Today's History Lesson

In the history of West Tennessee geocaching, November 10, 2008 will be recognized by a few as the 1st anniversary of the shutdown of GOWT for a reorganization.

The date picked for the site shutdown, November 10, was chosen in deference to a few cowardly members of the committee who were afraid of a big backlash from the site shutting down. On this particular date, many members were out attending regional WWFM events. The reorganization effort itself, began in secret in May.

The shutdown was also timed to be just before nominations for the next year's GOWT officers took place. There were suspicions, which I shared, that members affiliated with JAG might sweep the elections because of the general apathy of the GOWT membership.

As it so happens, there was no backlash. Most of GOWT's members didn't care what was going on. Most of the people who were associated with JAG simply went about their business on their own site.

We had set up an e-mail address for members to ask questions of the committee (or just provide input) and as far as I know only 2 or 3 people had any questions.

JoGPS asked repeatedly who the members of the reorganization committee were. He also took this opportunity as a Groundspeak moderator to remove GOWT from the list of Tennessee geocaching organizations maintained on the Groundspeak forums. For the record, this was the second time he had done that. The first time being when he was temporarily banned from the GOWT forums for violating conduct rules. How this fool was ever chosen to be a representative of Groundspeak remains a mystery.

The reorganization process was long, mainly because most of the committee members provided no useful input. Some, like Chibongo, wanted to focus discussions on who to blame for GOWT's problems. Others, like prontopup, would take off from the forums for weeks at a time.

I resigned from the reorganization committee on November 22 after essentially being told that I wasn't of good enough character to serve on the new leadership committee or as a moderator. At the time, I had volunteered mainly because no one else would step forward (other than Hoot Owl).

I found it ironic (moronic) that the 5 people who provided ZERO input to the reorganization effort eventually became the leadership committee. One of those 5 - "Benedict" Titansfan, had actually whined about quitting geocaching after he lost in the previous year's elections to the Bluff Boys. He is also now a proud member of JAG.

In another month or so, the makeup of the leadership committee should change. Many of the committee members believed that no one should serve longer than a year and it will be interesting to see if they follow through on that belief now that they are in charge. Since the members of the leadership committee are supposed to come from the functionally useless advisory committee, it will be curious to see how GOWT changes (if it does). One of the things I learned before resigning was that he or she who controls the website, controls GOWT.