foreign Affairs Councillor of [region=Refugia]

Thank you for the update :heart:

An’eth’ara, na lethalleni su oi’theara! Welcome to the first Refugia Foreign Affairs Update of 2021!

I hope everyone had nice, relaxing holidays and was able to close 2020 out in peace. As we look back on the end of last year, there are a lot of regional goings-on to share.

To start, we’ll look at what’s changed in the Foreign Affairs department. The Refugia Envoy programme was introduced on October 22 with the goal of placing a Refugi in all of our embassy regions. I’ve been hoping that it would result in closer relationships and friendlier ties. As of writing this document, every embassy save two has been filled, and I hope to see the others taken care of soon.

Envoys aren’t the only thing that’s been happening in the Foreign Affairs department either. We’ve been on an embassy spree, cleaning up while also finding new friends! Since the beginning of October, we’ve re-opened our embassy with The Leftist Assembly, as well as forging new diplomatic ties with older regions like Yggdrasil and Spiritus. Diplomatic offices were also established in The Pacific. In fact, with new legislation shortening the referendum time on opening and closing embassies to four days from seven, starting new friendships is faster than ever.

Refugia has been practising our writing skills on more than just legislation. After a lot of hard work from Refuge Isle on graphics, and far too much bloviating on my part, we have the official NationStates | Dispatch | Office of Foreign Affairs: Official Dispatch. It gives a little bit of the department’s history, our goals, and things to consider when approaching us about embassies. The coolest part is the list of travel runes, which are drawn by Refugi to create portals between Refugia and other places. We design each one with the embassy in mind.

Another interesting thing that has happened in the interim is the re-organisation of our founding document, the NationStates | Dispatch | The Refugia Revised Statutes. Submitted by Refuge Isle, the new layout for the RRS aims to make things easier to find and amend by grouping the various laws into categories and giving the entire document a better layout.

Finally, our regional Council is growing. A new amendment passed two weeks ago called for the establishment of a World Assembly Affairs office, complete with a brand new Council seat. The election period for our first WAA Councillor has just ended, and Junitaki-cho has taken her seat. Her term will last until the next set of elections in February.

As always, if you have any questions or issues, myself and all our Envoys are available.

Dar’eth Shi’ral
[nation=Sylh Alanor]
Foreign Affairs Councillor of Refugia

Hello TEP!
Our last FA update was back in July - the last on this forum in January! - and I’m sure you’re absolutely dying to know what’s been happening in your favourite peaceful democracy.
Firstly, we have recently completed an election! Our government has changed once again, with new faces and returning Councillors both. The lineup is as follows:

[nation=Lethodus]: Councillor of Culture

[nation=Michelland]: Councillor of the Interior

[nation=Chacapoya]: Councillor of Operations

[nation=Chatula]: Councillor of Foreign Affairs

[nation=Dacay]: Councillor of World Assembly Affairs

[nation=Lethodus] published a fabulous NationStates | Dispatch | Refugia Eco-Report - October 2021. Our Eco-Reports represent the region’s dedication to the conservation of and respect for the environment. They both cover the stats of our nations and give some advice for the real world. While our overall environmental statistics have been trending down, this is due to the plethora of new arrivals brought to us by our indomitable recruiters. You know what they say - you can lead a horse to a gift but never look straight from its mouth. Something like that, anyway.

I’m sure you noticed the zombie apocalypse. Despite the disappointing early setback, Refugia managed to entirely quell the uprising due to many heroic citizens and the leadership of the Councillor of Operations. Alas, it was too late to save everyone. A modest position on the “most survivors” leaderboard was claimed.

As for internal events: The annual Refuge Census is currently underway. This is an opportunity to gather some interesting information about who we are, as well as provide some feedback about the community. NationStates | Dispatch | The Lottery of All Things II: Fantastic Adventures has concluded, with [nation=Refuge Isle] showering riches across the land in the form of international artwork.

See you next time!

  • [nation=Chatula], on behalf of [region=Refugia]