Given by His Excellency, President Kevin Baugh
26 May 2013 XXXVI
My fellow Molossians, friends and family, Greetings.
On 26 May 1977 I two boys created an idea and a new nation. Thirty-six years later, we gather to celebrate that idea and to extol the nation it has become. Molossia was a dream and a fantasy, an exercise in imagination. That imagination and creativity remains today in reality in the country you see around you, the world’s smallest sovereign republic, Molossia. And so, as we celebrate the birthday of our nation, we look back as always on the previous year and the accomplishments of our mighty land.
This past year has been one of much worldwide attention for Molossia, especially from the media. We have had two local television news visits, one from Channel 2 this April and one from Channel 4 last summer. Last fall French photographer Leo Delafontaine visited our nation and the very next day a British media team arrived, with an eye toward making a reality show about Molossia. Shortly thereafter Dutch political commentator Maarten Van Rossem came to Molossia as a part of a pre-US election television show.
Molossia also received a good bit of media attention last fall when we opened up a petition on the website of the White House in Washington, DC. The petition sought to have Molossia recognized as sovereign in free association with the United States. We gathered over 250 signatures before the petition window closed, not a large number but satisfactory. It was an excellent experiment.
Media attention came as well from another quarter more recently, from the social news website Reddit. In late April interest in Molossia swept Reddit and resulted in a spike on Molossia’s website, with 231,000 hits in one day, up from the daily average of 12,000. This crashed Molossia’s website server and ended up shutting down our site for two days.
Possibly the biggest event over the past year was the PoliNation 2012 conference in London last summer. This meeting of micronational minds was a watershed event in micronational relations and a great deal of fun as well. We are looking forward to attending the next PoliNation event in Italy in the summer of 2014.
Tourism continues to grow in Molossia. Last year, not counting Founder’s Day, we had 20 tourists visit, an ever-increasing number from previous years. This year we have already had seven visitors since our tourist season opened on April 15th. We are rapidly becoming the place to see!
On the home front we expanded our Navy by adding two new vessels, the Spindrift and Manatee, doubling our fleet. Already this year the new ships have been used successfully along with the rest of the fleet on a recent naval mission at Lake Tahoe.
In February we launched our latest product Supremo Soap. Designed to be a generic product as one would find in any nation, our soap has been rather popular and has thus far sold well. The same applies to our money, which went through a redesign last fall. The new designs have been very well received and the new banknotes have been purchased by collectors from around the world.
Molossia has continued to grow over the past year, adding two new buildings to Red Square. The Tiki Hut Bar and Grill opened last fall because every nation needs a restaurant, and it features some very interesting burgers. And the Bank of Molossia opened in March as a direct result of the popularity of our new money. We are very proud of these new additions to our nation.
In March we launched our new newsletter, the Mustang. Our goal is always to keep the world informed about events in Molossia. We already use our website, Facebook, Twitter and Radio Molossia and the newsletter is another tool to get the word out about our nation. We are very proud of Molossia and want the world to know more about us. That plan seems to be working!
As we look forward on this anniversary day, we must also look back. We can never forget our simple beginnings, and struggles that we have overcome. We also cannot forget those that have helped us along the way and to whom we a debt of gratitude. Without friends such as you, Molossia would definitely not be the nation it is today.
And so, I close this speech with the knowledge of who we are, who we have been and hopes for who we will be. Molossia is a great nation, and has only the brightest of futures. Let us go together into that future, one bright with promise and hope.