Quote:
Originally Posted by Skallagrim
LG, if you think that the PPA promised "something that cant be delivered" you have a point. If you think the PPA had a deal that the other party backed out of, you do not have a point .... Do I have to make Pappas tell me/us exactly what happened or can we just move on?
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Here's all Im saying (and I'll avoid the specifics of the Frank bill stuff since its mostly off topic, although I am the one that pushed us off topic). Its not as big of a deal as the length of post makes it look like either, I just had trouble being pithy with my thoughts.
I don't know the inner workings of what happened with the petition and Obama. A quick google search and a review of this thread shows a bunch of references by sites (The Cake Poker screenshot early in this thread, for example) and says "the petition will be delivered to Obama on July 22nd" or "the petition will be delivered during National Poker week.
Its possible this is misrepresenting how the PPA presented the petition, but people were definitely signing the petition with that impression and, fair or not, perception is sort of reality in these situations.
I have no doubts the PPA is acting in good faith and thought they had a meeting with Obama. The fact is, for whatever reason, that didn't happen. I personally think its a pretty minor issue, but some members don't. Those members will be less likely to contribute to and support the PPA going forward because the next time the PPA says "hey we need your support to get our point across to ____", they might just go "well, how do I know this is actually going to happen?" While they still might sign a petition, they might not mail it out to ten other people or make phone calls, or put in the extra effort because they won't really be sure that its going to happen. Which is unfortunate, IMO, because I think the PPA is very clearly a strong, positive force for poker.
Once the petition wasn't delivered as originally stated , the organization should have put out a statement and explained why it wasn't (Sudden schedule change, still want to do in person, etc). When nothing is said until someone asks about it, then the goalposts start to move a little bit, it just looks sloppy and incrementally hurts the PPA's credibility. If a major PPA initiative ends up being viewed in the same way, it would be a real problem for the organization.
So my take is, its a minor issue but it should have been handled more pro-actively once we knew the petition wasn't being delivered.. Hopefully the next time something similar happens its handled better. Minor mistakes aren't that bad, especially with small (in terms of employees), young organizations. Just apologize, move on, learn from them, and use them to avoid bigger mistakes down the road.
I hope this makes sense.