Thoughts from the shower...

Well, here I go again, stirring up trouble. I have sent emails to two of the actors in the HKC drama. We'll see what happens.

It is unlikely that I will stop occasionally trying to communicate with the people involved until I get some satisfaction. A reasoned response to my questions would stop this exchange.

Someone want to comment on why you or they will not answer any of my questions?

I. Freedom of Speech

Thursday, April 22nd, at about 6:15 pm I received a phone call from Sandie Rolenaitis. She began by asking me to do her a favor. The favor she wanted was that I remove her husband's name from my blog. I responded by telling her that I would think it over and since we lived in the US of A there was a little issue of Freedom of Speech. I also said that we were eating dinner (which we were) and we rang off.

Moments later the phone rang again and we did not pick up. Yes, we knew it was from the Rolenaitis' again. Tom was calling and he left a very angry message. He said that slander was not legal and that if I did not take down my blog he had someone who would take care of it.

Comments:
1) There is no freedom to slander. Slander is the verbal use of false information with the intention of doing harm to another person.
2) There is no freedom to libel. Libel is the use of printed false information with the intention of doing harm to another person. In these two cases if a suit is brought the level of proof must also include ACTUAL harm.
3) There is no freedom to use any language to do harm to others by crying "fire" when there is none or inciting a riot.
There probably are a few other specifics that might also be forbidden but I am sure that expressing one's opinion is not one of them.

Returning to the events of that day.

The time stamp on the email that I then received from Laurie Stone was 6:37 pm. This was barely 10 minutes after Tom had left his message. In addition to pointing to an error I had made in the history of HKC she also demanded that I remove her name from my blog and that if I did not she would take legal action.

With this threat Dennis asked me to take it down and since she had threatened both of us I deferred to his request. Personally I would have kept it up just to see how far they would go but I will not risk another person because of my beliefs.

One more thought on the subject of my blog. I have had a blog for several years on my web site. I believe that none of you have ever read it and maybe no one in the rest of the world has. I have never had a response from anything I have written except for those who send programs crawling across the web for nefarious reasons. I asked Sandie how she had come to my blog and she said that Tom has a program that goes around the web looking for his name. It took it four days from the posting of this entry for him to find this reference.

My blog entry was titled My History with HKC . . . and was written to comment on the friends I had lost due to my continuing to ask questions. I did name names of those I have lost but without Tom's paranoia I believe no one would have ever read this.

II. Communication within the club

Laurie Stone, as the chairman of the April 2010 show, has been almost impossible for me to communicate with. An email question that I sent elicited a response that accused me of “trying to start a pissing contest.” She did not answer the question that I had asked.

Because of this response, when I was asked by Sally and Susie to find out the situation with the vet services, I decided to wait until the January board meeting to ask the question face-to-face. This method was also not successful. We did get a response from Brian Brubaker that said that the vet service they wanted to use did not have any money to sponsor our show in their budget. We interpreted this as there was no reason to change what we were doing and I directed Laurie on that basis to contact the organization we had been using. As a result Laurie has resigned from the chairmanship for future April shows.

One more comment on the sponsorship question in regard to VCA. In most business transactions if a company is seeking to begin a relationship with another they present a proposal. I am not sure that HKC should join with another vet practice without something in writing that indicates how HKC would benefit from this alliance.

III. Doing business as HKC

This issue is that of" who is in charge of what business conducted by the club?"

The structure of the club is the same as the national government up to a point. The “buck” does stop with the president of the club and if that person is to be answerable to the club members and the public they are entitled to the information to make that position possible. It follows that they should be able to question any member about what they are doing in the name of the club. I would also expect a detailed report to be given at appropriate times and places of any activities that the club has asked them to perform.

In the course of doing work for the club the question comes up of what to do when the work is suspect. What should the president do when there is concern that work that must be done is not being done in the time frame required? If they are not able to ask questions without retaliation, as I was, the good of the club is not being supported. I felt for the last six months or so that I was not able to do what should have been done. Thus I can see no future for me in this club.

I hope you will consider giving respect to the office of president even if you do not respect the person. I can't imagine that anyone will want to serve this club the way you are now treating each other. I certainly don't.

Tom Rolenitus

This is the blog post that caused all the commotion. The only changes are the names are now only initials, the addition to the history of the August show, and I deleted the last sentence that said I would be the treasurer next year. - - - - -

Because of recent events on the email system I was reminded of many things.

First, I have been a member of this club for many years without incident. I was elected to the board about the time of the first term Anne O'Reilly was president. During this time we began to have trouble with our August Show. The first I remember Ron Scott also chaired this show. Do to internal commotion and Ron's desire to not do that show we selected another chair for the show. T.R. was chosen and began several years in that role.

As time went on our location became difficult to retain. Finally Hershey refused to let us rent the space which was the old Hershey Airport. We had to scramble to find another location. (Oops! I forgot that we had one year that we held a show on our date up the river with the Mid Susquehanna Valley KC before we went to the winter show described next.) It did not happen so we agreed, by the suggestion of T.R., to hold a show in Gettysburg the first weekend of December. As the plans moved forward for that show, and we got monthly reports on what was being planned, it did not sound like our usual style of show. At one meeting, I asked Tom "what's in it for us?" This was when we were told that we could not have a judges' dinner. Subsequent to my question Tom resigned the job and we had to take over about 6 weeks before the show. Barbara Casey and I became joint chairs and we began with no knowledge of what had or had not been done. A show happened. Chambersburg held a show the day before at the same location. We about broke even financially and decided that there was no future for the time of year and location to grow the event so we gave up that date.
This was the first time I made enemies by asking a question.

As the show chair, I asked the other club's chair many questions. This did not go over very well and resulted in a very nasty confrontation the day of our show. This was the start of a second adversarial relationship, this time with F.C.. This is the second enemy that resulted from questions.

Most recently, I have felt that I needed to ask questions of L.S. and B.B. about the April 2010 show and found that I was afoul of both of them. As president of the club I feel it is my responsibility to try to keep everything on an even keel.

The first question that went astray was when in the January meeting I asked why we had not signed a vet practice for our April Show. I asked the question because I had been asked by Susie who had been asked by the vet why he had not been contacted. He needed to work out his schedule. In the past he had been contacted by then.

When I asked that question in the January board meeting the only person who answered anything was B.B. who said that the practice that his wife works for was interested in sponsoring our show but that they did not have any funds in the budget for that sponsorship. At least that is what I heard, and several others in attendance also heard. We went ahead to direct the show chair to contact the practice that we have used in the past and contract with them.

After this event I was told by L.S. and B.B. that that was a decision that the showchairman should have made without any outside interference from the club.

The second question was in the context of email. I asked about advertising. This and the fact I sent my response to the board caused another explosion.

This is the third time a question caused an enemy.

As I reread the emails that I've received since April 22 I find I still want to ask these questions.

Tom, why would you not give me time to think about what Sandie asked? I told her twice in that initial conversation that we were eating dinner and that I would think about it. Your call with the threat happened minutes after Sandie and I ended ours.

Laurie, why did you listen to Sandie and/or Tom on the subject of my blog? Why didn't you ask me to do what you wanted? Why did you go directly to threats? Why is my mistake in reporting the history of HKC important to you? What words should I use that would help us to have a dialogue that would enable us to understand each other?

Anyone, why have I not been given the opportunity to explain myself?

If you would like to answer any of these questions, whether or not they are addressed to you, please feel free to do so.

Remember, what goes around comes around. Lots of things have come back to bite me in the ass. I imagine that it happens to you too.