Letters should be displayed at the bottom right of the ship's crest on its Ensign. The Gold and Silver E will be displayed on the left for the year after it is earned.
They may be displayed on the physical flag and on digital representations. Not everyone has a physical chapter flag so adding them to the bottom of a digital flag is 100% acceptable. They will also be added to the Chapter's wiki page on Mantipedia with other unit awards.
Short answer: No. While normally MARDETs count for crew totals, the GAUEP is designed to increase a Chapter's participation and activity for all the Branches in TRMN. After talking with RMMC leadership it was agreed that MARDETs should work toward their own GAUEP success while attached to Navy chapters, and are encouraged to work on participating in the program to earn Letters of their own. This means that they will be not be counted toward a Ship's total crew for calculating the 10% participation needed. It also means that MARDETs will count toward the total number of chapters of a Fleet for the Silver E participation. It also also means that RMMC Regiments are eligible to earn the Gold E
Coursework completed in a calander year will be counted. When you submit a challenge you will need to list who in your chapter participated in the testing challenge. We will then audit the test dates in MEDUSA to verify for those individuals.
Not all members of a crew will be able to satisfy the requirements for every challenge. Course Work challenges wont be able to be completed by members who have already completed all of the coursework in the department's catalog. Chapters should look at what challenges they want to complete and see what is plausible for them to do so or create a roadmap to making it possible.
To qualify as a participating chapter for their Branche's Excillence Ribbon, thry must complete at least 4 challenges, one in a different department. A Chapter can only earn each Letter once in a calander year. If a DesDiv has three chapters, and two of those chapters completed four challenges then those two chapters will receive the Battle E in Gold at the end of the year.
Yes! When a submission is reviewed you will receive a confirmation from BuShips. Our current plan is to announce letters earned each month, but that may change as we go forward and adapt.
If you do an event for a soup kitchen that involves both raising money and volunteering time, you will need to choose as a chapter which of the two Department Challenges it will count toward. Like all TRMN awards, we do not allow double dipping. Volunteer Hours for a Con would be Logistics as that is specifically for Convention Participation.
Large events such as a convention may also involve several ships and it would be a good idea for the COs to talk about who wants to take point and submit for different challenges at the event. For example, I locally just had a convention with members from several ships and branches attend. We had a fantable, party room, hosted a nerf battle, book raffle, Tea Parties, and an awards ceremony. All of these were run and organized by TRMN members.
The Tea Parties were managed by members of the HMS Hexapuma and they could claim that as a Logistics challenge, and \tThe Book Raffle was run by a member of the HMS Demon and they could claim that for Admin. Party Room could go to HMS Vixen for logistics for THEIR chapter. Meanwhile the Westmarch Rifles ran the Nerf Battle and they could claim that as Logistics for THEIR chapter. This would also count as a Red T as it is a LARP style event. They would have to decide which of the two they would want it to count toward. No double dipping.
Each Chapter is claiming one event independently for themselves. If only one chapter is present at a con and can satisfy multiple Challenges, as long as they are not double dipping and can verify that they meet the challenge criteria, then they can earn several letters in one weekend.
That gives you 51 more weekends to earn the rest of the letters for the year!
The list of Challenges is a list of suggestions with a hope to inspire more and get an idea of what would count in that department's challenge. Aircraft Carrier (Or other warship museum) tours are a common chapter event, and so used as an example here. A crew doing a boat tour of something like a Tanker or other Civilian ship would absolutely count. To see how these modern marvels operate and see the bowls of an actively operating ship would be an excellent idea for an event!
So the Marksmanship challenge mentioned would be "Members of your chapter earning Marksmanship Ribbons/Qualification Medals". So you could help another chapter by playing WoWS with someone to help them earn the ribbon, and in doing so they would count towards their chapter's 10% of members earning them. Those of us who have maxed it out though would not be able to qualify for that specific challenge since we cannot earn more Marksmanship Awards.
Command Challenges are the notable exception to the 10% rule and are targeted to the Command members of a Chapter. For the Reporting example given, BuShips will award the Command C to all chapters that have turned in (on time) all 6 of their required reports in the year. Not all Command Challenges are for the CO such as the Rank Course Challenge for the crew, but as the leaders of their chapters, recognizing that they are completing their responsibilities can be noticed and celebrated.