heckler, to answer your questions you sent in a rep comment:
- i have a twitter account but don't use it, my handle is @bodymasterspt
- i am signed up on instagram but again don't use it, my handle is happy_carpenter
- my facebook is my real name, Mark Rowe and i have liked the nsmba page and see the updates
- i am signed up to the nsmba as an email member under two different emails and get the updates
- i check the nsmba website for info
- i also book off work and give up a day's wages when the agm comes around so i can attend the meeting, i believe i spoke with you at the last one
so you can see that i am not choosing to be silent. many people in the mtb community know who i am and it is not difficult to get ahold of me. i am pretty easy to find.
while i may not follow all the feeds every waking moment of the day, i am connected enough to see what's going on. the issue is not that there is no communication, the issue is often the level of communication and how it seems to be distributed on a limited level or not at all when it comes to certain topics.
a good example is when the nsmba decided to cut a new line into the trail i built which was done with permission from the LSCR and followed guidelines they set out. as per the nsmba's own definition, this new line they cut into salvation would be considered a parasite line. when the nsmba decided to go ahead and cut this line there was absolutely zero communication with me about this new line. granted i was not as active as i have been in the past, but i had not abandoned the trail as was asserted at the time. the nsmba even saw fit to take my tools from the trail which of course i discovered when i went to do some ground work. how hard would it have been to give me a courtesy call (they had my phone number) or an email or even a pm here to let me know what was happening and that they were moving ahead with this new line. even if they didn't contact me, if they had made their plans public it would have afforded me the option to get in touch with them. the only reason i found out is because i reported my tools as being stolen here on the boards and then the nsmbA got in contact with me.
the addition of this parasite line has cost me a probably a hundred hours or more in terms of extra work in having to deal with re-routes of the exsting line to accomodate their work. this line that the nsmba cut probably involved hundreds of hours of volunteer labour and no doubt paid labour as well. i was told that this line was put in as the original entrance in it's current state was not acceptable for beginner or intermediate level riders and i do not disgree with this except on the point that salvation is not a beginner line. in that light it took me about 40 total hours of work to put in a new entrance that will require maybe another day or two of labour to make 100%. and if i don't count the 20m of new trail, the work i did to clean up the original entrance totalled maybe 20 hours including realigning the skinny at the start and resurfacing the downramp that intermediate riders would use to bypass the first log ride.
if the nsmba had done a better job of communication they could have saved themselves hundreds of hours and dollars that could have been put to use on other projects that were in a state of higher need.
i have made significant efforts to build a good working relationship with Mark Wood and the NSMBA and it has worked to some extent. but i do not agree with how they choose to interact with the public. those who may not be as aware of things may not see an issue with how they operate, but myself and many others do. i still beleive in the vision of the nsmba and fully support some of the work and iniatives that they do, but they still have things they can impove on.
i am more than interested in finding out why pink starfish has been closed.
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