>From:    Bob Church <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Bob C: National Club Thingie
>To answer Bill Killians comments about why not fix the existing clubs; well,
>I for one would love to see the various clubs band together into a single
>organization, ending this mess.  Do you think that will happen?
 
The original purpose of LIFE was for the indepedant organizations to have an
umbrella organization.  However plans got tossed aside and clubs got purged
when they disagreed with the leadership.  Not exactly the kind of thing that
needs to be repeated.  At one of the early LIFE shows many of us wore
buttons that had a ferret in the background, the word "politics" and the red
slash through it emblem.  This was about two years after LIFE had formed and
politics were already destroying the plan.  The reaction to the plea for
less politics was an editorial titled "No Politics or No Principles" that
has some good points until it mires itself in politics again claiming
ethical superiority where it isn't.  A new group will not eliminate this
element but just one more target for potshots.  It missed the point that
those of us asking for no politics were trying to unite the ferret world.
Facts are also distorted - Marshall Farms has sponsored one ring at one AFA
show and one ring at a LIFE member show as I understand it.
 
http://www.acmeferret.com/infobank/a94nopol.htm
 
Look at the dog world that everyone normally thinks of us united under the
AKC.  But there exist groups such as the UKC, the USKC and breed specific
clubs that oppose the AKC completely.  Why does one think we in the ferret
world can do what can't be done in the dog world?
 
>Can the existing groups get together to form a single unit?  Under whos
>banner?  FURO?  LIFE?  STAR?  AFA?  Is the AFA willing to merge itself with
>any of these groups?
 
FURO has no banner.  LIFE is tiny.  STAR is small and only about shelters.
Why should the AFA merge with such a smaller group?  I'm sure the AFA will
accept all of the members of these smaller groups so sure I guess they will
merge with them.  Would you expect General Motors to merge with KIA?  That
would be GM absorbing KIA not a merger.  It would be the same if the AFA and
any of these other groups were to "merge".
 
>Bluntly, we need the best we can get, and some are in FURO, some in LIFE,
>come in CaCaLand, some in AFA, etc.  You know, I know, hell the whole dam
>the river FML knows some of the best would never join the AFA, and
>vice-versa.  The history of anamosity is so great, no one outside your
>groups has ANY hope of you all settling your differences and working
>together.
 
FURO is dead.  It no longer has good members nor bad ones for that matter.
 
It doesn't matter if LIFE ever decides to co-operate with the AFA.  Most of
the California groups are co-operative.  LIFE is actually quite small and
there will always be folks like them that have their opinions and will not
co-operate with those they have disagreements.  But likewise the AFA will
never agree to some of the things that LIFE supports.  A new group can not
magically get those same people to suddenly agree.
 
A new organization will not get all the readership of the Ferret Digest to
join.  If it gets a quarter of them to join that would utterly astound me.
That puts it under a thousand.  The AFA is many times larger than that now.
 
>What is needed is political power to fight other political powers, such as
>the fish and game, Audubon Society, Sierra Club, animal control, and every
>piss-ant township that decided ferrets eat babies and wants to make them
>illegal.
 
Political power comes from numbers and money.  The AFA is the largest and
has the most clout now.  If instead of fracturing the community more we
united it more than we would acheive far more clout.
 
>Few issues on the FML has garnered so much interest and so much mail in such
>a short time as this one.  These people are saying something, and the
>message is clear.  They are simply saying the existing clubs have *failed*
>them.
 
A few questions need to be answered first:
What about the AFA is failing people?
What about LOS is failing people?
What about LIFE is failing people?
What about NAFA is failing people?  Oh NAFA is everybit as large as LOS
but is just not on-line.
 
Many of those posting know little about the AFA.  Perhaps instead of
fracturing the ferret community even more we ought to just bury our own
prejudices and join the existing groups.  First lets look at what that means.
 
FURO is dead.  As is the IFA.
 
LIFE does not accept individual members by their charter they only accept
clubs and shelters as members.  So you can choose to join a local club (or
found one) and have that club join LIFE.  Sure why not.
 
STAR claims to only be involved in the shelter aspect.  Fine.  This will not
be your national group.
 
You missed NAFA.  Wouldn;t worry about it.
 
LOS is relatively small.  And without a ferret "division" in either Maryland
or Virginia which are ferret center of the country right now I don't think
they are in a position to become "the group".  They don't seem too
interested since they defer most to the even tinier LIFE.
 
The AFA has individual/family memberships.  They flirted with member clubs
but have dropped that.  As long as they co-operate when they need to there
is no need for that formal tie.
 
>But as large as the largest one is, the number of people are small, and
>that makes it political voice small.
 
Uh... No.  The AFA is far larger in the US than the readership of this forum.
The other groups with national aspirations are far smaller than this forum.
 
>A new organization offers a clean slate, no negative history, no anamosity.
 
Only if you exclude many of the readers of the Ferret Digest.  I for example
could not expect to be a part of a new group and have Pam Grant join.  She
specifically stated that about the DC coalition.  So are we going to choose
between Pam and me?  So how about we use an organization we already both
belong to - the AFA.
 
>Already 40-50 people have publicly stated (and many more to me privately)
>they are sick and tired of the crap going on between the existing
>organizations, and they want something else, something new and something
>with national political power.
 
I hereby challenge anybody sick of the politcal fighting to show me where
the AFA has been a part of it.  Not a target of it but specifically actively
involved.
 
I only support the AFA because they stay out of the petty bickering.
 
>The idea of ferrets as pets went through its infancy and childhood in the
>1960s an 70s.  Its been an adolescent ever since.  Its time we mature into
>adulthood, and put aside those things of childhood,those petty and immature
>arguments, to form an international coalition of ferreteers, dedicated to
>the protection of a dear and loving pet.
 
I full heartedly agree.  But why not use the work we've already done.  The
AFA is not going to go away because of the efforts of a few dozen folks
talking about a new group.  It would take years before a new group could
achieve the inrastructure already in place in the AFA.  None of the other
"rival" groups have any such infrastructure.  Most haven't even filed the
tax papers.
 
>And if the existing clubs cannot or will not do it, then we need to form a
>new relationship that will.
 
Again we get back to one point.  What do you want a group such as the AFA to
do that it isn't doing already?  Why not volunteer to help them do that?
 
In case folks can't tell I've dropped being neutral on this.  I tried real
hard to be neutral on the inter group rivalries.  I was not allowed to be
independant.  I chose the most professional, most organized and the group
that is already doing everything what I wanted a group to do.  The AFA
had no problem with my being neutral on this.  It was other that assumed
I wasn't.  I was driven by them to this.
 
bill killian
zen and the art of ferrets
http://www.zenferret.com/
mailto:[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 1976]