Recent amusings

Yesterday, I went to my volleyball club's AGM -- the first one they've
had in nearly 6 years. There were 13 points on the agenda, most of
them having numerous subpoints and the subpoints having subpoints. Do
you think we got through it all in two and a half (!) hours? In the
end, I walked out because the whole thing was frankly ridiculous.

One of the more ridiculous bits was the treasurer's part. He reported
that we had a £3000 shortfall. His solution to making up the money:
to ask us to continue paying dues, even when the season and training
was over.

However, what should have really been raised was this: why was there
such a financial discrepancy? Most obviously, it was that people were
not being responsible enough to pay their £25 a month on time. Less
obviously, but, to me, more of a causation, is the attitude and
culture of the club oligarchs that values quantity (the biggest mass
of people possible) over quality (nurturing and retaining the existing
players). But really, it came down to an admission by the treasurer:
he didn't like to ask people for the money. So really, the club had a
£3000 debt because he was embarrassed to ask people to pony up? But
he sure as hell wasn't embarrassed to ask me and all the other mugs
paying their fees pay more money.

Let's see: inequality (my big pet peeve) + money = the appearance of
ghetto Autumn. This side of Autumn doesn't usually show herself to
these nice little British people, but it was just so absurd that she
wouldn't stay down. I mean, really people, it's fairly simple: you
don't pay, you don't play. See, Johnny Cochrane isn't the only one
who can come up with the rhymes.