your comment (fwd)

[Kathie Brosemer <kathie@cleannorth.org>]

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Date: Monday, October 28, 2002 8:03 AM -0500
From: Kathie Brosemer <kathie@cleannorth.org>
To: "campjd@soonet.ca" <campjd@soonet.ca>
Subject: your comment

Good morning John.

All of the posters on the Soonet page with the exception of Tom Stephenson
were responding to their observations "from the outside" of the Clean North
events in the past.  Our worst BOYD was the one two years ago at the
Consumers building.  It was chaos.  I have no doubt that volunteers took
"stuff" home.

We have continuously improved our procedures since then.

1.  Five very highly trained and long-term trusted volunteers are on the
technical floor to watch what's going on.  They are:  Dan Brosemer, Tim
Lynham, David Basham, Mike Chikoski, and Jim Dew.

2.  Over the years we have gotten to know which of our event-only technical
volunteers are highly trustworthy, too, and we enlist their help to watch
what's going on.  Some of them are Gisele Chikoski, John Elliott, Dan
Grzelak, Andrew Eakett, and there are others.

3.  We hold a volunteer information and screening night at which time we go
through safety rules and procedures with any new people who want to work in
the technical area.  They must sign a form saying they will abide by our
procedures.  Among our rules are:

they must pay for anything they take that doesn't make it to the sales
floor. they must wait until the end of the day before taking anything off
the sales table they must fill in a volunteer purchase form listing
everything they plan to take, a fair price for that item, and get each line
initialled by our "tech managers" - the guys with red badges listed in #1
above.  Yes a volunteer could fool me, but he could not fool these guys.  I
know that.

4.  We develop a price list for each event, done by two of the people in #1
above, and these are the starting prices for the day's event.  We are not
attempting to be a cheap source of parts for resellers.  However, prices
come down towards the end of the day and if you're willing to take a chance
on something being unsold, you can get it cheaper.  Prices are not set by
the volunteer wanting to take the item home.

5.  At our volunteer screening, we are looking for "attitude", not
technical skills.  The skills are a dime a dozen.  We want people who will
listen, who won't violate our safety rules, who show a willingness to abide
by our other rules, who won't harass other volunteers or salespeople.  I
sent one home with instructions not to return, this year.

6.  We are constantly harassed by "shoppers" who hang around the entire
day, belittle our sales volunteers, demand lower prices, demand access to
the back area, stare at all equipment coming in, go out to the parking lot
and intercept equipment coming in with offers to "help carry" and take it
to their own cars.  Many people do not understand that we cannot allow the
general public access to the back area, in order to keep control of the
problems we've been accused of here.  We've been cursed at, shouted at, and
insulted by people wanting to see all the test equipment, our volunteers'
own tools and equipment they lend for the event, and all the dead hardware.
It is unsafe to allow the public back there, we have no records of who they
are, and we cannot trace them or get waiver forms signed.  Our volunteers
have their personal belongings there and cannot be expected to work while
they have to watch over their shoulders to make sure their jacket and
wallet stays where they put it.

One fellow this time arrived at the opening of the sale, asked about the
back room, was told only volunteers, and claimed to be "too busy" to
volunteer.  Of course, many people are too busy, that's fair enough.  But
he stayed at the sale from 10 am to 4 pm. All day!  He was not interested
in volunteering to help, just in having access to the parts.  These kinds
of people, whether registered on Soonet or not, are not the types whose
comments I would consider valid.

I expect some of the complaints come from people who imagine all kinds of
good stuff is back there and they are not allowed to see it.  People come
expecting we will have 17 inch monitors for sale!  This is a junk recycling
program, for goodness sake!

7.  There is one fellow selling stuff on Soonet that he took out of our
"dead" pile.  How can I go and say that on soonet?  It is all stuff that is
on his volunteer purchase form.  He did not sneak it out, or hide it from
us.  It is all stuff that we could not sell because it was too risky - CD
rom drives that had been dropped, hard drives with bad sectors, etc.  If he
wants to fix them and sell them (within hours?!?!?), should I try to stop
him?  We were unwilling to take the risk that someone would come back to us
and say this is broken, I want my money back.  Should I stop him from doing
that?  It pisses people off to see it for sale on Soonet, but I know for a
fact this was stuff that would, rightly, have gone onto that recycling
truck.  Is Caveat Emptor too much to expect?  Why do people believe we
should have sold them this junk?

8.  I am greatly frustrated by these criticisms.  I am trying to take a
high road here and not interfere with people, but there are a great deal of
misconceptions out there about why and how we do this program.  Our
planning manual is posted in the list archives at
http://lists.cleannorth.org and that link is also posted on Clean North's
webpage front page right now.  People could find out how we do things if
they wanted to do so before screaming "unfair".  They don't try.  No one
posting on Soonet has even sent an email to info@cleannorth.org asking for
any explanation about how we do things.

The junk people bring us is 98% that, just junk.  It would cost the school
boards $6.50 US PER MONITOR to get this recycled.  We do it for them for
free.   Ever spend an 8-hr day lifting and carrying monitors?  Our
volunteers work their butts off for a great benefit to this community, and
we get trashed because a few tech-heads can't find the parts they IMAGINE
we have behind the barriers!

Please don't take up their cry.  It's beneath you.

k


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