Derick, I was and am speaking for myself only. I promise you that there will be those who agree and those who disagree on this AB. Anytime the AB sends out a message collectively, it is signed individually by the AB members who concur. Believe what you will, but I seriously doubt that anyone cares a whit about your "popularity." Instead the concern was what the *opinion* was of the majority of NC CCs regarding the job you are doing as their SC. Oh yes, it is about your performance! USGW was designed to be a bottom's up organization dependant on the good will of dedicated volunteers who believe in the goals of the Project to move forward and succeed. What the poll showed is that NC is in better shape than it was, but that there is still room for *lots* of improvement! I am well aware of the problems in the state spanning several SCs - the point was to establish currently, that under your leadership, the problems are being addressed and corrected in a way that most NC CCs find acceptable. The poll established that. If the poll used words you claim are "key" it is by coincidence as I can assure you the words were put together by three AB members, one against a poll, one for it and one willing, but not convinced it would help. We created questions we thought would bring us a fair assessment of the nature of the problems (or not), no more no less. Read whatever you will into it, but you have the truth, here, in writing from the person who instigated the concept. Indeed as SC, you function in NC to "get things done," but you also must demonstrate as an SC in this Project that you are capable of doing your job in a way that is acceptable to most of your state volunteers. In other words, someone who "gets the job done" without "people skills" will not last long. The poll did not validate all your actions in any way shape or form. What they did is to send a message to the AB that, at this point, almost 2/3 of NC CCs are content to continue to work with you to improve the NC Project. USGW is not the "business world" and tactics used there do not work in a volunteer organization such as ours. I completely agree with you that calm in NC will not be determined by the AB, but it is the AB's job to watch and to pay attention, investigate and "advise" when it is brought to our attention that things in any state have gone sour. And yes, I agree, we are all learners here. We are co-collaborators in this Project, we are all here volunteering our time to further the goals of this Project - we are not enemies and we are not at war. I hope you have learned that preserving civility must be accomplished in a civil way in a Project like this unless you are trying to create anarchy yourself. As a business man, surely you know that "who you are" as a person matters little as you do your job. It is no different here. The AB is charged to look at problems, not personalities. Time is an issue for us all. I too yearn for the days when I had the luxury of just working on my county pages as my heart was content to do. But, I was asked to take a turn representing CCs and, reluctantly, (as I have *many* board experiences under my belt in the course of my own career), I accepted the call, put my name to the test and was elected. I do not regret the choice, but the experience has not been anything but the hard daily work I expected. I sat recently and looked at the way the Project was when I began my term and compared that to what I see regularly now. I knew full well coming in that board work is tediously slow, that you will never please everyone, and that someone will always be mad at you. Those truths have held water, but shifts have occurred and I am proud to have played some small part in that. September is not too far off for many of us. Jana Black