Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

TWO WEEKS of FUTILITY

Another sad story of a Member without a home.

After struggling to gain entry to the new website, I began to read stories of others having difficulty(ies.)
In a couple of cases, e-mails have been exchanged offering suggestions as to how another Member
might bypass the restrictions unfairly imposed upon a true Member.

All attempts were futile.

Additionally, one member had communicated with a board member who had promised to help.
This promise will be two weeks old tomorrow.

Thus far... NOTHING has been done.
A two week old promise that proved to be TOO WEAK!

Obviously, this has been extremely frustrating. This Member has been a frequent poster in the Forum
and has always (IMO) contributed interesting and insightful comments and has also been very supportive
of our organization.
It was very difficult not to make this known but there was a concern for embarrassing the Member.

He has now asked for help and will not care if his identity becomes known. Others are already aware of this matter.
The biggest concern is WHY a board member would promise help and never communicate again
with a Member-in-good-standing?

It is indicative of the seemingly entire lack of concern demonstrated in matters such as this and, as previously noted, other things particulalrly related to the Forum and the trashing of years of valued documents.

So, we ask again:

Why are certain of our Members not supported by those obligated to do so?

Why are there so many unanswered questions concerning the problems caused by this website?

Why is information that concerns the entire Membership be kept in such secrecy by a few?

Why can't the operation of our organization be completely open and without mystery?

More to follow...

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Today's message to this member referenced above is the same as others he had received.
(It was also the first message I ever saw here during my first two attempts to "register.")

Thanks for all your concern and posting oldcapecode11. I guess you don't know but NOBODY is getting paid to do this job or any Board responibilities. We are all volunteeers and doing the best job we can do.
Most of what we do is on our free time and away from our jobs and families. After all of the turnover last year some of us on the Board have only been in thier roles for a short time.
One of the first assginments for the new Board was to find a new webmaster and build a new site since we had to replace our old webmaster and we had an extremely out-dated
website with a old server that was about to break down. That was done this summer/fall to the best of our abilities and under the budget we are given. The website was just launched
on Oct. 12th and to be expected their were a few minor glitches. But those glithces are getting taken care of, for example, your request to know if you can renew by PayPal or by
regular mail. I've been a member of the PFRA for 21 years and never have members not been notify to when they should renew and how to pay. For many years Bob Carroll had the
renewal info on the envelope of the Coffin Corner. Just recently that policy was changed to make it easier on the PFRA to make members renew at the end of the calendar year.
If I am correct PFRA members were notifed by email and in the last issue of the Coffin Corner (Vol. 35, No. 6) when to renew and how to renew. It was stated in the email and the
Coffin Corner that you can renew by regular mail or by paying online (using our PayPal account). We had nearly 50 members re-new by PayPal last year. So every PFRA member was
notifed and not kept in the dark about renewing.

To make life easier for you, the Renew/Join PFRA button is up and ready to use.

All of this information is always passed on to PFRA members.

As for the website, yes sometimes things might not work as usual, but we are correcting everything that is being suggested. If you want more information I can give it to you.
For example we had numerous emails from members asking for usernames and passwords to get onto the new Forum, when we sent our several emails and posted it on the
old Forum that users had to create a new username and passwords. All of the requests were answered.

When we set up the new website I talked to all the Board Members and over 25 PFRA Members to ask them what we can do better for the website. This is still part of that
transition. This is a work in progress. We tried to include everything that was on the old site as well as add a few suggestions of new stuff, like the Bob Carroll Tribute and
PFRA History. Items like a live chat room will be brought back up at a later date.

So if you still want to complain, ask questions, and continue to tear down some of the work that volunteers are doing (some of the volunteer Board members have been
members for 20 years) then be my guest.

Just becasue a few problems have arosed with the launch of a new website doesn't mean the Board (and in particular me) isn't working on the problems. Especially since
all of us our volunteers. Sorry for any inconvenience to members who have had problems. This was not done on purpose. We are getting to all requests and suggestions.
Sometimes, things get in the way (job, family, etc), so some things might take longer than expected to get corrected. Doesn't mean we aren't correcting them.

Thanks for reading,
Chris Willis
PFRA Executive Director

Does this mean the Member has finally been helped?
As of 30 minutes ago, that is NOT the case. No fibbing now...

Just wanted to see if I can post.