and you wonder why it's so hard to get people to volunteer to be a part of the nsmba?
the short answer to this question is perception and communication and these reasons have been around for quite some time.
one of the previous perceptions was that trial builders were grumpy isolationists that would bite your head off if you dared questioned them on the work they were doing. the other was that people were simply unaware of the 5W's of the nsmba. a survey was done back in 2005? or somewhere around there and these were recurring sentiments - as well as that many thought local govt's were responsible for the trals.
to answer both of those issues is somewhat simple though:
1. if people have a complaint, no matter how hard they come at you, try to respond directly to the issue at hand in a non-confrontational manner.
2. like it or not in the online world nsmb seems to be the go-to place for trail discussion - last time i checked there was no discussion board on the NSMBA's website. telling people to come to the agm, or a trail day, or to send me an email is not quite practical for either side. if the complainers did do that i'm sure the reps at the NSMBA would be spending a huge amount of time responding to those questions. if something comes up here, then repsond to it in a manner consistent with point #1 and a lot of this bickering would probably be avoided.
3. having the overall plan for trail work (or whatever may exist of said plan) that's easy to find and readily available to all will also help in assuaging some people's concerns with the direction of trail work as it pertains to the entire trail network.
We don't know what our limits are, so to start something with the idea of being limited actually ends up limiting us.
Ellen Langer