THE COURIER’S LACK OF JUDGEMENT?
I cannot believe the utter lack of judgement on your part in printing Bill Frye’s letter for his reasons in leaving the HMGS Board of Directors. It was a completely divisive and inflammatory letter which under no imaginable circumstances could be of positive impact on the hobby. It will do no good in healing the wounds in the hobby and the organization or in improving it. Wisely, the editors of the HMGS newsletter saw fit not to publish it. Your publication of it aligns The Courier in a partisan stance that The Courier, up till now, had wisely declined to take. Even had it appeared in the newsletter its effect would have been limited to the membership alone. Your publication has spread the controversy now to the whole hobby.
The members of the Board of Directors of HMGS, individually and collectively, bear a heavy responsibility and deserve much criticism, for allowing their personal partisan struggles to pollute the reservoir of good will by failing to keep these disagreements strictly and confidentially among themselves It saddens me that you have now chosen to dirty otherwise clean hands. You have made a worse indiscretion by broadcasting it far beyond the confines of the membership of the HMGS.
HMGS purports to be an organization whose mission is to promote the hobby and to make it better. It obviously will be doing so for ALL who wargame with historical miniatures, not just for HMGS members. The doings of HMGS are therefore of interest to ALL historical miniature gamers. What happens in that organization is important, therefore, to ALL gamers and The Courier will continue to report on the hobby’s most important and influential organization - DICK BRYANT
RESIGNATION IS AN ABROGATION OF DUTY?
I would like to respond to Bill Frye’s letter published in issue 82 of The Courier. First, in all fairness, I must disclose that I was appointed to fulfill the term of a previous officer that left for personal reasons and have never been elected to a seat on the Board of Directors. Currently, I am the Secretary of HMGS Midwest and have little knowledge of the individuals involved in Mr. Frye’s letter.
I must firmly state I was aghast by Mr. Frye’s remarks. To be an officer of an HMGS Chapter is about stewardship to the organization and little else. Stewardship means the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. Officers that resign violate the implied agreement they made to those that elected them and the membership at large. Exceptions, of course, apply for reasons of health, employment and family matters.
Nevertheless, none of the reasons given by Mr. Frye were for health, employment, or family matters. This letter was an attack on a fellow board member. Resignation and public attack are an infantile response to a difficult situation. Board members need to remain focused on the duty they have to the membership. If an officer feels the chapter is going to “hell in a hand basket”, he/she has an obligation to stay on and vote his/her conscience.
This unseemly airing of HMGS-East’s laundry was a mistake and an embarrassment to all HMGS Chapters. Shame on Bill Frye for shunning his responsibility and resigning. Shame on The Courier for printing such sorted (sic) details without any kind of veracity check. We have a phrase in the mid-west; IT IS ABOUT TOY SOLDIERS. Proper stewardship is about serving the membership. Any HMGS board member, no matter what chapter is involved, must avoid such Shakespearean histrionics. We may not be paid, but we can act as professionals.
In the editorial of the same issue, you state. “HMGS is not here to service THEM (Meaning the membership) but to service the HOBBY”. I suggest that being an officer for any chapter is about serving the members. Resigning, except in extreme cases, is an abrogation of a duty the officer voluntarily undertook. Resigning for the reasons Mr. Frye provided is a character flaw.
Bill Frye’s Response
I didn’t sign up for underhanded attacks and slander, I signed up to do some good work and not be thwarted in doing it because of someone’s ego. If I have a character flaw, I would guess it would be I won’t put up with those attitudes, and refuse to work with those that hold them no matter what the case.
OTHER COMMENTS ON THE LAST ISSUE
I enjoyed Greg Novak’s article on Valverde, I mean Green Valley. It was well written. I just wish it had given Confederate strength in English, for those of us who don’t have a copy of Johnny Reb.
The article comparing WWII battalion rules was very good also. It should be noted that the Fire and Fury folks have such good support for Battlefront on their website they have me wavering in my determination to purchase a Thirty Year’s War army.
I was somewhat disappointed by the Deck of Gods article, and felt it used up too much space. And I like the idea of random event cards.
Your reviews of new products were highly appreciated, as always. Would it be possible to add a page to your website with very short reviews of available figure lines? Of particular value would be Barrett Measure ratings, helping the gamer who makes purchases from the Internet to get compatible figures.
The Courier is the only wargaming publication that I regularly purchase. Keep up the good work.
Many thanks for the kind words. it is this kind of feedback that we need to help us to determine what should be in each issue. Your website idea is a good one and something we have been working on. The problem being how much memory all the necessary photos take up. But I do intend to implement this by the beginning of ‘02- - DICK BRYANT
WANTS ARTICLES ON CAMPAIGNS I have moved on to the complexities of campaigning and would like to see more articles on simple campaigns
Issue #78 was almost totally dedicated to campaigns in many forms. But we do plan on having more campaign articles in the future. If you don’t have #78, it is available as a back issue for $8. or checkout Mag Web.com where all our back issues will eventually be posted. - DICK BRYANT
Back to Table of Contents -- Courier # 83
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 2002 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com