[Sportsandrec] Addressing some issues

[Joseph Hamilton]

Hello List,

I wanted to bring some perspective to the list as a board member charged
with monitoring list traffic.

Several times within the last Month, people have inquired about a tandem
event in Detroit.  Just for the record, the Extravaganza for this year's
convention has been in the planning stages since last November.  We made
several attempts to contact local bicycling groups to host some sort of
event.  We discovered the closest group I Michigan was in Kalamazoo
which is 168 miles west of Detroit.  We also researched the possibility
of using a Canadian group but Windsor does not have such a group, or at
least we couldn't find one.

I am one a group of people who has put in time brain storming and
researching so we could have an event similar to the one in Dallas last
year.  Actually, my favorite sport Goalball, is not being offered at
this year's event either.  That is because the city of Detroit does not
have very good access to services.

All that being said, as a whole, we need to be more appreciative of the
work that has been done.  Perhaps if you had contacts that could have
made an event like this possible, you could have attended one of our
meetings in January.  Now we are less than two weeks from the Convention
and so all the questioning of what can be added or changed is insulting.
I am individually appreciative of all your ideas and offers to help.
Just remember that you offered because in September, when we begin
planning for the Dallas convention, I expect we should have quite a good
group of involved planners.

I am sure just from my working with the planning committee, no one wants
to leave off sports.  In Dallas, goalball was the highest attended event
and we were not able to offer it this year.  I recognize the popularity
of the tandem event.  I know that in Dallas last year we had to put a
cap on participants and the board is very open to ideas to help grow
this event for the convention in 2010.  I will say that all the
questioning and external planning is pretty insulting, because as I said
we have been trying to make the best of this situation for the last 7
Months.  

I just ask you to consider the hard work put in by folks on this event
before you start complaining about what got left out or cut because of
limited space, resources and time.

Perhaps we can all view Detroit as an opportunity to try a new sport or
recreation.  Once we finish up with this extravaganza, we can all get
together and talk about Dallas and what the future holds.

Thanks for all of your participation and support of the S&R division.
Without you, we have no event or group at all.

 

Regards Joe

 

Joseph Hamilton

Program Manager,

California Access News 

Society for the blind

2750 24th st. Sacramento CA, 95818

916-732-4010

jhamilton at societyfortheblind.org

www.societyfortheblind.org