I think everyone would agree that Expansion is amazing! And no doubt ya’ll have put in alot of hard work. I want you to know that I appreciate your hard work fixing the books and doing expansion. I’m just sad it is over shadowed so badly by the loss of so many members and misbehaving officers.
I truly do hope we can find ways to work together to make this a better place for all.
Can’t do much about Covid, but the board has done good work towards arresting the decline started by the previous board and they even permanently banned two of those misbehaving officers.
And evicting the moochers.
I’m all for #VanLife and think what they build is awesome, but we don’t need our own #VanLifeTrailerPark out back of DMS with folks mooching electricity and making DMS their primary restrooms.
I #StandWithTheBoard on all the bans that were done. They all appeared to have been needed / warranted on their face and even by the details. They were all done to the betterment of DMS. We don’t need thieves or abusers, be it physical or mental or substance, here nor do we need folks who repeatedly do things that could burn down the space or harm others - including first responders - with their antics.
The membership decline continued throughout this board term before Covid. I think the discontent with the membership had alot to do with how many decided to drop during Covid. Sorta a last straw. It is going to take a change to reverse this trend and mend the discord that started in earnest during that period at the end of last board term.
From March 11, 2019:
So you think COVID had zero to do with anything and loss of jobs or the closure of the space was nothing? Granted Raffi and the other dead horse beaters drove many people crazy, but to the point of leaving? I think not. You’re discounting not only COVID issues but also that new signups are at a higher rate and new signups dropped off drastically as well.
And since you quoted me… I support the board and what they did. What I didn’t support and had problems with was related to Freddy, Raffi (HIM and not the board), and the rest of the Blue Tape Group and YOU.
Freddy stepped down from his position. Now will you step down off your high horse and chill?
And it started before this board. I think a lot of that is the dues increase, but you don’t want to have an honest conversation about it as has been attempted in other threads. You guys just want to throw stuff up on YT with disabled comments and keep the conversation unidirectional.
I’m not discounting Covid. Covid certainly is changing everything, not just in DMS but the world has changed. But this started way before Covid and sustained.
We had a rather large churn this past year. Like 7 members dropping every day and again this was before Covid.
Freddy stepped down but the board did nothing during the many months he was in power and they supported him running for board. They approve of him and it shows their values.
Funny how you continue this tirade. Funnier that the issues you claim I cause were something the board “should have done something about”. In life Draco you will find that just because you perceive a thing to be wrong doesn’t make it so. I’d appreciate it I’d you stopped the bs.
That’s a helpful perspective and I appreciate where you’re coming from. I’m not defending the toxicity because I’d rather it not be around but it might help to know some background about why it exists in my opinion. DMS has no requirements for directors or any other leadership position. No background checks, no credit checks, no professional or academic history, literally anyone can run after paying a few months of dues.
Relevant criminal history? Active warrants? Can’t hold down a job? Can’t hold down a residence? Can’t get a single reference to vouch for you? Substance abuse problems? Not a problem here. Just convince ~80 strangers to vote. Our monthly turnover is on par with that number. If this all sounds like a bad idea that’s because it is.
Many people have spent many years growing the organization to what it is today so there’s a lot of passion. I think it’s much more likely for the organization to flounder and fail than it is for it to thrive. Good leadership puts it in a better position to thrive. Ideally we’d have background checks, credit checks, references, and anything else you’d expect to have to do to get in a position where you manage hundreds of thousands of dollars and mange people providing services to thousands of members (and deal with all the baggage that comes with that).
We wouldn’t have to call people out for their bullshit like this if they weren’t able to run in the first place because of well thought out policies put in place to protect the integrity of the organization. Unfortunately that’s not the case. Hopefully policies will be implemented by the time the next election rolls around. I think that would help bring some civility to the discussion. Instead of questioning the integrity of the candidate and their abilities to perform in the role, we could focus on things like which candidate would be best for wrapping up the expansion, or which candidate would be best for addressing shortcomings in the honorarium system.
I’m talking with people right now. Talk is not a decent place to talk to the membership.
It has gotten much more caustic and adversarial during this election season.
I can understand why many many people avoid it.
How many of those members were due simply to credit cards expiring? Or membership date expiring?
Only for some.
The implication is they avoid it because they are more reasonable people, or generally better people, or [some similar adjective]. If so, it is essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy…if one is a voice of reason, why not stay and make things better with reasonable commentary and drown out the “caustic”?
Edmund Burke’s quote regarding good men [sic] doing nothing would seem to tend to apply. Also, to paraphrase, “you get the TALK forums you deserve”
I have no idea why they lapsed their membership but the trend is down.
Except here’s the annoying part. Anything I ask you with “meat” on it that isn’t based upon some theory you have on “community” and feeling, you’ll say “you’d have to ask them”. So it’s kinda pointless talking to their “messenger” IMO who won’t ever actually answer questions people are curious about.
For instance, if I asked “who added Luke to the Blue Tape site/slate presumably without his knowledge?”, you’ll dodge that question and say you don’t know (which might actually be true), and possibly wouldn’t even necessarily identify who to ask.
Was just about to mention the trend started before the current board. And that it had stabilized and started to slowly rise before the COVID shutdown – thanks for the green line, makes it a bit easier to see!
Either you do or you don’t, get off the fence.
It is up to the leadership to reverse that trend and they didn’t. That is at the crux of some of this.
I know for a fact that all of these contributed in the decline and also the extremeness of the Covid decline.
Every one of your bogus talking points has been proven to be either flat our wrong or a complete misrepresentation of the facts multiple times on multiple threads.
Stop trolling the community with your personal discontent.
