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| Subject: I wonder what Ernie thinks about all this? | |
Author: ?? | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 04:27:12 07/08/13 Mon In reply to: Head On A Stick Hunter 's message, "Is Laura Berger the one who outed Ernie and his partner, Ric." on 14:10:07 07/05/13 Fri [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: I think anything is possible, but I am not in a position to make any accusations against any individuals without proof. The entire episode has been very hurtful and disturbing to me because it prevents me from doing something I love, and I don't know the motive or the rationale behind it. (more inside) | |
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Author: Ernie Koneck [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 07:01:05 07/08/13 Mon And frankly, there's not a thing I can do about it. I get questioned all the time about when I'm coming back, and my answer is always "I don't know if I'm ever coming back," in any kind of official capacity. Maybe volunteers should start asking Bob that question, though to be fair to Bob, his hands may be tied by MAO. I'm not sure who from MAO contacted him about me - Art or Sam. If it was Art, maybe they don't care as much? If it was Sam, maybe they're as adamant as ever? I truly don't know. I also don't know how widespread support for me is within MCO. There are plenty of people who express their support, but there may be just as many who say nothing. So far, no one has come up to me and said "Good riddance!" so I guess that's a good sign. Haha! But it would be interesting to see a secret ballot involving all volunteers from all committees given a vote: let him back in, keep him out, don't know who he is, don't care - just to see how the numbers shake out. If they were overwhelmingly positive, maybe Bob could make a case with MAO. In a perfect world, I would come back in a heartbeat, but not as an ED. My former program is in good hands with Tom, Kari and Leslie, and I've spent enough time as an ED. I would prefer to be a Deputy/Field Director because they all seem to be overloaded with work, but most of all I'd like to work in 3 areas: 1) developing a written manual for EDs on rules and regulations, policies and procedures and best practices for running a local. It would help take some of the pressure off the Field Directors, and part of every fall meeting would be focused on certain sections of the manual so EDs learned the various areas in depth; as an outside looking in the past 2 years I've been somewhat dismayed by some of the blatant rules violations that have gone on and been allowed. 2) Corporate fund raising - contrary to what most of you know about my career, the vast majority of it has been spent in consumer products marketing with a fair amount of sales experience tied to it. My personal dream/goal would be to develop a network of corporate sponsors that would become the primary source of scholarship funding for MCO, without the long-term goal of eliminating reliance on contestant ad-selling as a source of scholarship dollars. I may be the only person in the state who feels this way, but I'm very uncomfortable with the notion that the money awarded to contestants in scholarship is raised by the contestants themselves. If that's not literally true, then the organization needs to do a much better job communicating that there are other sources of scholarship funds. In any event, I would anticipate targeting major CA corporations and making presentations to them in conjunction with current and former titleholders - who I think are the single best marketing tool this organization has. It doesn't have to just be the current Miss California, but can be former state and local titleholders as well, some of them selected because their experience may tie in especially well to a particular sponsor. I would anticipate a multi-year campaign, that would also include continuing building of the Century Club and Gold Sponsor programs as well as further development of the titleholder alumnae network, with the ultimate goal of all scholarships funded by non-contestants. By no means would I let contestants off the hook for selling program book ads. However, I would use the funds to pay for contestant-related expenses like meals, housing, production-related expenses (more stage lighting!) that directly impact them during pageant week. 3) Contestant recruiting: This is the area that could really spell the end of the this program if we don't do a better job of it. Some locals do a superb job. Others don't. From what I can tell, and I freely admit my vision isn't really clear on this point, my impression is that most opens do a pretty lousy job, relying almost exclusively on returning contestants. The fact is the 61 girls on stage at Miss California represented just 280 contestants who competed at one or more locals statewide. So the ratio of titleholders to contestants is less than 1:5. That's not very high. Four years ago, there 350 girls competing statewide. Now, we can all argue about the many reasons why girls don't compete, and acknowledge that this program isn't for everyone, but in a state with 38 million people, I can't believe there are at least one or two thousand who would be interested. I think the answer may be a combination of things: aggressive use of social media at the local and state level, a second web site that focuses on the Miss California experience and sells the program; the current web site is extremely functional for people in the organization (maybe the best in the nation in that regard), but doesn't offer a lot for newcomers wanting to find out more, and rather than expanding it, it might be more user-friendly to create a second site with a totally different purpose. And by the way, I happen to know a certain Miss California 2013 who would love to spearhead such a project. School visits may work in some communities. AN experiment I personally started but wasn't able to finish when I got kicked out, was posting on as many high school Facebook pages as I could find about our Teen pageant. It may be worth a shot, especially for structured pageants. Also, check out the Facebook pages of any colleges in your territory. So that's what I'd like to do. California is Miss America's most amazing state in so many ways and this year's webcast was the first opportunity for the rest of the nation to get a taste of it. Virtually all the comments I saw were positive (except for the dark lighting) but people were amazed at the calibre of our contestants. So that's my very long answer to a very short question. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: Ernie, I would KILL to have you working on those three projects. I am so hopeful that one day you'll be back in an official capacity- we NEED you. | |
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Author: <3 [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 07:25:29 07/08/13 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Ernie, I would KILL to have you working on those three projects. I am so hopeful that one day you'll be back in an official capacity- we NEED you. | |
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Author: Let's get Ernie back! [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 07:47:20 07/08/13 Mon MCO would definitely benefit from Ernie returning! Ernie, you are needed! [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: This volunteer loves you and appreciates everything you do for our girls in an official capacity or not. MAO lost out big time when they chose to kick out such a dedicated volunteer. | |
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Author: Cristine Strysko [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 08:17:41 07/08/13 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: I still don't know what the big deal is. He does/did the books for a adult production company. Hell somebody has to! All I can say is that it must have been one hell of a slow news week. I've said it before but, the national pageant had a judge that negogiated her own daughter's sex tape where she was urinated on, yet MAO forced out someone whose crime was doing keeping records and making sure taxes were paid for a company. | |
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Author: JEEZ [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 08:29:56 07/08/13 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |