STARS Announcement 09-05-2026

Posted: September 5, 2026

EnglesBird Status

EnglesBird is down and will be back up tonight.

Hosting Platforms

STARS is looking into Paper-Space and Digital Ocean as hosting platforms. We’re currently mostly using Vercel to host static custom client pages and wikis, since it’s free/cheap and works well for pages with no CPU usage.

As the chapter grows, if our digital asset needs outpace what these platforms can handle, we’ll move to join one of the many cloud co-ops, where member orgs pay annual dues (usually a couple hundred dollars) and jointly own the servers.

Interim plan for EnglesBird

If the free tiers of Digital Ocean or Paper-Space can meet the chapter’s needs before a formal decision is made to subscribe, we’ll move EnglesBird to one of those platforms. This will prevent service interruptions whenever we lose power or internet.

STARS Is Entering “Initiation Recess”

Several of our original goals, including a website redesign, access to OpenSlides, access to OpenProject, and a Discord bot for Action Network, have seen partial progress. These are minor successes, but none are fully complete.

Given the clear need for infrastructure and mesh organizing within STARS, along with growing member interest in the tech space, we’re formally shifting to ground setting.

The tasks above are not complete. We’ll deprioritize them in favor of the work outlined below.

Initiation Recess: 10/01/2026 – 02/01/2027

This recess is being entered into at the discretion of the chair, as a necessary step to steer this working group toward a structure with the capacity to support and grow alongside the chapter. Current intake, largely individual requests handled on an ad hoc basis, has outpaced the underlying infrastructure and delegation structure needed to sustain it. During this recess, STARS will pause intake of new project requests from the broader chapter in order to establish that foundation.

This project has three primary goals.

Goal 1: Knowledge Building and Transfer

• Create wikis for different processes
• Thoroughly document technical processes in a private wiki
• Thoroughly document organizing processes in a private wiki
• Thoroughly document resources and onboarding materials in a public wiki (non-sensitive info only)

This docs site is live

This site, https://www.stars-akrondsa.org/, is now live. Right now it’s still a default Starlight template with minor cosmetic tweaks, but it’s functional. We’ll be building it out piecemeal, targeting 1 to 2 sections a week, with a fuller overhaul once we’ve got more members comfortable contributing to it. This is also a good warm-up project for anyone new who wants to get familiar with the tech, since most of the content work is just markdown.

Goal 2: Project Management Infrastructure

• We’ve been pushing national for a pilot license for OpenProject, since their hosted version is still in beta and limited to chapters with cadre formally within the NTC.
• We’ll give this until the end of September. After that, we’ll shift to self-hosting an open source project management tool, which should take about a week of setup by someone familiar with web hosting. This will likely mean bumping up our resources on whatever platform we’re using to host custom web services should we adopt one, which could increase our monthly hosting cost by roughly $5 to $10.

Goal 3: Clean Technical Request and Delivery Systems

• Build a “Rank-Validator” tool to confirm whether an email belongs to a member in good standing
• Automatically serve low risk requests such as:
  • Discord access
  • Google Workspace access
  • OpenSlides access
  • Access to project management software or other core systems expected for members in good standing
• Develop a Help Desk system for requests that need manual review
• Build out infrastructure to support more complex requests and needs, which may include:
  • Buying or renting server space
  • Hosting APIs for special operations or requests
  • Hosting documentation via wikis, shared drives, or cloud notes
  • Standardizing and ranking system access based on knowledge ownership and trust in deployment pipelines

Project Timeline

We’ll deliver a 3 month project timeline with milestones and deadlines, using intermediary tracking tools until formal project management software is in place. This project document will be presented at the next Comms Committee meeting or General Meeting for feedback and discussion.

What’s open for discussion

The recess and the associated infrastructure work are proceeding as outlined above. What is open for discussion at that meeting is the prioritization of work within the recess, what the chapter would like to see delivered, and in what sequence.

This will run as an Agile project, meaning we’ll define three tiers of delivery items: Epic Features, Features, and Work Items, with discussion focused on what STARS is delivering and the proposed timeline. Implementation details tend to shift as the work develops, and will be worked out accordingly rather than settled in advance.

We appreciate the chapter’s patience and trust as this foundation is established.