Pssst... Did anyone notice?

[Guest]

I just noticed that the Friends of Punas Future website is up and running.

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Glob

[David M]

and it has a pic gallery

David

Ninole Resident

[pslamont]

Not thrilled with the fee of $100 to be a voice (voting member)...

[Rob Tucker]

We have had some people complain that they want to be able to vote on how the money is spent but they don/t want to chip in any money. Fact is those who financially support the organization get to have some say in where the money goes. Rather simple actually. People can also form a hui or group to hold a voting membership if they choose.... they just have to appoint a leading member.

We have a substantial number of Participating Members as well. That requires no dues.

It may be that there are other equally effective ways to invest in the community interests. FoPF is working hard on a number of topics. The more members and financial support we have the more we will be able to do.

I just posted our "Amend It" program... press releases went out today

[mella l]

Well we chipped in and being off island refrain from voting. My donation was to support the new web site. I look at is as supporting community organizing, getting people involved, informed and motivated.

mella l
<iframe src="http://pol.moveon.org/palinclock/" frameborder="0" height ="280" width="170"></iframe>
"Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and wrong....because sometime in your life you will have been all of these."

[Guest]

I would think this would be the best $100.00 a Punatic ever spent... depending on how much you love Puna.[]

Just like Mella... I bucked up my money before I even moved back... Puna means that much to me and even more so to my son and his future.

It doesn't mean you have to agree with other FoPF members on everything... but if we can all come together as a loud voice... then I would think that we can make progress.

I doubt the PCDP would have passed w/out the backing of FoPF members.

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Glob

[Seeb]

Getting something past for Puna was a great accomplishment , and something needed to be done about large scale slash and burn development .
But being the devil’s advocate- a 100 buck a year membership to have a say ,more rounds of endless meetings and the influence of nonresidents. Puts icing on the cake of those who argue that Fopf and the pcdp don’t represent the needs or wants of the average residents trying to scrap by and raise kids and hoping they can be more than maids and eco tour guides for rich mainlanders and trust fund babys
After working and taking care of the kids and running around who wants to or can spend hours in some meeting going nowhere because some pseudo hippy outpatient starts talking about we don’t need roads cuze were not going to have cars. Instead of spending time with your kids/wife or working a side job or anything useful.

[Rob Tucker]

There is no $100 membership to have a say. Lots of our members have plenty of say and pay zero per year. If you think any local organization can be effective with zero budget then please tell me how. FoPF has hopes of lowering the voting membership dues and that may occur in the future. For the present we formed up to become effective this year not in 2012. This is not intended to be a social club. It is intended to be a lobbying group and that is exactly what we are doing. We started with the simple question of "Can Puna Have More Clout? So far the answer seems to be yes.

There is one factor about our voting member dues which I have not mentioned. Other local groups, with annual dues of say $10, have had a history of takeovers. When a council person for example is unhappy that a local org doesn't agree with them it has been easy to send in a batch of buddies to an annual meeting, pay the small dues and take over. Take control. This has happened here before. It would be quite okay if those "taking over" actually stayed and worked on community issues. History is they don't. They jam up the organization, mess up the books, discourage participation and leave. In cyberspace these are called "trolls".

Knowing that history and wanting to take some effective action this year FoPF set the bar a little bit higher. We only seek members who are committed to promoting the interests of Puna. Those interests are defined by our member's voices - and many of those voices pay no dues.

Also we have formed in a manner to avoid endless meetings. A lot of our group communications, polling of members and voting takes place on the internet by email. That saves time and saves gas and saves having 30 people spend 20 minutes or an hour listening to someone like me talk. We think that is efficient and respectful of people's time. We have had face to face meetings when necessary and when our members desire to do so.

FoPF feels that our district needs some consistency in it's advocacy. Two year council terms leave some serious peaks and valleys in attending to issues. Having a year-in / year-out long term approach will hopefully reap benefits. But FoPF will only ultimately be as effective as it's membership. The only reason to consider supporting an organization such as FoPF is to try to achieve more as a group than we can alone.

Why not join in with FoPF? It doesn't cost anything.... and if you actually find it to be productive you can choose, like others have, to support it financially.

Rob Tucker, President
FoPF <friendsofpuna1@mail.com>