Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. When we formed ArsenalAmerica as an official supporters club, we were required by Arsenal to supply personal information and references for each member of the board. I would assume that is still the case.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. Yes, as Mike alludes to here, $/£ was a very serious problem that had to be addressed, and - with some taking some hits for the cause - is now under control. I haven't had access to the spreadsheet in a year now, but from what I've been told it's like a brand new day. "Transparency" is ideal but when you're getting mixed signals that involve people's reputations, things were very delicate and had to be handled accordingly. I think Josh deserves tremendous credit for his leadership in handling this and for adapting the ticketing process. To be very clear: I very much enjoyed working with Josh while he was the VP and fully supported him to become President last year. While I think the transition was botched horribly, I don't blame him, and think he's done a wonderful job as President over the course of this past year. Leadership isn't simply management, but more importantly about affecting positive change, and Josh has done just that. Open elections are being held now, as promised, and the by-laws are nearly finished. Last year wasn't the first time board transition was fumbled. In my mind, Mike will always be El Presidente, as his spirit has permeated all the good that comes from ArseAm.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. All I know is that when Mikey was president and ArseAm voted for the their player of the year, we had a deal that if Cesc ever won and we were chosen to present the vaaaase to him, I would get to do it. That is both true friendship and the sign of a great President!
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. Steph, I've told every president since then that a promise is a promise, and if Cesc were to win, you're the one who gets to give him the vaaaaase.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. That's right. That's why I only see you at matches. hey ho......
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. Says the guy who went and moved away... Really though, there are of course friendships that develop, but you can't expect that everyone will become friends and do everything together. Just doesn't work that way. Besides, not everyone in the lot is your friend.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. For instance? I personally can't recall any shit being slung. What i recall is a bunch of long standing members asking legitimate questions about the lack of communication and open elections. Sorry, but we did not create the situation that occurred last summer, and most of us never got a good explanation for it either. So i think it's unfair to blame us, when the true authors of that particular drama would not even deign to speak on the subject here.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. Oh, come on JP, you're an admitted shit-stirrer. You've said so yourself. I guess my point is that people have been complaining for years. A small few have volunteered and have been enlisted to help the cause, but when the rubber meets the road, many of those people find that it's too time consuming, or a bit too much like having a second job. That's to be expected considering that this is a volunteer organization. There are very specific reasons - which David alluded to above - as to why it was best to keep a lot of the details of financial dealings off these boards. That's another thing I've been thinking about lately. Would it be fair to say that message boards have lost some of their usefulness now that Facebook & Twitter are around?
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. What JP said. Like I wrote earlier - if one has no intention of buying match tickets, there's just not much incentive for fans to pay $25 to Arsenal America (unless you're just feeling philanthropic). Red members can already buy tickets directly from the club for the majority of matches, so that benefit is dwindling in relevance. Once the old debt is paid off, then what will dues be used for? I do appreciate the work that Josh, Mark, David, Mike, Andrew, Rick L and everyone else that has put the time and energy into the supporters' group. I'd just like to know if the sustained mission of Arsenal America is going to be convincing fans to pay what now amounts to a non-deductible gift.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. While they are great for some things, Facebook and Twitter are fairly useless when it comes to having substantive communications. I agree that there needs to be a venue for internal communications among the membership, and ArsenalAmerica.com should be the venue to provide that. As of now, it is not, but i think a forum there for paying members would be the best way to communicate privately, and also encourage participation from the membership at large. There has been a huge information divide between the officers and the membership for a long time, and i haven't seen any signs of that gap being closed. In fact i think that cutting off communications through BigSoccer has only made it worse, especially given that discussion on AA has been essentially removed. I've gotten very little info about the club via Facebook, and i can't bring myself to try a serious discussion of anything using 140 characters or less. As you point out, the club suffers from lack of participation from it's members, but fails to give them a venue through which they can get involved. On one side you've got officers wondering why no one participates, on the other you've got members wondering why no one communicates. What the club needs is an AGM where members can meet in person, and a forum on ArsenalAmerica where members can talk in private.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. Facebook would be an easy way to engage supporters, but there are ~230 members in the Arsenal America 'group,' where any member can join, post and/or discuss. There are nearly 8,000 followers for the Arsenal America 'company' page, on which only administrators can initiate discussions (supporters can respond to those posts). Of course, individual branches also have groups for discussion, but it's locally isolated. The reasoning behind that approach, from what I've been told, is that most of the people on Facebook are not paid members.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. For me, Facebook and Twitter are very superficial modes of communication. I've been on FB for years and have yet to see a single substantive discussion. They are fine for announcements and such, but i don't think either completely suits the needs of an organization like AA. It seems to me that most (all?) of AA's internal business is done via phone and email, but these exclude the membership at large. If BigSoccer is no longer the preferred venue for club business (and i fully understand why it shouldn't be) then an alternative needs to be created and promoted.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. This is a question that comes up every summer, and it's absolutely valid. Perhaps someday, membership with Arsenal will be combined with membership in ArsenalAmerica, and the membership materials could be specific to US members. However, I have no idea if that's even on Arsenal's radar, and how prepared they'd be to do something like that. In the meantime, it's a hard & fast rule set by Arsenal that their official supporters clubs must maintain a "zero" balance at the end of each year. I would suspect that besides such expenditures as maintaining the web presence, having an outside accounting firm maintain the books (something I think would be a great idea), and producing membership materials (cards, t-shirts, scarves, stickers, what-have-you), there would be enough money left over to schedule events and get-togethers, five-a-side tourneys etc...
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. The memories came flooding back. And I didn't see anything really warranting shit slinging. Were harsh things said, yes, but I think they all were said with a very valid point and reasoning behind them at the time.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. My conscience is clear. Well, on this matter at least.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. Thinking out loud here - What about a "Members Only" section of the website? It could contain the the by-laws, more details about the ticketing process, and a some sort of FAQ that gets updated as new questions/concerns are submitted.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. Timetable I've been told is for materials and candidacies to be in by tomorrow. Then voting open from next Monday through Friday. Results given the following Monday. All seems reasonable.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. Hmm, I think with the budget that would be available, a more likely spot would be Branson.
Re: Arsenal America Coup, No Elections Please. I agree on Twitter but I have had good conversations on FB. That said, it does take more work than what it should. The AA site should have a messageboard where they have the control they appear to want and fans have an outlet. It isn't that hard considering how many sites do that these days. This thread has been very informative. I've thought about joining when I'm in a position to fly over to London but it appears there is little reason to do so.