Gomberg, etc. [long]

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

Just an FYI for everybody, I redirected Gomberg to e-mail or phone his
issues to me instead of Bob.  He called me Saturday morning. I should say
first that I did tell him that I'm "transitioning" into the committee
chair position, just because I had no real better way of explaining why I
was the point of contact.

        This reminds me: I had only planned on being the secret "provisional"
        chair for a couple months, figuring the bylaws would be written and 
        passed, and we could do something more formal, whether it is me or
        otherwise. As of about today, it has been exactly two months.  I
        am curious how the bylaws are coming... Mary can you ask Bob if he
        needs more information from us beyond the resolutions we came to
        on June 2?

So back to Gomberg.  The main point I wanted to bring out here is that
whereas we are treating this $300 ad thing as a simple "is this good for
the AGA" issue (and voted accordingly), as usual it there's something else
going on with Dave.  First, he was very upset about the PAM reciprocal ad
not showing up in TAG, thinking we were deliberately renegging on him.  
In his words "TAG was supposed to do 6 PAM ads, PAM was supposed to do 4
TAG ads.  I've now fulfilled 3/4 of my committment [TAG ads have been set
in PAM #2 and #3], but TAG has only fulfilled 1/6 of theirs!"  I explained
that it was a communication problem, and also that we only do four issues
per year now, so we will do three more PAM ads (right Mary?).

So along with this, he noted (almost whined) that TAG got two free plugs
in the form of Karen's announcement of the conference, and James'
announcement of the showcase (the latter of which is not actually going to
show up because of Herlong's buffoonery).  His feeling is (and I
paraphrase) "Hey, the AGA's sitting on this huge treasury but meanwhile
I'm bleeding here".  On one side of his mouth, he said this, but on the
other side he said "I thought that the AGA might obtain benefit by taking
out an ad for the conference...The only reason the AGA should only do this
is if it feels it would benefit the AGA".  He said this about 3 different
times throughout our conversation, so I thought it would bear repeating
here.  Each time I also explained that we made the decision not to carry
the ad based entirely on this latter point: we did NOT feel it would be
beneficial to the AGA.

We talked (mostly I just listened) about various other things ranging from
how the AGA should run its management, to the problems with David Her-"so
long!" (Dave's convinced/deluded himself that nobody told him exactly what
the *specific&* problems were with Herlong and the ACA back last year,
just that there were "problems").  I got some interesting stories on bulk
mail; he'd like us to know that based on PAM #1, bulk mail loses 5% of the
pieces and we might consider switching to "periodical rate" (which of
course he'd be glad to do, sharing the license with PAM).

He still is very much "wounded bird" about the last year's "merger" deal
(was very surprised to hear I thought it was a bad idea), still very
much "wants us to do stuff together", such as have him publish the winning
showcase photos in PAM.  I think he just wants everyone to be his friend
and play with his toys.  On a personal level, I think I am learning to
deal with him much better than even 6 months ago; I did not feel the urge
to jump out a window this time.

I must stress most strongly that NOTHING Dave (or anyone else) proposes to
me as SC chair will be implemented without running it by at least the
steering committee, most likely both committees.

  - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com