Whats funny is the outsiders whould have everyone believe CAP is going down in a ball of flames when the total opposite is true.
1. In london we had almosty 1700 members in attendance. A record no one has ever come close to approaching. Equally impressive is the fact that over 1000 were affiliates, so real affiliate arent leaving us in droves, far from it. Even GPWA, APCW and Casinomeister somehow couldnt resist coming, so despite what they SAY they see tremendous value in CAP Events too.
2. CAP Euro Amsterdam will be the largest affiliate show EVER and coupled with the influx of new retail affiliates we will have well over 2500 attendees.
3. CAP Spring Break is selling out at a record pace and will be a sell out. Its always our funnest time together so that should put more people in a positive frame of mind.
4. Membership increased to over 8100 even while the negative band played on. The negative boards and video cant boast that growth. Sure they make a lot of noise from the same seven to ten posters but they have been hostile towards CAP for years nothing new there. Its always been Greek, Mojo, Caruso, Fergie, Jay Toad and the othe three shift around. Same old suspects. Same non impact players in the game.
CAP isnt going down in a ball of flames at all.
I may be personally as so much hate has been directed at me personally that I am finding it hard to go on and I take things personally and its destroying my heart, but so much of whats going on is illusion and smoke and mirrors.
Early on we made the decision to take the high road and had faith that our members would see through the bullshit without us resposnding openly and fanning the fires. That apparantly was a mistake as so much shit has been thrown at us people cant see through it all and assume a lot of it must be true or we would have responded. This is the danger of pacificism.
I was basically unable to generate traction with my organziation as they thought I was over dramatimizing the amount of damage and confusion all this negative propoganda was causing and due to my health and personal issues I took the easier route and went along with the advice I was being given internally. My mistake. I am going to try my best to win back the faith of the members, but I could sure use as much help as possible. CAP is worth fighting for. And it will grow and prosper in 2009. We just have to make the positive light shine through the dark smoke clouds that have been generated up till now.
Christine and Robin I know I can count on you to be there and in the end we will all be proud of what we did for CAP and the industry.