GGC2005 - Pre-Vote Announcement!!!

Lloyd Parsons wrote:
Actually the problem wasn't that they were changed for 'some people',
it was that they needed to be changed to get anyone to bid.

No, you are not listening. You solved the problem of getting people to
bid. You did so correctly, they needed to be loosened up. That part was
right.

The problem wasn't changing the rules, the problem was that not everyone
who was affected by it was informed, which was an indavertent mistake.

I think the rules should be kept loose. Next time, though it shoudl be a
level playing field where everyone knows it.

Julie


After all the flailing around after the last GGC, there was damn little
interest among the TA's that come here to want to bid, for exactly
because of all the crap that is going on now.

Lloyd

--
Julie
**********
Check out my Travel Pages (non-commercial) at
http://www.dragonsholm.org/travel.htm

This is, I think, the post where Lloyd admits they goofed.

Good enough for me.

Let's bury this.

Julie

Lloyd Parsons wrote:
In article , Mike
Cordelli wrote:

You guys are totally cracking me up.

Lets take a step back to, Oh, I don't know, February 2.

The following was posted he

-----start
The current requirements for bidding are :

1. Be a participating member in RTC
2. Be a full-time travel agent
3. Be owner, principal or can get permission to commit the agency to a
contract.

I do not think those will change as the committee seems to be in agreement
on those items.
-----end

See that last line? The part about "I do not think these will change as the
committee seems to be in agreement on those items? Now the committee comes
back to the group and says it's the fault of the people they didn't ask for
the "new" terms after they (the committee) stated they would not change?

Give it a rest, you used the rules to control the number of people who would
be eligible. Then you changed the rules to get people who wouldn't have
been eligible under the old rules be allowed to bid, but kept it a secret to
control the bidding process.

All you guys had to do was post the new rules when you changed them, after
saying they wouldn't change. You kept it a secret so people who couldn't
bid under the rules would be able to bid. Plain and simple.

It's been quite entertaining to watch all the back and forth, just come out
and say you were controlling who would and wouldn't be allowed to bid by
having over restrictive rules up front, thus limiting the number of people
who thought they would qualify, then changing it without telling anybody
because "We Tulsans are proud of Tulsa and are protective of each other!"

It's no huge deal, just admit you changed the rules to allow a bid that
wouldn't have been allowed in, you just forgot to tell anybody. The rules
were of course silly to start with, but that's another issue.

Actually I had thought we did post changes. If we didn't, it was an
accident and not intended to make anything all that secretive.

What we wanted was some bids, what it appeared we weren't going to get
was 'some bids', with the exception of Peter Berlin. While I don't
have a problem with Peter and think he has delivered on his promises, I
do know that others don't feel that way, so we wanted to get some
selection.

Could we have done it differrently? Sure, with that ol' 20/20
hindsight we all have, I can see some things I might want to consider
changing next time around, if I was going to do this again.

But I'm going to be watching next time around to see who jumps up to
volunteer to chair or be on the committee. Something tells me I can
guess which names won't be there.

But as it sits, we have excellent choices, with competitive pricing (as
you will all see soon ), from excellent TA's who put a lot of work into
bidding. I am not at all ashamed or sorry for how we got to the end
product and will say that we got better variety this time than I've
ever seen on a GGC bidding before.

Lloyd

--
Julie
**********
Check out my Travel Pages (non-commercial) at
http://www.dragonsholm.org/travel.htm

In article , Juliana L Holm
wrote:

Lloyd Parsons wrote:

I guess the fact that a simple error was made in not posting rfb change
isn't an option to consider.

It is, but if it had been so one would have expected the committee to
respond with sorry, we goofed, which this line may actually amount to,
rather than extreme defensiveness, which is what happened.

Actually I said yesterday if we didn't post the changes here, it was a
mistake. Apparantly we didn't.

But let's be damn clear on this. Until the day of close of bid it was
not at all certain who would bid or even if more than one would bid.
And that was with more unrestricted rules.

Any changes that were made were done to get SOMEONE to bid on this GGC.
Frankly with all the crap going on right here, right now, I wouldn't
blame any TA that bid from telling all of us where to stick this. If I
were a TA myself, I would be thinking strongly about that right now.

Yes, and I have a friend who sometimes lurks, who is my TA and might have
bid, but the rules said she could not. So she followed the rules and is
shut out, but others broke the rules and you accepted them. Do you not
see why this is problematic?

Sure I see that, but at the time, with time literally running out we
started to look for ways to get some to bid. Frankly that we ended up
with 4 bidders surprised me.

Would I do it different next time? Yes, I probably wouldn't volunteer!
G But I would do things a bit differently, and I'm sure the
committee would agree with me. We did what we thought was right and
would get some bids.

Lloyd

In article , Juliana L Holm
wrote:

Lloyd Parsons wrote:
Actually the problem wasn't that they were changed for 'some people',
it was that they needed to be changed to get anyone to bid.

No, you are not listening. You solved the problem of getting people to
bid. You did so correctly, they needed to be loosened up. That part was
right.

The problem wasn't changing the rules, the problem was that not everyone
who was affected by it was informed, which was an indavertent mistake.

I think the rules should be kept loose. Next time, though it shoudl be a
level playing field where everyone knows it.

Julie

The problem being of course, that with each successive GGC, the
complaining and nitpicking get worse, IMHO. So you literally can bet
the bank that next GGC, whoever does what on the committee, there will
be plenty here to complain.

And I suspect most complaints will be from the same ones....

BTW, you are not on my list of complainers! ;-)

Lloyd Parsons wrote:
The problem being of course, that with each successive GGC, the
complaining and nitpicking get worse, IMHO. So you literally can bet
the bank that next GGC, whoever does what on the committee, there will
be plenty here to complain.

And I suspect most complaints will be from the same ones....

BTW, you are not on my list of complainers! ;-)

Unfortunately, I think you are right, that whatever the committee does will
get some argument from someone. The committee is not a job for those who are
confrontation-averse.

But, in this case, on some level, the complaints were justified. I think it's
been cleared up.

FWIW, I think relaxing the rules was a good choice. It would be good to pass
on to the next committee exactly which rules were relaxed, and what criteria
were actually used in order that they might learn from that.

Julie

--
Julie
**********
Check out my Travel Pages (non-commercial) at
http://www.dragonsholm.org/travel.htm

Ermalee "ermalee wrote in message ...
Tom & Linda wrote:

Lloyd and I have teased each other over the years, but I will give him full
credit for what he's doing.

He inherited a concept that was spiriling into problems.

Too many cooks spoil the broth?


It had gotten to
the point where few TA were even interested.

Tom and Linda, that shouldn't be hard to understand. MOST (not all)
TA in newsgroups are there to SPAM and set bait for suckers. Some
spams are packaged in easily recognizable cans; other spams are
thinly disguised; and still others are ... as you put it


Most likely because the committees in the past were made up of
people who were very astute to TA pricing and practices.

Translation: They like to see $$$$ in their pockets.

They probably made it difficult for a TA to make any
money on the group.

Translation: They don't see $$$$ in their pockets in the GGCs.


Add to that the bickering that has gone on over the years for
"various" reasons.

That's what newsgroups are all about, isn't it? I haven't come back
to this group to re-visit since about a week ago, and so far I've
already seen plenty of bickering from yourself! And sometimes for
NO REASON at all. Bickering for the sake of bickering.


Lloyd is taking a different stab at it. He's letting the people vote.

Wow, you mean there's democracy in this group? Really??

Judy----Waiting to see how Mike Cordelli does next year as
committee chairman

Mike Cordelli wrote:
The current requirements for bidding are :

2. Be a full-time travel agent
3. Be owner, principal or can get permission to commit the
agency to a contract.

I do not think those will change
**************************************

Back to Tom and Linda on Lloyd,

He's not forcing anyone to pick a TA that they're not comfortable with.

But still letting TAs dictate? What happened to

Lloyd is taking a different stab at it. He's letting the people vote.

You mean let the TA people vote and stab the rest of us? :-)))

Nor is he forcing anyone to go.

Noe Schitt Sherlock! http://www.bertc.com/jackschitt.htm



I give Lloyd an "Atta Boy" for trying.

Are you sure you didn't misspell 10^-18 boys?

Here are some metric words surely must interest SOMEONE in RTC :

10^15 coats = 1 petacoat
10^9 antics = 1 gigantic
2*10^3 mockingbirds = 2 kilo mockingbird
10 cards = 1 decacard
10 dence = 1 decadence
5 holocausts = 1 Pentecost
2 homosexuals = 1 bisexual
10^-2 mental midgets = 1 centimental midget
10^-6 fish = 1 microfiche
10^-6 scopes = 1 microscope
10^-9 goats = 1 nanogoat
10^-12 boos = 1 picoboo
10^-15 bismol = 1 fepto bismol
10^-18 boys = 1 atto boy
billions and billions = 1 Sagan


Hell... I may even think about going this time.

--Tom

Good for you, Tom.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all those who are totally uninterested
in the GGC concept would just keep their fingers
from running away on the keyboards? If they're not interested, why
even bother to make waves?

How can you have a cruise without waves?

Ermalee ---hates all the ****in' 'n moanin'........oops! did I say
that? :-)

Eeee's okay, Ermalee. Urinatin' 'n lamentin' don't quite have the ring,
and Jack Schitt and his Schitt family would have been baffled.

-- Bob.

Actually the problem wasn't that they were changed for 'some people',
it was that they needed to be changed to get anyone to bid.

I have no problems with changing the rules, or who bid... And even though the
odds are that I will not go on the GGC (although one never knows), the problem
I see is that the CHANGE in rules was not announced to the voting group (RTC),
or to anyone else, publicly. I still say that IF the CHANGE in rules was
known, that the committee would have had more bids, and even more packages to
choose from.

I think the Szeto bashing has gone on in this group far too long.

John has booked my last 4 or 5 cruises and has never failed to give me good
deals (price wise). He's always quickly answered any questions I've had,
and has always been more than willing to do a cabin or sailing change when
I've needed.

There have been a couple of instances where I have felt I was asking more of
him than I should so I've offered both monetary "tips" or sail away gifts
when I've know he is sailing and he has ALWAYS turned them down.

Ethics problems? Not as far as I'm concerned.

-Monte




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Well, Pam, I didn't realize we needed to get permission to change the
RFB, maybe that was my naivete. I guess I wanted to do this a
different way than "the way it was always done", and didn't realize it
would cause such havoc. I wanted something different and asked if we
could change the RFB to include TA's who did not post to RTC. I
actually asked if we could solicite TA's to bid and the committee
thought it would be a good idea. So we could get some new blood, but
apparently many of the RTC members didn't want that and have been very
vocal about it. We did our best to find something different for the
RTC members at a great value.

Next year, the new committee can do as they want, this year's
selections are ready for vote. We got some really good bids on this
one, the prices are exceptional, as you will see when the website gets
back up.

I guess if nobody likes the selection, they don't have to vote or even
go on the cruise. There are plenty other group cruises out there to
choose from.

Judy



Lunyma wrote:

Actually the problem wasn't that they were changed for 'some people',
it was that they needed to be changed to get anyone to bid.



I have no problems with changing the rules, or who bid... And even though the
odds are that I will not go on the GGC (although one never knows), the problem
I see is that the CHANGE in rules was not announced to the voting group (RTC),
or to anyone else, publicly. I still say that IF the CHANGE in rules was
known, that the committee would have had more bids, and even more packages to
choose from.

Just so I understand:

1) The committee was concerned about the number of people they had bid based
on the rules they said would not change.

2) The committee changed the rules to open the bidding up to a much wider
group of people to get more bids in.

3) The committee only told a few agents they wanted bids from instead of all
the travel agents on the planet, or even all the ones that could be reached
by posting the rules change here in the newsgroup.

It now makes perfect sense to me, to get many more bids, you changed the
rules and told only the few people you wanted to bid to get their bids in.
After all, people in Tulsa take care of people in Tulsa, and you say below
you solicited several people for bids.

How can anybody with any common sense at all not see this as a problem? You
didn't want more bids, you wanted bids from specific people who didn't
qualify under the first set of rules. If you wanted bids from the entire
world, you would have had to let the entire world they could bid, not just
the few you wanted.

Is anybody saying you needed permission to change the RFB? No. Is anybody
upset over getting some new agents in the mix? NO

The havoc is not because more people were able to bid, it's because the only
ones allowed to bid under the new rules were hand picked agents being taken
care of by committee members. You were not looking for new blood, you were
looking for a specific type of blood, and only called a few specific donors.

Why does the committee keep coming back trying to justify this? Rules were
changed so specific people known to the committee, and only them could
qualify. Admit it and move on to door decorations or something.








"Judy O'Connor" wrote in message
...
Well, Pam, I didn't realize we needed to get permission to change the
RFB, maybe that was my naivete. I guess I wanted to do this a
different way than "the way it was always done", and didn't realize it
would cause such havoc. I wanted something different and asked if we
could change the RFB to include TA's who did not post to RTC. I
actually asked if we could solicite TA's to bid and the committee
thought it would be a good idea. So we could get some new blood, but
apparently many of the RTC members didn't want that and have been very
vocal about it. We did our best to find something different for the
RTC members at a great value.

Next year, the new committee can do as they want, this year's
selections are ready for vote. We got some really good bids on this
one, the prices are exceptional, as you will see when the website gets
back up.

I guess if nobody likes the selection, they don't have to vote or even
go on the cruise. There are plenty other group cruises out there to
choose from.

Judy



Lunyma wrote:

Actually the problem wasn't that they were changed for 'some people',
it was that they needed to be changed to get anyone to bid.



I have no problems with changing the rules, or who bid... And even though
the
odds are that I will not go on the GGC (although one never knows), the
problem
I see is that the CHANGE in rules was not announced to the voting group
(RTC),
or to anyone else, publicly. I still say that IF the CHANGE in rules was
known, that the committee would have had more bids, and even more
packages to
choose from.