Hi Elves!

What a cRAZy week it has been. I have known for over a week about our new sector lead but I haven’t been able to announce it because we were waiting for Santa’s approval.

I talked to Elf Crash right away and he, of course, approved immediately. But the rules are that I cannot announce things like this until Santa signs off and he’s been so doggone hard to get a hold of.

Anyway, I finally got a phone call from Santa this morning – and by the morning I mean at 2:25am in the morning (I tell you, the man NEVER sleeps) — and, of course, he said yes and it was actually a very short conversation.

Our new sector lead is Elf Ulan, who resides, as you know, in Japan. I’m so very excited to have this dedicate elf as our Sector Lead. We will have such a good year in Sector 1 with Ulan in this role.

She’s going to start right away. I know you already know that you can ask anything of Elf Ulan and she will help you. She’s an Elf of the Year winner already and she has been with us for a long, long time championing the cause of Santa. We are SO very lucky to have her.

Now, there are other elf supervisors who have new sector leads coming soon. Santa was taking so long I was afraid I would not be the first. Whew!

This gives us a good foundation for moving forward. Thank you, Elf Ulan,  for being a part of my team!

The elf job of Sector Lead is evolving. It will now require added duties, as listed at the job description found on this page.

Due to the changes in the position, I have decided to release all existing Sector Leads from their positions. They are welcome to re-apply and would be strongly considered if they are willing to take up the new duties as listed in the job description.

What is different about this position?

After long discussions with the Elf Supervisors, it was decided that Sector Leads need to have a more visible presences both on SantaTrackers.net and on social media channels. Sector Leads will be given more responsibility in both recruiting and news outreach efforts. This will require a lot more time and certainly a lot effort. That was a key reason why I chose to release those currently in the position.

The job has just changed.

The Elf Supervisors not only ask for a voice in recruiting for this position but also an ability to tailor the job to their own needs in each sector. I support this request. A Sector Lead in one sector will need to adapt to the needs of that sector through communication with the Elf Supervisor.

Please note that while the job description says a Sector Lead needs to be a North Pole Elf with a presence on SantaTrackers.net I will be flexible in that requirement in sectors where access and language make finding qualified candidates difficult (looking at you Sector 2). I will consider the possibility of a strong freelance elf candidate (or two).

If you are freelance elf with interest and qualifications in the Sector Lead position, please reach out via a standard freelance tracker report submission or via the support page here at SantaTrackers.net

If you have questions please feel free to ask them below or on the Elf Wall.

Today we have added a new report to the library of reports offered here on SantaTrackers.net. Elf Max has restructured the library pages and added a new report to the Personal Reports library titled “Message Your Elf Supervisor”.

This new report was born out of concern for the many new Junior Tracker Elves coming on board this year.

Their job in their first six months as an elf is to try to get promoted to North Pole Elf status and join the Elf Community. To do that, they need to become known to their elf supervisors.

One way to do that is via the tracker reports that our Elf Supervisors ask you all to provide.

But because Junior Elves are NOT part of the Elf Community there is no direct way for them to reach out to their Elf Supervisor. Furthermore, privacy laws prevent two-way communication outside of the regulated environment of the community.

As Elf Moe, Santa and myself discussed this challenge we determined the best way to do this was to implement this new report that will allow any elf to send a message directly to the Elf Supervisor.

This is a good idea for our North Pole Elves of the community as well. The Elf Community is accessible to our Elf Supervisors but they get very busy and rarely have time to check messages.

This new report operates via channels controlled by the North Pole Post Office and flows through regular reporting protocols. In other words, when you use this NEW REPORT your message gets routed like a report – and it gets straight to your Elf Supervisor right away.

(Every report that comes in requires action in the Regional Tracking Center that receives it. Elves working in the Regional Center tag the report, send it to the teams who assess that information. When necessary, follow up actions are added or the information is filed for use for when Santa flies to the area you are reporting from. Making a message for your supervisor thus means it goes into a queue where they HAVE to read it and act on it).

Even though your Elf Supervisor cannot reply to you in these messages they can still see what you have to say and then choose whether or not to post something on SantaTrackers.net publicly in response to it.

As we get more and more of our Regional Tracking Centers announced the likelihood of report requests will be increasing. In fact, you should expect a first request from your Elf Supervisor anytime within the next week.

We encourage you to learn about and use this new report.

Note to Freelance Elves: this new report is not available to you. We encourage you to reach out to your Elf Supervisor via the standard freelance elf report.

The Elf Supervisors will meet beginning this Friday and into the weekend as they work to schedule events for the upcoming tracking season.

They will first receive training on the new website here at SantaTrackers.net. Once that training is complete we expect to see them posting news in short order.

They are also discussing elf recruiting goals, the status of Santa’s sleigh, new technologies to be used in flying Santa around the world this year and updates from Flight Command about what information will be needed to track Santa for Santa.

There are rumors going about of a North Pole Chat to be held with all the Elf Supervisors at the same time. We don’t know if that is going to happen or when but we will keep you posted.