Officers

[darkwing duck]

who will be up or running for what office for the upcoming year?

[novaalex]

I think it is going to be quite interesting but you'll have to come over to the member's side to find out!:booty:

[darkwing duck]

Are you offering to BUY?????

[brightlights]

You need someone to buy you a $25.00 memebership?

When I was a kid and needed extra spending cash I got a paper route.

[D Duck]

You need someone to buy you a $25.00 memebership?

When I was a kid and needed extra spending cash I got a paper route.
Bwaaaahaaaaaahaaaaaaahaaaaaa! :booty:

[novaalex]

You dont drink so Im not buying! Hey brother I am nobody to question your motives, but I firmly believe that it is better to pay the 25 beans and have a legitimate voice than to sit back in the shadows and sling mud. You have too much to offer. I dont agree with certain people all the time, in fact I dont agree with certain people at all, but they have to respect my opinion. Just look at who has replied to this post. If you were on the members side you could have replied on the post about the officers which already has replies and a ton of views. You are choosing not to voice yourself here and I dont know why?

[darkwing duck]

Let me clarify my words. I do not need anyone to buy me a membership. I was refering to buying a round at the winter meeting if I joined. I am strattling the fence on membership. I do not agree with some of your leaders and hope a change for the better is on the way. I have been very quite and slung no mud for quit a while. I would like to see UW get with the 22nd century and run the organization on a more personal level not just as an INTERNET GROUP.. If that could be done then by all means COUNT ME IN. As long as it is internet driven I choose not to be a member for now.

[jpg2esq]

Stop being such a hater Dennis. You can either join the party or be left on the outside holding the bag. Change starts from the inside, not from the fence:)

[darkwing duck]

For now I will hold the bag and keep filling it with your garbage.:bootyshak

[David B]

Dennis,

With a geographical membership ranging from the Alabama border on the west, Georgia on the North and due south covering the Heartland of the State ,all the ways to the Keys, it would be difficult to have a face to face organization most of the time. We are so fortunate to have the internet that reaches everyone with such speed and comfort. Could you imagine how long mailing would take. Or trying to schedule meetings months in advance for members to attend. It would be a failure in no time.
Now I do agree that regions need to hold more get togethers and work out the problems or issues within. This way, a solution can be formulated and then the entire organization can work to help them achieve such goals.
You need to bring your flat top head back with the confines of this org. I know it's not about $25.00. It is about feelings and disagreements within. Brother life is way too short to hold grudges or harbor bad feelings. I know, I got the scare of my life. Trust me , you would see it differently.
Get your butt back inside the fence and provide us with some of the input and help that we need.

Take Care
David B

[pepi]

Dennis get your a$$ over on this side, or I'll send Alex over to slap it a few times.:booty:

[jpg2esq]

I change my mind Dennis..stay on the outside. Your BS is amazing. Even a civilized conversation becomes a huge joke to you and you thrive on conflict...

[novaalex]

Dennis, I think we may be on the verge of being able to pick and choose who joins our organization. I Have agreed with many of your points in the past. I have gone as far as to champion them when you didnt have a voice. You still dont have a voice, but that is your choice! I have always enjoyed speaking to you and sharing time with you and the friends that we have in common, but I am at the point right now where I will not do anything that is to the detriment to this organization. The reason is simple, WE ARE THE ONLY ORGANIZATION THAT REPRESENTS FLORIDA DUCK HUNTERS ON A LOCAL LEVEL! I refuse to be a part of feuds that existed outside of UW-F, fortunately we are in pretty good standing with the other hunting orgs in our state even if some of the powers that be choose to be the lone ranger at times. My responsibility is to foster positive change and build a legacy that my son and daughter can be proud of! I cannot do that by being an internet terrorist! I will not hide my face! I will speak my mind loud and clear and when it is not heard I will blow the whistle for all the members to jump on board and make a decision. I can make that type of impact because I am a part of this for better or for worse. Right now you are no different than the single guy who biatches about relationships but goes home by himself every night to a lonely bed or a hired escort or drunk lot lizard. Take my advice, get on board, speak your mind with integrity, and work to change the things you dont like! Who knows maybe you will find that more people than you think agree with you. I have in the past!

[duckmanJR]

I change my mind Dennis..stay on the outside. Your BS is amazing. Even a civilized conversation becomes a huge joke to you and you thrive on conflict...

I'm with Jorge....we really don't need any excess "baggage".... Dennis is a "glass breaker" wherever he goes... plenty of conflict with all that goes with it.

Help some other organization....TRY PETA...We sure could use your type help over there! :)

[darkwing duck]

I write this message to you with a conviction that is one like no other. I have been fighting a longing in my heart and soul to get back involved with a group of hunters and or sportsmen. I have been involved one way or the other with bird hunting for over 27 years. I love to talk, walk, breath, and live this lifestyle. I remember years ago when UW was started. I had heard about this group and inquired as to what can they do for me. Well upon making that inquiry I was told that if I saw fit for the areas of my concern to be handled that I should join them and get involved locally and be the person in my area to handle these concerns. Well needless to say this put me of as their claim was we are THE VOICE OF THE FLORIDA DUCK HUNTER. I took this to mean that they the officers and directors at that time only cared about THEIR PRECIOUS areas and were not going to help ALL of FL as they claimed. This was actually a tall order for any new organization to do. After careful thought about their proposal I realized that I could make a difference. I was hurt and upset at first and felt that I was treated **** POOR by them and for my own reasons I did not join.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and perused my own thing in the area that was near and dear to me. That area was Lake Harbor. At that time it was and will always be the BEST there is, was, and ever will be in my opinion. For those of you that never knew Lake Harbor it was just like STA 5 only it was flooded rice and a real Mecca for ducks. You could say it was the beginning. I got myself in on countless meetings and phone conversations. I made many contacts with sugar, and fwc. After attending several off season meetings and listening to all the talk I concluded that Lake Harbor was a dying project and would not last for the next 5 years that the contract was signed for. On many occasions I would travel to the area just to follow up on the schedule. One year as I looked at the schedule I saw that the area was supposed to have had the cane cut, and the fields were supposed to be prepared for the rice, I drove over to look for myself 5 days after the deadline I noticed that the sugar cane was not even harvested let alone burned. I then made a phone call to B.J. and he told me that the biologists in charge worked out of T.M. Goodwin. Well upon making a phone call to them B.J. was told that they were on schedule . HMMMM go figure that one. He told them that he received a phone call for a concerned party and they told him that that party must be lost as the area was fine and going on according to schedule. I told him to ask them if they would like pictures time and date stamped sent via email within the hour to show that it was not and they again gave the excuse that I was lost. Well the next few days were quite interesting and it seemed that they looked a little closer and the work got done pretty quick. Well as season got closer and the work progressed I again drove over 5 days prior to opening day. According to schedule the fields were to have been flooded for at least 1 week. Well you guessed it they were BONE DRY. Again I made the call and this time they said they flew over the area themselves and all was well. I asked that is great were you lost? Water does not evaporate that fast at the proposed level they say it was at and again they claimed I was in the wrong area. Again I offered pictures to be sent and again they blew me off. Needless to say no water got put on that day and I was told that it was. I again went to the area on Friday morning the day before opener and the area was still bone dry. I then proceeded to raise **** with B.J. on the phone and he called them yet another time and they still claimed all was well. Well it was within the hour a green truck with yellow numbers approached the area and drove straight up to my truck and asked if I was the one that called. I said **** ya I called. Are you going to go and start the pumps and put water in to the field NOW? With that he shut his door and proceeded to go and fire up the water pumps and the flooding began. Well the problems only got worse as time went on and as the writing between the lines came true Lake Harbor died. The point that I am trying to make here is “You CANNOT MICRO MANAGE and expect it to work” Lake Harbor was micro managed by an office that already had to much on it plate with the management program and the every day dealings within T.M. Goodwin. Lake Harbor was doomed from the beginning of the new contract.

Now that I set a scenario in your mind I ask that you open up your grey matter and think about the following. In its inception UW was started by a group of concerned duck hunters. Their purpose and goal was to:

· To provide Florida waterfowlers with a unified voice.
· To promote better relationships between waterfowlers and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, Water Management Districts, US Fish & Wildlife Service, and the citizens of Florida.
· To provide hunter input through a statewide communication network to the legal processes that determine land use of state and federally owned properties.
· To promote waterfowl hunting by providing hunting opportunities for both youth and adults.
· To promote conservation and enhancement of Florida's natural resources.
· To preserve the waterfowling heritage for future generations of Floridians.
As the organization grows, chapters are envisioned; first at the regional level and then at the county level.
All of the above was taken from the UW web page.
This is a great purpose and set of goals. Now it is time to get into the 22nd century and grow in leaps and bounds just as the membership has grown. Stop with the micro managment. There are many things that need to change not only on the outside but also from within. Things NOW more than ever need to change. I can expand more on the goals that are NOT being reached and how to reach them. Many have shut some of these goals down in the past. I am and will always be a person who speaks my mind. Some of you know me personally and MOST of you only know me by the persona that I put out over the Internet. Either way you either love me or hate me there is no in between with most. Take a long hard look within yourself and tell me that there is not a little of me in you. All of you at one time or another want to be a bad butt. Most are just afraid to rock the boat. Rocking the boat in most cases is NOT the best thing to do. Sometimes it is the right thing to do if it is done correctly. Maybe I will attend the winter meeting and expand on my thoughts and ideas as a member, who knows I might just put my ticket in the race for a position on the BOARD…………………..

Duckman Jr, Jorge:pottytrai2

[Kevin Hall]

Dennis,

I've kept my mouth shut ... until now.

Here is your problem ...
...I remember years ago when UW was started. I had heard about this group and inquired as to what can they do for me.

If you go into a situation by looking at the "me" angle ... you are always going to be disappointed. UWF is about giving ... I do what I do because I want to see some issues fixed ... & I want to see waterfowling in FL continue well into the future. We all have out little "pet projects" & and "local" areas ... as does any organization ... but, those do not detract from the overall picture.

UWF is a grassroots organization ... for it to work to the maximum benefit, we have to have members, who are willing to work in their local area, from all parts of the state.

[jpg2esq]

Duckman Jr, Jorge:pottytrai2

I rest my case....

[duckmanJR]

Maybe I will attend the winter meeting and expand on my thoughts and ideas as a member, who knows I might just put my ticket in the race for a position on the BOARD…………………..

Duckman Jr, Jorge:pottytrai2


Feel free...but I hope your feelings are not easily hurt. :)

Sorry Dennis but the verdict is already in on you.... You have no more place on the board than some PETA whacko... Your "style" of dealing with people will wreck everything many hours of hard negotiations by better statesmen have done.

Just so you know..as treasurer people have already offered to buy an extra membership just to not accept YOURS!
Sorry Dude, but you have burned yourself....

[D Duck]

I remember years ago when UW was started. I had heard about this group and inquired as to what can they do for me. Well upon making that inquiry I was told that if I saw fit for the areas of my concern to be handled that I should join them and get involved locally and be the person in my area to handle these concerns. Well needless to say this put me of as their claim was we are THE VOICE OF THE FLORIDA DUCK HUNTER.
I remember that too. Basically, it is still the same as it was when we talked so long ago - we are a member run organization. The members are the ones doing the work.

I took this to mean that they the officers and directors at that time only cared about THEIR PRECIOUS areas and were not going to help ALL of FL as they claimed. This was actually a tall order for any new organization to do. After careful thought about their proposal I realized that I could make a difference. I was hurt and upset at first and felt that I was treated **** POOR by them and for my own reasons I did not join.
It just so happened that our whopping membership of maybe 40-50 total at that time resided north of you. You could have been the first to develop the relationship we have in S FL. Then again, no you couldn't have. As JR said, you thrive on conflict.

Maybe I will attend the winter meeting and expand on my thoughts and ideas as a member, who knows I might just put my ticket in the race for a position on the BOARD…………………..
Why waste your time?

[novaalex]

Dennis I must admit that despite the busy season at the USPS I love the entertainment value that this post provides. You are quoting yourself, I wonder why? You are responding to your own statements! That must be easy enough! I will be the first one to cut you some slack, because I know that you have a lot of knowledge. Just like your friend Uncle B, I love to hear you guys talk because you have the facts to back things up. But that does not mean that you are always right! Whether you like it or not we have developed a way of having robust and positive dialogue with the agencies that affect our hunting opportunities. No matter what your opinion is the way we communicate with these agencies can not change. We communicate in a civil yet assertive way. We bcak our arguments with facts not emotions. The agencies have no emotions. Regretfully the SFWMD wields the real power and FWC with it's budget cuts and constraints can rarely do enough to help us. These are the facts! We do not need to start fires or sling mud! The day you are ready to come forward and work with us in this manner I will be glad to listen. I may not have been around when you were dealing with BJ at Lake Harbor, I was too busy hunting a private lease in Immokalee back then! Despite the fact that I showed up a lot later than you I have been able to get on a first name basis with these people who impact our access. Thanks to that places like Rocky Glades in Dade County are open to hunting. A thousand acre property in the middle of the states most densely populated area. i guess that is a great example of a local leader impacting our future. You could do that too if you stopped blowing smoke and joined us! I will leave you with one last thought! A few years ago when Santangelo wanted to turn the SJohns/Kiss area into his private hunting lease who stepped up. It took a couple of Cubans from Miami who called a SFWMD Boardmember and alerted him to stop that catastrophe. The bottom line is that we are in it for each other, I have yet to hunt that area that I worked to keep open, but I know that some of our members appreciated the work. The day we made those calls our President and VP were stuck in the mud being rescued by FWC. We communicated and got things done! That is the example that must be followed!!

[N. Cook]

D. Duck has hit on an important point....UW-F was just beginning when the situation that Dennis speaks of occurred....I joined at the BASS PRO SHOP Hunting Classic at the booth manned by Larry (John) Alloway. I stumbled on it by pure accident....since I have member number 9 (Larry is 6) I obviously was early in the game.....however, I had no idea the group was so small. Sean, an early member who has vanished, was involved as well. That show was successful as I hung around the booth and actually met Capt. George who came by and joined. Several of today's group joined at that first show.

The issues of the day in the south were the DECOMP plan (Everglades Restoration) that would lower the WCAs two feet and in Larry's words "destroy the ringer habitat" and the collapse of the habitat at Lake Harbor. I still have Larry's maps showing the WCA water levels. At that time the STAs were only on the FSCA and ECC radar. There was progress being made with the SFWMD to get very limited hunting on STA 5 for a test. With cross membership from that BPS show we all were informed of the STA issue and I remember starting to work, speaking for hunting at the SFWMD WRAC meetings. Long story short....the test showed no effect on the cleansing of the phosporous and we have progressed from that to where we are today.

The DECOMP issue morphed into saving the canals (L 67) and we joined with SAFER (bass anglers) on that. Today we continue to fight for the canals, although we are not concerned about the loss of ringer habitat as we have learned the end result of DECOMP may never come about...and the shallower water would be great teal and puddler habitat anyway.

And then there was Lake Harbor.....Here is where a division occured among the very small group that made up the southern UW-F membership. I remember going out to Lake Harbor for a meeting (and a little target shooting). About a dozen or so where there. There was a major part of the group that wanted to "sue" and make a lot of noise about Lake Harbor....

Being new, I did not know what the procedure should be....but I discovered that a copy of the contract between the farmer leasing the land and the SFWMD was at the meeting. I simply sat down and read it.

It was immediately obvious that there was no way the land would be managed for ducks....the contract was very specific that agriculture was what the land was leased for and that those leasing the land had no obligation to do anything but farm the land. Hunting was to be allowed...but with the habitat gone it had become a mute point.

The arguement over the way to proceed sent some of the early UW-F members off on a more adversarial path....and not with UW-F. You only have to go back to the founders (yes, mostly from north Florida) to see the UW-F mantra that still guides us today: "UW-F will be a strong advocate, but never an adversary with the agencies we deal with." If you cannot deal with that philosophy you are not at home in UW-F.

UW-F has prospered, and fortunately we have most of that group that left back with us and some are major players in the success UW-F has had. We would be much less effective without them. They remain the base for the entire southern UW-F membership below Palm Beach county.

Some of those that have not been able to accept the "mantra" remain. They are always welcome to join with us at anytime. Some of them continue to do good work for hunting and public access outside of UW-F and they should be recognized as allies.

UW-F today is very different than in those early days....and trying to relate to the early growing pains in one part of the state to measure the scope of what we do now is not very useful.

[Kevin Hall]

Newton,

Very well said.

...since I have member number 9 (Larry is 6) I obviously was early in the game...

I think I have the honor of having membership number 1. It was fluke ... I needed some data for the membership database ... so, I put in my information. :icon_redf ;)

[Randy Clark]

well guys the way we are doing it seems to be working. i agree with alex "I will be the first one to cut you some slack, because I know that you have a lot of knowledge. Just like your friend Uncle B, I love to hear you guys talk because you have the facts to back things up. "

I remeber meeting you at sta 5 one morning talking to billy because of your info matt got his first mottled duck. thanks alot. join the team and help us grow.