Hi all. I wanted to take a moment and respond to you all about the situation with
Beaufort County. I know you've heard from some of the ASCs, but not from me.
First off, I want to encourage anyone with a question to email me privately. The
decision to remove Beaufort County from Sarah Hall was solely my decision and the ASCs
were informed after I informed Sarah Hall.
Secondly, like Angie has already mentioned, personnel issues are not going to be
discussed in "public". I just don't think that is the right thing to do.
I've been a supervisor and manager for years, and would never talk about personnel
issues in public in that setting, so I don't think it is right to do that here either.
I understand that that puts me at a disadvantage here, since others are talking about
this publicly, but that is just the way it has to be from my perspective.
As far as alleviating your concerns, I do want to do that. I'd rather be seen as a
cheerleader than a disciplinarian for sure! You all know that the USGenWeb is a great
project. You all found this project the same way I did, I'm sure. . . doing your own
research and finding a county site that helped you and you visited other county sites and
so on. If you are like me, your first course of action when you find a new family
connection that leads to a different county is to visit that county site and see what is
there. There are other projects like USGenWeb, but to date, I've not found where
those projects to have the consistent quality of USGenWeb. For that reason, having a
USGenWeb site is very special to me. I hope you all feel the same.
I do want to respond to one thing. There is absolutely no way that I would EVER take a
county away from a county coordinator for no reason. Exactly what purpose would that
serve? I regret the turmoil that has been on this list for the past few days. I
certainly don't enjoy conflict! Never have. Therefore, I can assure you that my
decision was never taken lightly, and was a decision that has literally taken 6 months to
get to this point - and I might add that this means that conversations took place with
Sarah 6 months ago.
Folks can hunt for a hidden agenda all they want, but my only agenda is this: I want
NCGenWeb to be the best project in USGenWeb! To that end, all I ask from each county
coordinator is that they following the posted guidelines. Some are able to do a lot more
to their sites than others. I know that I don't have the time to do all that I wish I
could with mine. But I do what I can and I think that the researchers appreciate that.
Just do the same, and we'll all be making NCGenWeb a better place for the
researchers.
As a side note, I want to let folks know that the ncgenweb-discuss list is a voluntary
list, so those that are aggravated by politics do not have to subscribe to it. However, I
think that this list is a great place to discuss ideas and new information, so I encourage
you to stick with it if you can, as we get back to business.
I appreciate you all!! -- even those that are questioning my actions and motives! It
keeps me on the straight and narrow. <G> Just don't lose heart. This too will
pass.
Denise