Josh doesn't mind sending the occasional email. Or chatting on the phone. But it seems he never says anything publicly. It's ridiculous. I see FB updates for the Charm City Gooners all the time, but AA seems to exist solely to promote their podcast. Never an iota of information. Occasionally they'll talk about people volunteering, and people do, but nothing is ever heard of it again.
Very true. If you were on twitter, you would see they also promote the Arsenal Times. Shame no one knows what is going on.
http://www.arsenalamerica.com/2013/...75850737771_5367831_559899830725373#f3e2cd0c6 Three years on, and still no bylaws, still no voting, still no financial transparency. I'm glad that Homeat is involved, and they are finally planning on a national meetup, but it's time to sort this shit out. I know that Charles Belle has been involved with AA for a long time, but another transition of power with no input from the membership just looks bad.
I get that the whole volunteer organization thing is hard, because I've been there. But this is pretty silly. Are people actually still members of Arsenal America? I guess they get members because they hold access to the tickets, eh?
I fully agree. I'm fighting for those things. There is a piece coming out on Financials. And I'm working on elections at the end of the season, but the meet up in Vegas is going to be a great forum. It's not perfect, but stuff is getting done, so give it time.
I paid. I still believe in it despite all the issues. Financials will be good. I know back when I was president (not elected, nor did I even really want it) finances were a mess. Andrew did a lot of to fix that then but was not finished when did have elections the next year. I know Josh did a lot to fix that as well which a huge positive despite the issues I had with how he ran it. But I agree, stuff is getting done.
I'm hoping that the National Meetup will have at least one serious AGM style meeting, where everyone gets two minutes to speak their piece and ask some tough question (and have them answered!). Then it's time to vote in some bylaws and agree on a process going forward. Then the party!
You're part of the problem. You constantly ignore the fact that you and others appointed yourself the position of VP over a series of private emails that went on, which I was privy enough to see some of. I didn't ask you to and I don't want you to represent me or my branch because you lacked the integrity to fight back against the current establishment set up and say things weren't proceeding the way they should be. (When people like George and I were doing so). There's no other way but to describe you then as a weasel for the way you've handled this but by all means continue to try and make yourself look like you're "fighting from within" and that "things will change" when I don't think I've talked to one person whose felt otherwise. At this point I'm really hoping Jill Smith or someone else at Arsenal will weigh in on this because Arsenal America is far beyond repair if you think you can just shut me up with "things are coming" or trying to distract with things like a national meetup teaser which has nothing to do with the questions of this hierarchy set up or transparency of Arsenal America. To others reading this, post any questions and I'll be glad to answer anything I can from my knowledge ON A PUBLIC FORUM. Nick has been pathetically trying to attempt damage control by individually messaging the people who post criticisms. That is not how you create a public "town hall" discussion dialogue and it certainly doesn't lead to public transparency. Stick to responding to questions on the public forum Nick, not private exchanges which are an attempt to suit you.
Sadly a few years ago, after the Dallas Cup I think, I reached out about this and Jill Smith confirmed that elections are not required. That surprised me as that is not what we were told when we became official. But they did mention the interests of the members need to be represented. But that is when I started to shut up about elections. I can only remember voting in one in all the years we have been official.
TBF, i don't think HoMeat had much choice. I was under the impression that the former regime made officers sign nondisclosure agreements in order to participate, and he has been on thin ice with them since the beginning. Now that they are out more or less of the way, i'm hoping that secrecy will no longer be the order of the day, but i must admit, the signs so far have been mixed. Communication has been a problem for years, and i was disappointed that Charles didn't address the legitimate concerns raised by another transition with no input from the members.
They aren't. George and I did the dirty work of banging on Josh to step down and when George wouldn't agree to proceed without transparency he told Josh he wanted no part of this. Nick and Charles are lapping up the scraps from this fall out then with things very much running the same way as before. Ask them for something that should be very basic like a paid membership number or finance report and see what kind response you get. They can't give you one because that "power" wasn't even handed over but they'll tell you they are "working on it" or it's "forthcoming" which has been told to me for some time now. Things are very much still the same. You can put lipstick on a pig...
I wonder if Arsenal America needs to exist any more. Back when it was created, it would make sense, as it was much more difficult to organize anything, we were very far away from London because the internet access wasn't that good, TV wasn't that good.. everything has changed now and our numbers grew a lot. Philly Gooners have 300 people in the group, we regularly get 30-50 people to watch, we've had well over 50 people to watch today with us for Swansea. New York fill up two pubs. Numbers are just growing and growing, and are quality. Branches have become strong. Is there a need to have this one central organization? Because quite frankly, I don't think LA Gooners care about what we do, and we don't really care about what we do. Why does the country have to have only one officially recognized supporters club? In Ireland, for example, there are a lot more. And I think a lot of other countries have more officially recognized SC's, from what I've seen on the Arsenal website. It makes no sense to have huge organization over a country with 4 time zones and LARGER THAN THE EUROPEAN UNION. It simply doesn't. Maybe we should think about dividing this up? Because honestly, when it comes to efficiency, this organization resembles trying to govern the colonies back in the 18th century. Majority of the people can't get to a national meetup, because it's very far away for most of them and requires a lot of time off work, a lot of money etc. Honestly, is there really a need for this? Dividing up Arsenal America to regional SC's, at the very least into couple of regions of this country, would work a lot better. Ideally, we'd like the most powerful branches to be SC's on their own accord, but if that can't be achieved, the next best thing would be to divide it by region. American NE to have their own SC, the West their own, Texas their own.. etc etc. to communicate DIRECTLY with Arsenal without the middlemen who seems to just be causing issues and add more stupid bureacrazy that is not needed in this big mess.
What a mess. I guess i should have seen it coming after the coup, but it's really gotten bad now. Josh has done a "great job".
If you have no interest in meeting fans who live outside Philly, then yeah, Arsenal America has no value to you.
andddd this is about the point we stop receiving replies from our unelected arsenal america board on a public forum for everyone to actually see what is going on behind the scenes and to have discussion about it
I hear ya. And i do think it's time to speak up. Why the secrecy and refusal to provide financials? The obvious answer is Josh has his hand in the cookie jar. If I'm wrong about that, i'll be glad to apologize after i see the numbers.
I have heard rumors that ArseAm paid for Josh's expenses to go on the road trips, anyone conform or deny that?
I wouldn't be surprised. A few years ago he organized the "Spring Road Trip", and it was one game, away, at Wigan. The next weekend Josh went to see ManU play at the Grove. "Great Job!"
Hiddi, One of the things Josh did was say you had to be in good standing with AA before you could run as well as be a paid member prior to that. Having met Nick more than once, I can say he is a proper Gooner through and through just like Anti and DallasGooner. I believe Nick is trying to change things as some of the things he told me the older dictatorship who didn't even try to respond. Hell if you go back, DocK was surprised he was no longer president.
I never said that.There is a big difference between "meeting fans who live outside of Philly" and being in one SC with people who live 3000 miles away. I'm all for regional bonding. Baltimore, Philly, New York, Boston. But that's different from having an organization that is trying to concentrate Arsenal fans in the entirety of the US by itself.