Well I am gonna tell you up front.
I am gonna type this quick and probably will make spelling errors or speak a little german. Steve Just got back and I wanna go hang by the pool. But this Fighting and Especially the name calling really troubles me. I see a club that is killing itself. Why can I see it, because I have seen it before.

I am gonna tell you a little story , a personal chipping expierence. I got in this hobby probably about 6 years ago now. Use to go to the Local Chip Club every month well over 100 people showed up . There was standing room only. Man those were fun times. Eventually the fighting started. And the people who ran the club where loseing control again. New People new ideas. And that was just not okay. Eventually the the fighting and name calling started and people stopped going. And I talked to many of them and asked them why and they said its not fun anymore and they don't feel comfortable anymore. Its a hostile enviroment. And I felt the same way and stopped going. I always paid my dues to support it. But stopped going. Our Club was loseing money and still is. And Las Vegas Club Charged us $100 per meeting. $1200 a year. Tropicana offered us a room for free and even coffee and ice tea for the members.
We had a big fight over there. Everyone knows the oneals hate the trop for several personal reasons. So instead of doing what's right for the club we rather pay $100 and go broke. I think Andy even said he could get us another hotel for free but i might be wrong on that. Somebody said once the Orleans would give us a room for free.
Talk about corruption I think somebody benfefited by us staying at the Las vegas club, because economically it was a stupid decision. Now we have troubles to buy a ink cartridge every 2 month for $40 to make the local newsletter. But we spend $100 a month on a room we could have for free. You go to our current club meetings you are lucky if you see more than 30 members show up. And the spirit is just not the same. Basically our local kinda died. Its weak. I started going again because I wanna support Bill and help him to build the club again. I even gave them a free table at my show in order to promote the local club. But people if you don't unite and enjoy the hobby and let everyone collect what makes him happy you will do the same to the national club. People will just quit being a part of it. Boycotting and name calling is not the answer.

Rene