Wheres the money?

[irwinje]

Andy,
First, I'll say you must read a lot faster than I can because that took more than 5 minutes.
Second, it was well worth the extra time to read it all, a lot of very good points.
Third, thanks for all your help and everything you've done for St. Charles, Quail and disc golf

[rondisc]

Andy,
It did take a while to read. If honesty pushes buttons then.... honesty is what it is. I hear ya on stepping aside. I did it for other reasons and I have had more than 1 person since then say, this is not easy/this is hard to do. No kidding, I totally see where you are coming from. It is definitely time for some of the other boys that play out there to see just how hard things can be sometimes. It is gonna be a real eye opener to the new people that step in and see things from our eyes. Lets hope the people that do step in have some political tack, pull, and understanding. If not....

Now you can enjoy the game instead of worrying. Like a load lifted off your shoulders

Peace

[magic]

Thanks Jeff. And I hear you Ron. From some comments I have heard many disc golfers think the parks dept owes us the world. Go in with that attitude and nothing will get accomplished.

[magic]

I have let my parks guy know what's going on and he is more then willing to help someone take over for me. His only request is that it is only one person he has to deal with. A lot of people start coming at him at once and you will get no where. I have emailed Greg the special use forms that need to be filled out for league. I would be happy to sit down sometime and go over them, but I won't be submitting everything. I would suggest someone also start working on a flyer. I will send the flyer I have used previously to anyone that wants it and they can update the information. I would still say that one person needs to be the one submitting everything for league, tournaments as well as course improvements. I'll let everyone else figure out who that is going to be.

[ShaneC]

Andy
Theres is nobody out there that would take anything away from you as far as how events are run. Your events start on time everytime and run very smooth. People that run events should take notes from how you do it. No I aint kissing ass I am just speaking the truth and theres is nobody out there that argue this point. As far as dealing with the parks nobody knows what you do or how you do it. In order for others to plan events and make some other things happen where do we go. You have never been open about those things so how can others help? How can we grow a club to raise money to go a course to raise money to make the club better to raise more money? We cant because of the fact you have never shared your knowlage. Dont it make sence to share what you learn to help grow? You and Tim have done alot of work over the past year with new pins again noone can argue that point but if you let others in imagine how much more could get done. I offered to buy a pallet of concrete..........nobody took me up on that offer. I have 30 to 40 feet of steal pipe that we could have used to make new placements insted of buying sleves.....again nobody wanted it. Did we really need new chains????? The old ones worked just fine so they were a little rusty who cared? That was 1000 dollers that could have been used in alot better ways. Who made that decision? Money was spent on those chains that EVERYBODY raised and or bought putters............did any of those people have a say in how that money was spent? I bet you cant get 10 people to say they are glad we spent 1000 bucks on chains we didnt need.
Now lets tackle the 5 pins on one hole and 1 on the rest...........the weather was not bad when those extras locations were put in..............why couldnt we split those up then? Why do we have holes with pins that are maybe 25 feet away from other new locations and that close to the orginal placement? these are vaild questions about how our money is being spent.
None of us think that the parks owe us the world but you have to rember we all pay taxes that support the parks. Without our tax money these parks dont exsit. Do they owe us the world.no. do they at least owe us the abilty to have some say in what goes on in those parks yes! Disc golfers put money into the system, we buy food and drinks at local fast food places. We buy things at the local gas stations again more tax money.How many of the walkers and joggers in the park rent pavilions? Lets face the facts.....the parks make money off of the diec golfers pure and simple.They make zero off of the other people.
All we ever wanted was some say so in some things that were being done at our course is that too much to ask? We all know the saying that you cant please everyone all the time but you should at least try to please most of the people everytime!
Thats it I am done with my posting rants.

[irwinje]

None of us think that the parks owe us the world but you have to rember we all pay taxes that support the parks. Without our tax money these parks dont exsit. Do they owe us the world.no. do they at least owe us the abilty to have some say in what goes on in those parks yes! Disc golfers put money into the system, we buy food and drinks at local fast food places. We buy things at the local gas stations again more tax money.How many of the walkers and joggers in the park rent pavilions? Lets face the facts.....the parks make money off of the diec golfers pure and simple.They make zero off of the other people.

Shane,
You make some very valid points, but there are 2 sides to every coin. Walker/bikers/joggers pay their taxes too and likely help generate revenue for the area by purchasing gas, sports drinks, snacks etc. In my opinion disc golfers probably "put more into the community" by the amount of beer that is purchased alone. And, you are right, it is probably rare that walkers rent the pavilions.
The other side of the coin is that the Parks Dept never has to worry about walkers drinking in the park, drinking and driving, hanging around after sunset, getting into fights or the possibility of hitting someone else with a disc. Disc golfers also take up an awful lot more room and facilitate the deterioration of park land through erosion. We are also probably the only ones that ever ask for anything such as benches, retaining walls, etc. So, you see we do a lot for the parks, but we are not an ideal tenant for all those reasons.
We should be grateful for the land that is provided for us, and I think a lot of us are (you included) but we are not a perfect group of park users and need to understand that before being able to overcome our sense of entitlement.

[magic]

Here is the exact quote I received from Bekin (my parks guy) when I told him I was stepping aside, “I will be glad to work with whoever takes over. The only request I have is to deal with only one person.” If you want to think I was trying to exclude anybody from working with the parks dept that is fine, but in reality I’m just trying to do what they have asked of me. They would prefer that all requests are funneled through one person. Once again, their preference, not mine.

If anybody had a specific request I would be more then happy to help get it done. As mentioned in my previous post there was a request for 6 additional holes to be used at the club championships. It was not run through me and taken directly to the parks director and then denied. For the Ice Bowl which I did not play nor was I part of running it, I was asked to see about getting approval for those 6 holes. I was also asked to take care of getting the shelter rented and making sure they would have the streets plowed. I had no problem getting it taken care of and guess what, the 6 baskets were approved, we were able to get the shelter for free and the maintenance crew made sure that part of the park was open.

I have always been there to answer any questions. If anybody would call or email for leagues or tournaments I would always respond. If anyone ever posted a question for me on this message board, I’m usually pretty quick to give a response as I’m doing now. If you don’t ask me though how am I supposed to answer you? If you want to plan events or make things happen just ask and I would have helped you out. No, I wouldn’t have sent you directly to the parks dept because that’s not how it works and that’s not my fault.

One final thing on that is I do prefer some initiative put forth before I will invest much of my time. I’m about actions and not words. If I really see you putting in the effort for either an event or course improvements I will be much more willing to help out.

I have never heard one thing about you offering to buy a pallet of concrete. I never heard a thing about the steel pipe. How can I take you up on an offer that I know nothing about? I would have certainly used the concrete, but the steel pipe has to be an exact size so it may not have worked.

The decision to replace the chains was made by Dave Mac. He offered up the 100 discs to use as fundraisers for the chains. Personally I thought it was a great deal. My problem with the chains wasn’t necessarily that they were rusted, but how they sat in the baskets. Quite a few of them didn’t fall into the basket like they should. A lot of them had extra layers of chains added and they were done half-assed. Many of the rings were gone or missing and a few of them were being held together by the metal piece from flags. I had even mentioned to Dave that not all of them needed to be replaced at once and we could use the money for other things that were a higher priority. He preferred that they were all just done at once and since he supplied the discs I went with his wishes. Every single person that bought a disc knew exactly were the money was going to. Are you really going to tell me that they don’t look a heck of a lot better now? I can almost guarantee that every word of this entire paragraph was posted previously somewhere under the Quail Ridge thread, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

As far as the pin placements I believe almost the entire process of how we did them is posted under either the Quail Ridge thread or on the cuvy board. I will do a quick summary again to save you time of looking it up. The parks dept was approached about the alternate pin placement as a way to control the erosion problem. I guess in the back of my mind I intended of doing all of them, but going with the erosion angle was a way for us to get the process started. We were able to start with one hole and one hole only. This ended up being 13 since it had the worst erosion problem. Once that was completed they took a look at it and really liked what we did. They gave us permission to continue doing more holes with erosion and mud problems. Jorge was the one that started the whole process and we both figured it would take quite a while to get even a few holes done. Shanx got involved and knocked them out quicker then we could have ever imagined. Now almost all of the holes in open areas are just about completed. I believe that the sleeves to finish the rest of the holes have been bought and paid for. As fast as Shanx did the other holes I’d imagine the rest will be completed pretty quick. We just need mother nature to cooperate. Is getting 3-5 pin placements on 18 holes within a 6-9 month time period really taking all that long? I know if Shanx wouldn’t have gotten involved we’d be lucky to have 4 or 5 holes done by now.

Jeff covered it pretty well in regards to the perception the parks dept has of disc golfers. We do have somewhat differing opinions of the alcohol, but that’s OK. Here’s a quick history lesson. When the first county park opened 10 years ago alcohol was not allowed in any of the parks, not even at the pavilions. After a few years that was changed to you could have alcohol at the pavilions as long as you rented one. This change had nothing to do with disc golfers, but normal families wanting to rent a pavilion to have a party or reunion. The parks dept learned that people wouldn’t rent pavilions if they couldn’t have alcohol thus the change in policy. Then about 4 years ago they changed it to you could have alcohol anywhere in the park. Once again this change had nothing to do with disc golfers. One of the biggest reasons why was the opening of Klondike Park. It is located near the wineries. Couples would stop by the winery and take a bottle of wine to the park. They weren’t there to get wasted and cause problems, but to just enjoy a bottle of wine in a nice park setting. Enough influential people get harassed by the rangers and change happens. I’m not saying that alcohol isn’t a problem with the perception of disc golfers, but there are certainly other issues. Bottom line is we are fighting an uphill battle to win over the parks dept. I think with all of the work we have done we are winning that battle, but it has and always will be a struggle.

It seems like I’ve pretty much said all I can say. I’m not the one you need to go to for answers anymore. Hopefully some of you guys can get over the politics and bickering to continue improving disc golf in St. Charles County. I’ve told you what needs to happen in order for the parks dept to work with you. And I’m still around if you have any questions, but you have to ask and let me know. My screen name might be magic, but that doesn’t mean I can read minds!

[TCBROWN]

One of the biggest reasons why was the opening of Klondike Park. It is located near the wineries. Couples would stop by the winery and take a bottle of wine to the park. They weren’t there to get wasted and cause problems, but to just enjoy a bottle of wine in a nice park setting. Enough influential people get harassed by the rangers and change happens.

So what you are trying to say is...

If we want to expand disc golf in St. Charles County we need to get some more influential people playing disc golf. Dibs on the Country Clubs.

Not trying to be sarcastic; just trying to lighten the mood.

[mkane]

Well said Andy

[buckstlkr1]

Nice revisionist history. Go to this website and find out what was said originally.

http://discgolfcuvy.webs.com/apps/forums/topics/show/1477388-course-improvement-ideas-

There was several things that were approved but set to the back burner for new projects that weren't approved originally under Andy's leadership.

I wasn't going to post anything and get involved in this but if you are going to post, post the facts and not the facts as you see them.

As for the Club Championships, we were told by you to fill out a special use permit because you are required to by the Parks Dept for any event of this type. This would be proper procedure. Hooks did so and Bekin was on vacation, which you, Andy, knew about, and the 6 additional holes were denied.

St. Charles Club has made commitments and we will get them done. Keep in mind, the Cuvy has put up quite a bit of money already...some of which is completed, some that are waiting on approval.

The Cuvy/St. Charles Club was started as a fun league and to raise funds for the improvement of Quail Ridge. This global (St. Charles) responsibility has gotten way outta control and has lost sight of the original intention. However, again, commitments WILL be taken care of. Integrity and honesty/openness is part of what the club was founded upon and will continue to remain so. We have always had an open book on money collected and spent and will continue to do so.

Lets go forward with the facts and leave all the BS and name calling.