NSS-CDS Effectiveness

[rddvet]

Run! I'll vote for you!

Hell no. I have been fervently warned against it and don't have the time or the patience currently. I also don't think they'd appreciate my inability to hold my tongue. But thanks for suggesting I'm young.
If I get more free time in the future and it seems like the CDS is at least trying to go in a direction that's improving, then I'd consider it. I also don't know if I qualify since my membership has intermittently lapsed the past 4 years due to the CDS' inability to fix their renewal issues.

 

[tursiops]

Generic statement: You have good ideas, why don't you run for the Board?

Generic answer: I can't, I'm not eligible. I'm not a member.​

Generic question: Why aren't you a member?

Generic answer: Because the Board does nothing for me.​

Generic response: But if you were on the Board, you could change that.

Generic answer: Not my problem.​

 

[rddvet]

Generic statement: You have good ideas, why don't you run for the Board?

Generic answer: I can't, I'm not eligible. I'm not a member.​

Generic question: Why aren't you a member?

Generic answer: Because the Board does nothing for me.​

Generic response: But if you were on the Board, you could change that.

Generic answer: Not my problem.​

If you're directing that at me, then you may want to re-read my reasoning. Lack of membership not by choice, multiple people from previous boards in recent years expressed how annoying it is and fervently told me to not join the board when I considered it, and when I have to plan my time off of work 6 months in advance it makes it tough to participate.

Not sure why I'm even wasting my time responding to you as you've shown you don't have anything constructive to add other than dodging peoples responses and questions to you.

edit: the previous board members that warned me against it aren't disgruntled CDS hating past board members. They're people that are local, very well respected individuals who did some good work when with the CDS. They just constantly wanted to bash their heads into the wall when every halfway positive idea given by members was immediately shot down by the old guard.

 

[tbone1004]

Generic statement: You have good ideas, why don't you run for the Board?

Generic answer: I can't, I'm not eligible. I'm not a member.​

Generic question: Why aren't you a member?

Generic answer: Because the Board does nothing for me.​

Generic response: But if you were on the Board, you could change that.

Generic answer: Not my problem.​

why don't you run?

 

[kensuf]

He's right though.

Is being on the board frustrating? Absolutely. However, sitting on the sidelines won't help change the score of the game.

 

[boulderjohn]

This an excellent place to

Recruit potential members
Inform us about what you're doing
Educate us about cave conservation
Educate us about safety
Educate us about instruction
Celebrate accomplishments and awards
Educate us about any other issues
Not spend a dime doing all this outreach​

Let me know what I can do to facilitate this for the NSS-CDS and consider it done.

I have a theory about why that will be difficult.

I occasionally check out the Cave Divers Forum, a place that has the ability to do all of that--but it doesn't. I think there are some reasons for that.

• You can't recruit new members via a site where you pretty much have to be a member to participate.
• 50% of the items on this list begin with the word "educate." You cannot educate people when the you target population starts with the base belief that any lack of knowledge is a combination of crappy instruction and being a dumba$$. Asking a question on CDF will not be a fun experience. I think back to a time on another forum (The Deco Stop) when I was a brand new tech student and asked a question, and an extremely well known cave diver ripped me such a new one regarding my lack of basic knowledge that I never went back. I am now a tech instructor and have no idea why anyone would expect a new tech student to know the answer to the question I asked, but I was supposed to feel true shame for having had to ask it.
• That leaves us with "inform us about what you are doing" and "celebrate accomplishments and awards" in a free setting. What if you are not doing anything that would interest anyone who does not live within a few miles of High Springs, Florida? What if you have no accomplishments and awards? When I go to CDF, I click the "What's New" tab, scroll down the list of threads, and see pretty much nothing that interests me. I help write the cave diving accident reports for the NSS's American Cave Accidents publication, and when there is such an accident, I will go there to learn what I can, but that's about it.
• Anything related to cave diving in America is tainted by the rancor within the cave diving community. The animosity among the major North Florida cave divers is simply horrible, and it affects everything. I just finished writing a report for NSS on a cave accident in the Dominican Republic, and in doing so, I got an extremely detailed description of the body recovery efforts. I did not include them all in the report because the focus is on the accident more than the recovery, but Holy smokes! what an ordeal! It was simply beyond my imagination what was done, and a full description would make an excellent article for a CDS publication. It won't happen though, and the reason can be seen (well, some of the posts have been removed) in the CDF thread on the accident, where some of that hatred came out. Some people simply cannot allow anything good to be said about the people they hate without making attacks. If CDS were to publish a story on that remarkable accomplishment, it would outrage a sizeable portion of the cave diving community. I am sure that if I were a writer for CDS and asked the people who participated in that recovery to assist in my writing a story about it, they would refuse because of the blowback they would expect from its publication.

 

[tursiops]

why don't you run?

Mainly, nobody has said to me that I have any good ideas....so none of this actually applies to me.
You, however....

Generic statement: You have good ideas, why don't you run for the Board?

Generic answer: I can't, I'm not eligible. I'm not a member.​

Generic question: Why aren't you a member?

Generic answer: Because the Board does nothing for me.​

Generic response: But if you were on the Board, you could change that.

Generic answer: Not my problem.​

 

[rddvet]

Mainly, nobody has said to me that I have any good ideas....so none of this actually applies to me.
You, however....

you’ve got worse excuses than mine. If you’ve got interest and time who cares if people don’t like your ideas. Sounds like a cop out.

 

[tursiops]

you’ve got worse excuses than mine. If you’ve got interest and time who cares if people don’t like your ideas. Sounds like a cop out.

LOL. Would you vote for me? I doubt it....you don't know me, you haven't dived with me, you usually argue with me...yet there are others posting in this thread with high marks for good ideas that people know....they have a chance to actually get elected and do something that people care about. Hell, *I* wouldn't vote for me, because I don't have the tact and patience to deal with the crap.

 

[rddvet]

LOL. Would you vote for me? I doubt it....you don't know me, you haven't dived with me, you usually argue with me...yet there are others posting in this thread with high marks for good ideas that people know....they have a chance to actually get elected and do something that people care about. Hell, *I* wouldn't vote for me, because I don't have the tact and patience to deal with the crap.

I'd potentially vote for you based on what your plan for the position is. I don't have to agree with you on things to vote for you if your goal is to make things better. Whether I've dove with you or not is irrelevant. In this thread I've only argued/disagrred with you because you haven't added major value other than it appears to argue. I don't have the tact or patience for people to enjoy working with me on the BOD potentially either. If someone does or says something stupid I generally will tell them. Oddly enough people don't seem to like that.
side note: I haven't dove with the majority of the people that have been on the BOD for the past 10 years. And I've known very few of them personally. The ones I did know well gave me the real behind the scenes bs