Folks, Wow, what a shock to read this below.
It would seem to me to be an inappropriate and unprofessional use of this (otherwise professional) forum to publicly post, in this manner, one member's privately-expressed, wildly speculative, ill-informed and misguided negative opinions about another member, especially about the president and leader of our organization, without checking and verification through other sources (such as other FLEAA board members). This kind of misrepresentation and impugning of character, based on incorrect assumptions, attributed to erroneously inferred motives, and by jumping to unjustified speculative conclusions, is nothing more than irresponsible calumny and something I would suggest we should all use a little more forethought, restraint, discretion, prudence, and maturity, before just carelessly forwarding something like this to our public discussion list. To set the record straight here, Shawn, myself, and the entire FLEAA board have been guided in these matters, first and foremost, by the overridding principle of self-determination, both at the state level and at the local level. For a long time now, we have consistently taken the position that it is up to each local region within the state to make their own decisions about whether to form their own independent EAA chapter or alternatively to become a regional group within and under the auspices of the FLEAA as the statewide umbrella organization, and there might well even be different variations, permutations, and combinations of those two alternatives, as has been discussed from time to time. Furthermore, some local areas may decide to start out as regional groups within the FLEAA and then later transition into breaking off and forming their own independent EAA chapter, once they have larger numbers of members. So there are many different options here, and we on the FLEAA board have consistently encouraged folks in different regions to consider all of the options, the advantages and disadvantages of each, think it through, ask questions, discuss it with all their local colleagues, and then make their own decisions. The position of the FLEAA board towards various regional groupings, in whatever form, has consistently been one of encouragement, collaboration, cooperation, communication, camaraderie, and mutual support, whether regions decide to form their own independent EAA chapters or to be part of the FLEAA statewide umbrella organization, or some combination of the two. I myself have had a number of such discussions along these lines over the last year and a half with people around the state, where I have stated exactly what I just wrote here, and the FLEAA board has had a couple of conference calls over the last year which have included some of the principals representing various different regions of Florida to discuss all of this. In all of these board discussions and conference calls, Shawn's and the board's positions have been as I have described here in this post. In one such series of deliberations, we even discussed and prepared for an orderly division of the state into various different regions for the formation of multiple independent EAA chapters. That possibility is of course still there. It really just depends on what everyone in the various different regions wants to do. The decision is up to each individual region and is theirs to make. Again, self-determination is the guiding principle here. Speaking for myself and my own substantial and close personal interaction with Shawn and the rest of the FLEAA board, I have never seen Shawn or any other board members get "angry" throughout any of these discussions. Shawn and the board's primary concern has been to try to promote and make sure of adequate communications and coordination between various regions of the state and the FLEAA board in such processes and deliberations. In all but one case, through the outstanding efforts of all involved, there has indeed been excellent communications and coordination. In the one case where the communications and coordination seemed to be lacking, Shawn and the board did express some concern about that, but I would not characterize Shawn's and the board's attitude as one of "anger". I would also just second Fran's comments below that she was in no way responsible for the lack of communications and coordination in that one particular case and in fact had absolutely no knowledge of it, as she stated, and Shawn and the board fully understood and recognized that. Speaking of communications, this is a subject that obviously needs some explanation and clarification given the glaring misunderstandings of one of our members, reflected in her comments below, that have arisen out of an apparent gap in communications and the misguided highly speculative assumptions, motives, and conclusions that she has unfortunately inferred as a result. There are always going to be gaps and time lags in communications by any one individual board member, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer, depending on one's own individual circumstances and the ebbs and flows in one's personal life. That is why we have a board of several individuals and not just a single individual -- among other things, so that we can all support and help each other with the communications load. This is how we function and operate as a board, especially with respect to communications. We do it in a tag-team or relay-rally type of fashion, passing the batton back and forth between board members, according to the ebbs and flows of each one's personal life, which will generally vary from person to person and from time to time. Let's please not forget that this is an all-volunteer organization and that we do this as a passion, but a passion that doesn't put food on anyone's table nor pay the rent or mortgage, and therefore our FLEAA activities and duties, including communications, must necessarily take a back seat to higher priority commitments like work and family. This means that we are occasionally (even *often*, at least in my case, as I'm one of the worst offenders in this) not as timely and responsive on communications as we would ideally like to be. What happens on the board is that we pass communications duties back and forth between us according to who has got some slack capacity and bandwidth at any given time. There are times when I am just swamped and I ask for Shawn's or Matt's or Allan's help in responding to someone about something, and someone is usually able to help me out, or I will say to Shawn that I just can't handle any communications and respond to any email for the next two weeks, and could you please help me out?, and Shawn is often able to do so. Likewise with Shawn, there are times when he is swamped and has no spare capacity and asks for my or Matt's help, and one of us is usually able to pick up the slack for him. That has been the case for the last few weeks, as I know that Shawn is absolutely swamped at work right now. In fact I even heard Shawn express some exasperation a few weeks ago about so many people that he has not been able to get back to and respond to, and Fran was one of the names he mentioned. (I should have, and would have, offered to help Shawn if it weren't for the fact that I myself am stretched pretty thin right now.) I also know, from what Shawn has often said to me, that he has the utmost, highest respect and admiration for Fran and all the great work she has done and continues to do to promote and advance the cause of electric vehicles in Florida, both in North Florida and throughout the entire state. There has been no greater supporter of Fran and her family's ambitious EVI statewide tour than Shawn! So what I would ask people here is just to have a little bit of patience and understanding on such communications time lags and not go off the deep end in reading too much into such gaps by jumping to unwarranted conclusions and acribing and attributing such negative motives to people and engaging in this kind of wild speculation and inferring such negative things about them and impugning their character in this kind of way. Folks, there are several people on the FLEAA board. If you can't get a hold of one of us and get a response out of one of us, it's probably because that particular individual is swamped and maxxed out on bandwidth at the moment. So please then just try others of us, until you get one of us who can respond to you in a timely fashion. On behalf of the board, I apologize for the frustrations caused by having to take this kind of Russian Roulette, hit-or-miss type of approach to finding which one of us currently has enough slack capacity for quickly responding to you, but again, that is just a fact of this being an all-volunteer organization that all of us do on the side, as time permits. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the outstanding leadership of our FLEAA president, Shawn Waggoner, who gives selflessly and tirelessly of himself to this organization and movement and has done more to promote and advance the cause of electric vehicles in the state of Florida than anyone else I know. I could go on at great length here about Shawn's many outstanding contributions and achievements, but it would take me several pages of writing, and most of us already know and appreciate everything that Shawn does if you are actively involved in EVs around the state. This calumnious impugning of Shawn's character is most unfair to him and is completely uncalled for on our public forum. It is something that I as Shawn's colleague on the board, having the utmost respect for him and his leadership, take umbrage to. I would humbly and respectively suggest that Shawn is owed an apology. No offense or disrespect is intended to anyone here. Thanks & best regards, Charles Whalen Florida EAA ----- Original Message ----- From: "TED" <[email protected]> To: "fran sullivan-fahs" <[email protected]>; "FLEAA Mailing List" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2009 7:30 AM Subject: Re: [FLEAA] hi ted & bobbye from fran Sorry to hear. I hope you will still write to us. We so enjoyed EVI in Fort Myers. TED From: fran sullivan-fahs Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 2:34 PM To: TED Subject: Re: hi ted & bobbye from fran Thanks, Ted. It is probably too late, but I was so snowed under when I got back from the trip that it took me too long to pull this together. I guess you heard that Shawn got angry when the Tallahassee group formed a chapter that was independant of the FLEAA. I wasn't even a part of that. It was already formed when I got back from the EVI. I didn't even know the people who formed it. But somehow Shawn must have felt that I was responsible so he quit answering my emails and calls. It is sad. I thought that we were good friends, but, oh well... I will continue to promote EVs with whoever is willing to do that! Happy trails. Fran ----- Original Message ----- From: TED To: fran sullivan-fahs Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 9:27 AM Subject: Re: hi ted & bobbye from fran Forwarded you email to Chad. TED From: fran sullivan-fahs Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 10:19 AM To: Edward Ellyatt Subject: hi ted & bobbye from fran How are all things Ev down by you folks? Did you hear that we have a chapter up in Tallahassee now? Do you remember that guy who did the great interview down by ya'll when we were there? Chad Oliver was his name. I have been trying to get a copy of his interview since it was so good! Could you guys call him locally to see if he could get me access to that tape? If this is too old of an issue at this point, don't worry about it. His number is 239 939 2020. Thanks, friends. Fran Fran Sullivan-Fahs & The EVI w 850 656 5409 m 850 524 1972 http://eviblog.floridaeaa.org "There can be no purpose more enspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us." E.O. Wilson _______________________________________________ Florida EAA mailing list [email protected] http://www.floridaeaa.org _______________________________________________ Florida EAA mailing list [email protected] http://www.floridaeaa.org
