Mike Ferrara in gray


Both downsizing and outsourcing can be iether good or bad. Downsizing is usually done to improve efficiency (profit)

Increased profit at the expense of the consumer's welfare has not proven to be a good long-term strategy.

and outsourcing is usually done to better focus on core businesses...)buy vs make). Somebody is still doing the making though.

Mexicans are making Fords, Guatemalans are making Jockey Shorts, Costa Ricans are making Wranglers, Vietnamese are making Nikes, and the Chinese are making damn near everything else. Multinationals are pocketing the profits and the gap between rich and poor widens every day. In short, declarative, sentences, please explain how this is good for America.

Your logic is almost too flawed to sort out. Without profit, no one has a job and there are no consumers.

First off, you referred to outsourcing which simply means that the goods or services are being purchased. It says nothing about where they are purchased from.

What's wrong with a gap between the rich and poor?

What's wrong with doing business where it's most profitable?

I'd like to hear an afa and guild examiner give there comments.

For the afa exams, the shoes have to be finished. You shouldn't have off centered toe clips, punches too big to fit in your fullering, blown out material from your fuller, frog eyes, gulleys in the middle of your stock because it's not flat, inconsistent nail depths, large cold shuts, etc...

Beside the inconsistent nail depths none of this really matters. What it does suggest is if you had to fit a shoe tight, you would probably run into problems due to your lack of forging shoes to a finished product.

So in other words, nobody really used the members only section.

Did you contact your region rep to see what was going on with the members site and downloadable stuff?

Can you get the minutes from the afa office?

I didn't realize it was the Dick show.

Did you and your state chapter get involved to show you want these things?

because I sure can't find any frog eyes.

By what methodology?

Are you entirely sure about all this? Pictures from the guild section would highly suggest otherwise. no?

There was a brief period of time when the members only section was used by the members to have discussions with AFA leadership. Leadership didn't like being in the hot seat. The forum allowed members to directly question leadership. Leadership appeared to be uncomfortable with that situation.
A new policy was implimented where instead of members being able to download minutes of meetings from the web site, they were required to contact their regional rep and formally request minutes of meetings. There are no minutes of a meeting where the BoD created this policy. Must have happened "on the fly.
See above. Not aware of the current "policy."
In the members only forum, it seemed to me that Dick took most of the heat. Methinks the rest of the leadership was hiding behind him hoping he could "calm the sea." Lack of forum participation by the rest of the leadership (in the members only forum) left Dick as the defacto spokesman for the leadership.
I had the impression that when the AFA restructured the BoD, that I was supposed to contact my representative directly rather than going through my chapter representative. I used the members only forum along with Gary and several other members.

Since the furum already existed, why should I need to let leadership know that I wanted something that already existed and I was already using? If I didn't want it, then I wouldn't use it. I do not know any AFA member that asked to NOT have a members only section. Do you?

Removing the members only section - a benefit already in hand and in use. I don't follow your logic that a member should get involved and show they want something that they are already involved in and using.

Do you accept the reason that it was taken away because it wasn't being used? Where is the logic in removing something that is being used based on lack of use?

Bill with your eagle eye, you need to be a tester/examiner, are you one with the AFA or Guild? If not you need to join.

As far a fitting a shoe course or fine, that the beauty of making shoe. Why would I punch a shoe course if I need a fine fitting shoe - maybe you would.

Why don't you make the same shoes and post em. Not afraid to show my work!

And if you want to continue this conversation, it needs to be taken over to the Guild site. And when you do, please do a pic by pic evaluation, because I sure can't find any frog eyes.

Oh goodie! I just love scratch and sniff pictures. Don't you? If you want to have a discussion about the finish quality of various brands of rasps and how each would appear in dark and light colored feet at various moisture levels based on photography done with a cheap digital camera, using direct, high contrast lighting, please start another thread.

This thread is supposed to be discussing the relivance of the AFA. Seems like everything else is being discussed. Which is OK by me. But we ought to move the technical stuff to a different thread where we can really get down and dirty in our discussion of lighting, optics, exposure values, CCD image filtering and processing and color temperatures. I find it all very facenating.

No I expect my regional rep to provide the information, by a letter or E-mail. After all communication was one of the reasons we went to the new board structure. Was it not.


Yep. I have made my desires known on this form as well as phone conversations with the past past president, the past president, and the current president.

As far as the chapter goes since the new BOD structure the chapter has no say in what happens. The only real reason for a local association to be an AFA Chapter is for the liability insurance.

If you really think government oversight and regulations have caused the problems with our economy, please explain your reasoning. If you like, please feel free to quote Rush or any other self-styled pundit, this forum has grown somewhat stogy of late and could use the laughter.

And I'm sure it's possible there's a rasp somewhere that gouges a foot like that.

Ah yes, the good old do it alone method. When I mentioned state chapter, I meant get other people involved with the same idea and present it to your rep with numbers behind you.