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Thursday, September 20, 2007

This is a permanent record of a MPC Blog posting

 

A Thought From Andy Gilbert

Here's a thought

Hello and greetings from the city of steam

 

Apologies if this doesn’t come through too well. I did send it to Tom, asking him to post it up for me. I think he must be away as nothing appeared on the blog

 

We have just returned from a five week trip overseas and I logged on to the blog/wiki to catch up with who is being blasted and who is doing the blasting and why etc. That’s a pretty poor reason to log on but that seems to be the tone of the blog, currently.

 

It’s all getting rather personal, isn’t it? Or are some people deciding to take comments personally in order to justify a quick dose of self righteous spleen venting.

 

You know that the blog is getting to be something of a blend of ‘Truth newspaper” (without the pictures of naughty bits) and some third rate daytime soap where everything is dramatized to contrive the worst possible scenario. In a few weeks it would not surprise me to read of some inspired blogger reporting that our beloved CEO is actually an alien and is secretly the long lost brother of longtime love rival Tom who will die unless he receives a kidney from… I don’t know….maybe one the Singapore team who is actually the long lost mother, (which smoothly leads into next weeks storyline etc.). You get the picture? It’s all getting a bit farfetched and pathetic and so is the tone of the blog

 

I ask myself why doesn’t anyone want to submit something that is pretty positive and furthers the game? Probably because there are too many respondents who are ready to dissect it and call it a personal attack or, more likely, blame it on Petanque New Zealand who should have, could have, would have done something about it.

 

I see a number of people in the sport who are doing things to further the sport. I’d even go further and place an emphasis on the fact that they are doing things. They aren’t spending time in front of the computer attacking the individual respondents or currying support for their own fairly localized view point.

 

In a perfect world the Petanque New Zealand executive team could reasonably expect to put in the huge effort they put in without being exposed to constant harassment and pinpricking scrutiny. But it isn’t a perfect world.

 

In this perfect world Dirk and the Lippards and the worlds team etc could all put in their huge efforts without the constant worry of what some spleen-Venter will take out of context or intent and then splash their perceived shortcomings across the august pages of this blog.

 

I read a comment from one correspondent that the frequent postings from some regular contributors indicate that they are the people who care most about Petanque.

 

While gauging that comment for its possible veracity the alternative thought also crossed my mind. That thought was the old saying that “Empty vessels make the most noise”

 

Now please don’t rush to vilify my thoughts because it will only be perceived by myself as narrow minded self justification ( that is polite speak for ‘I don’t give a rats a…) and quite frankly, if you feel the need to attack this literary effort you should be examining your own motives.

 

If anyone wants to rush into cyberprint in response to this E-pistle let it be something along the lines of…….

 

Thanks Dirk for all your work in developing the interregional challenges.

 

Thanks David and Joanne for your Work in the Petanque New Zealand executive stream and the training sessions you run.

 

Thanks to the Singapore team for putting your selves on the line for New Zealand in the Worlds.

 

Thanks Bryan, Barbara, Brian, Micheal etc for the executive roles you hold

 

Thanks to the rookie umpires who umpired the last challenge between Wellington and Auckland

 

Thanks to Trevor for trying to get a tournament format standardized on behalf of all NZ players

 

Thanks to the 30 odd umpire trainees who took the training sessions and thanks to Barbara for running the Wellington session for me.

 

Thanks to Ian baker and his team for attending to the Herne bay terrain layout.

 

There must be hundreds of others we could all thank for their efforts.

 

How about it, regular readers of the blog. Before you fly into cyber print denigrating someone’s efforts, make a genuine comment about some of the good stuff being done as well.

 

And hey, it’s good to be back in Godzone!

 

And I’ll see some of the Wellington team at the weekend. Yes, the central team were short and they even asked me to play.

 

Signed Andy Gilbert

 

 

Andy Gilbert

 

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Office 07-3484650 Mobile 021-678955 A/H 07-3482557

 

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posted by NZPC Editor (Tom) @ 11:21 AM 2 comments

 

See also: A letter from Joanne Evans

A Spammer in our midst

A large scale attack on me as a person and our Blog

An email from Dirk Winnie

 

6 Comments:

 

At 12:16 PM, NZPC Editor (Tom) said...

Editors note: I am disappointed that the special email address I have given to Joanne and Graeme M. for the purpose of passing on directly to our Blog information from our world team in Thailand has already been passed on to others. It is also rather incredible to me that Andy Gilbert after five weeks away and barely off the plane is such an expert on our recent NZPC Blog postings. What great insight and powers of analyses this man has.

 

Here we see Andy Gilbert using this special email address to give us his opinion on recent events. This was NOT received by me as an email, as stated by Andy. This text by Andy will be removed and placed permanently on our Wiki in a couple of days. Needles to say I am very disappointed with this abuse of my trust. -Tom.

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At 12:34 PM, Anonymous said...

Can't understand why anyone would do that. Andy is entitled to his opinions and he makes some valid points.

 

I would be the first person to praise someone for a job well done - I don't agree with his comments about the work the executive is doing. Where is the info about the overseas team on the PNZ site. If it wasn't for the Blog, we wouldn't hear a word.

 

What's happened to the regular CEO corner? June is the last and only entry there.

 

The person who seems to attract the most criticism (me), is the one that instigated the good luck words for the overseas team so we are not ALL bad ALL the time. Graeme B.

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At 1:08 PM, Anonymous said...

Good afternoon Tom. If you have changed your email address in the last 5 weeks i would beleive that you never received my initial emails and would apologise appropriately. if you have not changed your email, then i have sent the posting twice to you on the email address i have always used and would have to think that either your email is down in totem or you are exercising some content sanitising.

Either way, your lack of response led me to ask for assistance from an outside agency to place the posting. And now you have devised another way of sanitising my comments and deleting the same.

 

In terms of abuse of trust, tom, get over yourself and reread my posting as much of the comment could be aimed at yur editorial stance.

Now, post that!!!!!

 

Andy Gilbert

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At 1:24 PM, NZPC Editor (Tom) said...

Andy, I have not deleted anything. I have not changed my email address. I have not received emails from you. I have no problem with allowing your comment (above) as it has your name with it. Thanks for letting us know about the "assistance from an outside agency". Tom.

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At 4:54 PM, NZPC Editor (Tom) said...

Just to refresh our memories here is my comment from a post of SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2007:

 

"It is great we are getting these updates using the new email system. It works like this: A tournament update is send via a special NZPC Blog email address. Within seconds this update appears as a proper post, on our Blog including a headline. This cuts out the middleman (me) and speeds things up. This means that updates can be posted from anywhere on the planet, using any device capable of submitting email messages (mobile phones for instance). I love it. In my view it is of no consequence if the reports are a little incomplete. We all just want a broad picture - plenty of time for the details later.

 

A fifth place for New Zealand and a very high national record in the shooting competition - stunning results!!!!!"

 

Andy got hold if this email address and posted his piece on our Blog via this special email address. This is dishonest and a betrayal of trust. -Tom.

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At 4:56 PM, Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness Tom,

Andy asked me for the email address I willingly and innocuously gave him the email address- why wouldn't I, for goodness sake- I did not know it was a special address or that I had been given special privileges Does this make me the special agent

Joanne L

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Joanne knew all the trouble we've had with spam and moderating comments. She knew this email address gave her direct access to the front page of our Blog - completely bypassing the editor (Tom).

Questions:

• How did Andy know Joanne had this email address?
• What made him ask her for it? (he had not sent any emails to me).
• Did Joanne ask him what he was going to use it for? (it was meant for her to provide updates from the Worlds Championships).
• Did she not realise that it could be used maliciously if passed to others? (especially Andy it seems).

 

Lots of questions again. -Tom.

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Another thought from Andy Gilbert 25/09/07

 

Please be advised that this email was sent using the click through on your blog/wiki page “email the editor(Tom)” Therefore if any other email is ever acknowledged as being received by you, you must have received this email as well.

 

Please note that this is the second time of sending this email.

 

Good morning Tom

 

I did find where you had tucked away my comments although I’m not sure that other people would be able to find what might be termed ‘Good news on a bad news site’

 

I have to say I am quite amazed at your attitude to my actions and your interpretation on what you perceive as my intentions

 

Below are some of the comments you tossed in to perhaps slightly discredit my input

 

Andy got hold if this email address and posted his piece on our Blog via this special email address. This is dishonest and a betrayal of trust. –Tom

 

(How can this be dishonest? AND you also think it is a betrayal of trust? Are we both using the same English dictionary?)

 

Questions:

How did Andy know Joanne had this email address? (he didn’t know the address even existed. He emailed Joanne because Tom had also denied ever receiving her emails yet her email eventually was acknowledged)

What made him ask her for it? (he had not sent any emails to me). ( he only sent two emails to the email address he has always used to send emails to tom.)

Did Joanne ask him what he was going to use it for? (it was meant for her to provide updates from the Worlds Championships). ( she didn’t ask as she is probably not paranoid and does not automatically assume the worst of any person remotely connected with Petanque New Zealand)

Did she not realise that it could be used maliciously if passed to others? (especially Andy it seems). (She probably does not regard Andy asespecially malicious when his email was only asking people to think of thepositive things that are happening in petanque)

It is interesting that Andy does not hesitate with dishing out the dirt to others this time around. -Tom. ( it takes a special kind of editor to read my email and consider it as dirt. )

 

Conclusions

 

It would appear you consider my input something akin to dishonesty

 

Joanne and I, it appears, are in collusion to perhaps bring down your fine blog.

 

I am, it appears, a malicious emailer who cannot be trusted to not pass on your secret squirrel email address.

 

I also do not hesitate to dish out the dirt. Although I cannot really find out where any of my posting could be classed as dirt, perhaps you could enlighten me as to your definition of Dirt

 

I really think that you are wandering down a meandering, sad and lonely path with this blog and you are using it as your own personal vehicle to discredit the actions of the people who are actually out there trying to enhance the game.

Your reasons for this are unclear so I assume it is a personal crusade. Either way, to paraphrase a line out of a rather good movie. You spend your time abusing the game and how it is organised.You do that under the very umbrella of the organisation offered by those people who are out there holding a post in Petanque New Zealand. I would sooner you just said thank you for our efforts and either played the game or p****d off and played tiddlywinks. Either way until you stand a post in Petanque New Zealand and realize just how hard we work and the inevitable impossibility of keeping everyone happy, please do not ever accuse me or Petanque New Zealand, either jointly or severally of being dishonest or malicious. I feel sure we can leave the development of those character traits to the individuals like yourself who have nothing better to do and lots of time to do it.!

 

Again. I invite you to post this email.

 

I will email you twice and if your email is ‘down’ again, or you just don’t receive this email, I may seek an alternative outside agency to get a broader reading of this input

 

Yours in Petanque

 

Andy Gilbert.

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