Life In 19x19

I was going to quit, really. I had a resignation letter I was going to read at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) this past congress. Part of me wishes I did, the other half will now laugh at the AGA's decision.

The president of the AGA, recently fired me as webmaster. I've been at that position for a good four years now. I've pointed out what I've done in other threads here so I won't repeat myself. I thought I was doing a lot of good.

I was directly fired for a couple of reasons. That 10 game rule that was dropped? I didn't update the site for 2 weeks on tournament and other pages referencing it. Sorry, I have a life and a job. I was also spending a bunch of time watching the threads here and on the chapters list and see how the board would take the public opinion and make it their own. I also sent [the president] a letter asking him to not email me directly since whenever he did it, it was only demands. I get enough of that at work as an IT professional working with end users. I figured that if he went through an intermediary; i.e. the new VP of Operations who is a good friend or the VP of communications who is my "boss" on the org chart, It would cut down on some aggravation of mine. It was actually interesting to share emails with others to see how ridiculous they would be.

Now the email thing was a long time coming. I've been fighting to get ads on the aga site to generate some black for the organization when most things were going into the red. After waiting for seven months everything was approved and most of what you see at the bottom of every page is there. This would have been cut easily in half had our fearless leader responded better. Responded better. What a joke. I don't know of how many of you email [the president] about problems or concerns, but only half of my email is ever read if that much. The board has known of this fact, poor communication, for some time. Roy Schmidt has informed me by phone call that [the president] was spoke to about it numerous times. The last time was a few months ago when I had to go to the Board with my concerns. [The president] didn't care or didn't want to hear them. I wonder if anything will ever change about that old dog.

The board has helped with that for sure. Most people don't like confrontation, well good thing we play go. I have a number of friends on the board. I like them as people and normally have good conversations. Right now I have Lisa Scott's IM window open as we were chatting earlier. The board however wont take a stand and do whats right. Look at the minutes from the last two years. You'll see the same things discussed every three to four months. The only decision they've come up with is to bypass the international representation rules. When you read them, and no I don't want to get into that stupid debate again, but they've never been FULLY enforced for an entire year. Tournament after tournament they were tossed aside so someone could play. Anyone notice the ignoring of bylaws in the last set of minutes? Maybe someday they'll get up the courage to run this amateur organization like a semi-professional one. Maybe one day we'll see a three or five year plan on what they see out of the AGA.

You've read this long? Sit back, take a deep breath, relax.

I was asked by numerous people to not quit: friends, other volunteers, and board members. Guess that did me a lot of good. You know what else. I still have all my fancy powers. Still have access to edit anything on usgo.org or gocongress.org and now have migrated the AGA to google apps and am the administrator of that. Guess that firing is all just words so far.

You'll not read about this in the E-Journal. You wont read about Nick Jihrad's position for a while as well. Chris, if you read this, you should check in here more.

I warn you who look to volunteer for the AGA under [the current president]. He has no plan and thinks he has the greatest ideas ever. Find a project that interests you, like promotego.org or igolocal or eidogo, make it awesome. Maybe the next webmaster will integrate it into the AGA website. Maybe you can take my job and deal with people not knowing what everyone does. By the way, if you want to update your chapter information on the website you better be sending it to database@usgo.org. The webmaster dont handle that.

In my sig file I write "decisions are made by those who show up." I showed up, did some detritus, and now I'm gone. I made some big decisions btw, I had a good amount of power over things. I'm gonna watch Nick and see how he handles the insanity that is the AGA.

I dont care anymore. Im gonna go renew my Canadian Go Association membership for $15/yr and still play in rated AGA tournaments. Good luck future volunteers, you're gonna need it!

edited to remove one of the personal names, find the real name here - http://www.usgo.org/org/who.html

Is it really necessary to hang your dirty laundry out in public?

DrStraw wrote:Is it really necessary to hang your dirty laundry out in public?

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Thanks for your effort over the last few years vash3g. I know a lot of positive changes were made to the website under your watch.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:Considering the potentially inflamatory nature of this topic, I ask that people please try to confine their criticisms to policies, not people. Thank you.

Unfortunately (some of) the people are a significant part of the problem within the AGA right now. There is a lack of effective leadership within the organization. Read through the board minutes from 2003 on and you'll see the same discussions over and over again--international representatives, forming committees, rank certificates. Meanwhile membership and revenues are both down sharply, but I don't see any serious talk beyond 'we really should form a committee to think about that'.

My own experiences within the AGA mirror much of what Steve reported. The leadership was largely unengaged--important decisions were left hanging and email communication would go unanswered. The few times decision were made they were usually done on-the-fly, without much thought and as often as not ended up pulling the rug out from under me in some way. In the end I decided that continuing to deal with the AGA's leadership wasn't worth the aggravation and I gave up.

I think Steve is quite correct--if someone wants to make a genuine contribution to American go it's best to do it through a side project.

"You can't fire me, I quit."

DrStraw wrote:Is it really necessary to hang your dirty laundry out in public?

I tend to agree with this statement. I have a lot of respect for Steve and Phil from what I have read here, but I think this thread started unfortunately and is bound to end badly. I have no basis to challenge any remarks in particular.

However, President of the AGA is a hard job that requires a fairly unique combination of knowledge, ability and time. I am unaware that, whatever his faults, we have anyone better and WILLING to step into his shoes.

I'm not in a position to judge, but it sure sounds like this is either inaccurate or of public interest (though there are possible intermediates).

Since I don't know which it is, I won't say it's airing dirty laundry, and I don't think anyone else should unless they're willing to claim more knowledge about the actions of vash3g, Allan or the board. Maybe that's true of Horibe or Dr. Straw.

vash3g, thanks for your efforts and I'll be sorry to see you go.

hyperpape wrote:Since I don't know which it is, I won't say it's airing dirty laundry, and I don't think anyone else should unless they're willing to claim more knowledge about the actions of vash3g, Allan or the board. Maybe that's true of Horibe or Dr. Straw.

I don't know anything about this individual matter. I have known Alan personally for 27 years, but that was not why I posted. I just get tired of this type of thing in a public forum and it is basically why I quit the AGA two years ago.

Ok. I was just putting that out as a hypothetical.

Well, though we've disagreed on policies in the past, I'm sorry to see you go. And losing someone with technical skills is hard, training someone new in the eldritch workings of the organizational structure of a web system can take a lot of time.

I think you're spot on about the projects piece. IMO, a lot of the good work that the AGA accomplishes is done at a grassroots level. People find friends and fellow club members to go out and do what needs to be done. I think if we can get in touch with that, then we can really accomplish something.

Good luck, and now that you've left that position, can I keep you in mind if there's something that folks need help with? You have a lot of volunteering experience, and if you want to continue volunteering, I see no reason why we can't find something that you like to do.

(I promise, no politics or interaction with the powers that be will be required)

shapenaji wrote:IMO, a lot of the good work that the AGA accomplishes is done at a grassroots level. People find friends and fellow club members to go out and do what needs to be done.

In that case things are happening in spite of the AGA rather than because of it. If there are people out there who want to get things done but who can't find a home in the AGA then the organization needs to take a really hard look to find out why that is.

shapenaji wrote:You have a lot of volunteering experience, and if you want to continue volunteering, I see no reason why we can't find something that you like to do.

(I promise, no politics or interaction with the powers that be will be required)

If you can promise that people won't have to interact with the powers that be then you might consider posting the job ads here. I can name four people who have left the AGA because they didn't want to deal with the people in charge. If there are jobs that are both interesting and insulated from the AGA's leadership then you might have some takers.

pwaldron wrote:
If you can promise that people won't have to interact with the powers that be then you might consider posting the job ads here. I can name four people who have left the AGA because they didn't want to deal with the people in charge. If there are jobs that are both interesting and insulated from the AGA's leadership then you might have some takers.

Why not? Accomplishing the goal of spreading go in the US doesn't mean that you HAVE to work in a bureaucratic capacity. If I can get this request system up and running, then you can volunteer for the tasks that interest you.