I would say thankless is a pretty accurate description of this job. Yes we are thanked at meetings but the second we make a mistake or jump out of line we are called to task. So this is a case of actions speaking louder than the "thanks". We hear thanks to our faces and then criticisms behind our backs or here in the forums.

We are under constant scrutiny by the members here, even in the simplest things. Most times we are darned if we do and darned if we don't. There are members here that thrive on finding faults.

We are volunteers with jobs, families, other volunteer activities, etc.... We are human that can only do so much. Also for those that have not noticed this SC is rarely a committee of 6 people doing equal work. It is very much a case of 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

Thank you for thanking me. I do appreciate it but how about next time the SC makes a mistake instead of making a mountain out of the mole hill and getting out the pitch forks and torches you acknowledge that we made a mistake and when we correct it we get a thanks and some understanding. That would go a looong way your appreciating and thanking your SC.

Ohhhhh
quit whining, you volunteered, in other words you asked for it.
cheer up and enjoyed it, or tell us what we can do with it.

I can pretty much guarantee that no one including me volunteered to be criticized.

I would hope that the current SC nominees are not putting their name out there to be blasted for what the SC does.

I am happy, for the most part I do enjoy it. No whining I was just pointing out the way that it is around here and maybe it is not only the SC that needs to change but the membership might also need to change.

I did tell you what you can do with it. See my part about not making making mountains out of mole hills.

quote:

Originally posted by ParentsofSAM:
...Also for those that have not noticed this SC is rarely a committee of 6 people doing equal work. It is very much a case of 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

Hopefully I'm reading this correctly.

If one volunteers to be the leader of a group, they fall into the 20% of people doing 80% of the work. However now if only 20% of the SC is doing 80% of the work, that'd mean one person is doing all (80%) of the 'SC' work.

Are there any additional SC folks that need to step up or even leave to help baleance the loads??

It is a saying, Joe not to be taken literally.

It is called the Pareto principle or the law of the vital few, it was originally applied to wealth and finance. It has since become to stand for anything when a minority do the majority of anything.

It was to say that a few (not one, no certain percent) of the SC members handle a majority (not all but a but a good amount) of the work.

We use this saying all the time in the volunteer world because that is the way it is for most organizations of any size. Maybe the reference was a little to obscure for here.

So true Stephanie. but YOU know how literally I can take stuff.

AND, it is really known by many who does and who does not carry their share in the SC load.

Thanks for carrying YOUR share.

Thanks Joe.

Now that everyone has Googled Pareto we have had our obscure saying of the week lesson.

Everyone go vote on the calendar pictures and in the SC election because there are 7 other crazy folks that are dying to be a part of the GGA SC and all the great benefits that come along with the title of the SC.

quote:

Originally posted by Joebids:
but YOU know how literally I can take stuff.

I finally got up enough courage to peek in this thread again. After mousing over here a couple of nights ago and seeing that there were almost 40 replies to my posting, I cringed and couldn't even bring myself to read anything. I feared some kind of flame war was going on but I was pleased to see today that the discussion has been mostly cordial. I understand the chain of events and flawed protocol that caused this to happen and I'm not really upset about it.

I might have it all wrong but from what I've pieced together in this thread and a few emails I received, apparently a couple of members read my posting, decided to examine mudbug65's stats and after seeing that I had 0 finds and 0 hides, they contacted the SC saying (I'm theorizing here), "Look at this guy, he's a fake or maybe even a SOCK-PUPPET!!" The SC was all like, "OMG A SOCK-PUPPET! GET IN THE CAR!" and quickly pulled the plug as specified in their top secret policy of only allowing GGA membership if the individual is also an active member of Geocaching.com. Well, how'd they miss this cache? or this one? or this one here? or here? or these two here and here? and how could they possibly have missed this one? So it looks like this mudbug guy HAS hidden some caches after all but why didn't they show up on his profile? Well if you click on the member name at the top of the cache pages you'll see that it resolves to bent_twigs. Although my bent_twigs account owned the caches, I listed them as being placed by mudbug65. I also reserved the mudbug65 account from GC.com and used it to place maintenance notes on my cache pages like, "Hiked in this morning and left a new log-book" or the infamous "Cache disabled until May 1st due to geese nesting season" (at least one person here will remember this fiasco). So this mb65 / b_t connection is much more convoluted than it appears on the surface.

Even though the rules outlined in the Terms of Service and Forums Posting Guidelines appear to have been disregarded, this whole episode actually hinges on the fact that the SC is using active Geocaching.com membership to verify if a person is "allowed" to be included in our forums which seems kinda unfair to me since there are other geocaching sites out there although I've never visited any of them and I imagine they are pretty pitiful compared to GC.com

And what does active membership even mean? If you were to check out my bent_twigs profile it would seem that I'm completely inactive and haven't visited a cache since Jan. 2002 when in reality I've been to around 50 (+/-) since then including 5 this year. So why doesn't my profile reflect that? It's because back in mid 2002, I stopped logging my finds online unless I specifically wanted the cache owner to know I'd been there and then I'd log it with a "note" instead of a "found it" so it wouldn't add to my number of finds.

"WHAT?? You mean you intentionally take steps to keep from adding to your found number??? But don't you understand that number is the source of our status and glory in the caching community?!" Yes, I understand completely.....

quote:

Originally posted by phat.bak:
Good enuff for me ... and hopefully good enuff for the rest.

As far as I am concerned ... Case Closed

I like your new avatar!

quote:

"WHAT?? You mean you intentionally take steps to keep from adding to your found number??? But don't you understand that number is the source of our status and glory in the caching community?!" Yes, I understand completely....

Man I sooooo totally get it. Yeah I remember when you sent me an email to congratulate on my number of finds.. I thought "Woo Hoo I've passed Bent_Twigs"! I didn't find out till like a year later you had stopped logging them. Back then it was a different kind of game. And the numbers meant something completely different.

If I could I wouldn't log them either... but my uncontrollable need to tell a story and of course the numbers I do care about - the stats... I can't help it. Unless it's nothing to write home about and I may or may not log it - ever.

I am sorry you didn't get to make it this year to the camp out. I know I'm not alone when I say we not only missed you and your family... But those great honkin' awesome enchiladas your better half makes.

Be well my friend.

quote:

Originally posted by Slayerette:
I know I'm not alone when I say we not only missed you and your family... But those great honkin' awesome enchiladas your better half makes.

ahhh yes! those glorius 'made from scratch' tamales! Maybe she could teach us how it's done next time???
AWESOME!

TAMALES!!!! I remember how they tasted... just I couldn't remember the name of them. I knew enchilada was wrong when I wrote it.... There was no sauce...

I guess I was thinking with my swedish side.

Tamales, chili, baked beans....

This crowd sure does like their gatherings gassy..