With the support of another member (and some help from E), I volunteered to upgrade a website that was at least a decade old. Generally, pictures from 5 years ago were the most recent additions. (There are a couple of isolated exceptions.) The site can’t grow for the membership of the group in the HTML format that was being used. Plus, I know for a fact that the archaic design was keeping us from gaining members. I have heard this from several friends in the area who would otherwise participate in this as fully as they do a lot of other community groups.

Anyway, I put together a sample and “they” all fought about what they liked/didn’t. I got feedback and went the opposite direction from before to show them we can do anything. We let them mull it over for a year.

We tried again, they loved the new look. Compliments abound.

The calendar aspect is a clusterfuck. It’s a home-grown app written by a former member of the group, “Bob”[1], with the help of a current member, “Joe”. There is no documentation or support. If “Joe” gets his by the proverbial beer truck, we are all screwed. This logic evades him.

“Joe” is holding onto that decade-old code as if a first-edition novel. He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth, and it’s making me insane.

• I know it’s old
• It still works
• It’s time to change it
• I can’t give time to that effort
• I don’t understand why it needs to change
• etc., ad nauseam, in the form of pages-long emails

I already quit one group this year over the pages long emails of instructions/demands. This guy is not a group leader in the loosely-defined structure. And, he both wants to keep it, but won’t be the person responsible for it.

Put Up or Shut Up[2].

.

[1] “Bob” isn’t even eligible to be a membmer any longer.

[2] As far as I’m concerned he did one of the two. His emails are now filtered into my trash.