As some people know, my rugby team is bidding on hosting the 2006 Bingham CupI am chairing the bid committee and working out some of the logistics so we can put out a top notch bid proposal that will secure the games for our team.
The problem that I am having is, of course, that comes with being the committee chair -- you get a lot of unsolicited advice from people who have not been a part of any of the discussions. Mind you, we have asked the team for feedback on certain issues but not on the glut of comments and offers of help from people. Granted, I'm thankful for it, but if I actually had any hair left on my head it would have been ripped out by now.
Today's adventure came from a supporter of the team who had leads on some potential sponsors and I gave the go ahead (and documentation) to proceed. For the last month I've done nothing but request follow-ups, updates, something, anything to let me know where this stood. Mind you, he's not a member of the committee but he said he had the contacts so I trusted him to pull through and at least get me an answer. Part of me should have known better since the last time he offered to do something it was like pulling teeth to get a response from him. So, after the fourth or fifth email that went unanswered, I was pretty much ready to wash my hands of him. Given the time constraints we are working under, I needed those updates so I would know how to proceed going forward.
Well...after over a month since my initial email, I finally got an email back from him. Of course, in the email was nothing that he said he was going to work on and contains a litany of information regarding things that, for the most part, have already been decided (and not in his favor I might add) and are things, like I said before, he really, in my mind at least, shouldn't have been working on because it's not what he SAID he was going to work on...
I know, I know, I know...I should be grateful for the effort. I am. I am glad he's enthusiastic about this event and bringing it to New York. However, had I gotten timely email responses I could have steered him back on course instead of getting an overabundance of useless information that I really can't do much of anything about. To top it all off, I'm trying not to let my Southern roots show and try to find some balancing act where I thank him for his work but at the same time let him know that about 90% the information contained within his email had already been decided and set up prior to him getting back to me.
Yes, this means I'm trying hard not to pull a Julia Sugarbaker and say something about the night the lights went out in Georgia...
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