A discussion of CCRN, a division of GOCRA, the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance.

Obvious disclaimerage: the Management here (that's me) doesn't speak on behalf of CCRN, or any other organization. I shouldn't have to keep saying that, but apparently I do.

CCRN has a meeting on the First Tuesday of each month (NOT in September when it will be on the 2nd Tuesday) at Hamline University School of Law at 7:30pm.

I offer to resign at every meeting. If anyone wants to run it, show up, ask for responsibility, and THEN CARRY OUT THE RESPONSIBILITY. The reason I'm still here is that, over the years I've carried on and others haven't. Politics has a steep learning curve and requires stick-to-it-ivness.

You want to improve the web site, show up and DO IT. You want to edit the newsletter, show up and DO IT. You want to do any other needed WORK, show up and DO IT.

Tim, Al, Lonn, David, John and I do it because we are there doing it.

We aren't gripping, we are working. YOU want to do it, show up.

I've been at it for over 20 years. I created GOCRA and CCRN out of thin air because everyone else was bitching and no one was acting!

I'd love to transfer the responsibility to someone else who would ACTUALLY devote the necessary time, intellect, effort, personal funds, responsibility, and stick-to-it-ivness. Be prepared to give up 1/3 of your life. That means pushing your job aside if needed; cancelling vacations, if needed; ignoring your family every Spring; writing a big check when cash flow is too slow to get a newsletter out; listening to someone claim they could do better at every step of the way. And all for nothing, not even parking money.

But if you take over, you MUST do the job.

Joe Olson
President
GOCRA/CCRN

Joe:

I showed up and did the work for (6 months) I worked building a new web site for CCRN and so did Joel, The way my wife and I were treated by Alfred and Lonn was so abusive that I finally quit.

I have also been to many CCRN meeting (though not for about a year) and have never once heard you offer to resign.

I have been for quite sometime the web master for www.twincitiesidpa.com and Bob likes the work I do for him very much!

I didn’t claim I could do it better, I DID DO IT BETTER! The result being that... well I still remember Alfred screaming at my wife on the phone, and Lonn using the word ‘Evil’ in describing the site I designed, because the boarder was gray.

You say you want the help, but from my experience you don’t.

Gray Skys

For the record, I did help some with the new web site you built for CCRN, but it was largely just a matter of a little wordsmithing, and little more than that. I'm not a website designer, either by trade or avocation, as my own less-than-lovely attempts have shown, over the years.

... but as Joel Rosenberg, just a guy who's been around for awhile . . .

To emphasize: I'm not going to rehash the history around the redesign of the CCRN website, some time ago, and I'm deliberately taking off my site admin's hat for this message.

There's been a couple of references, above, to Alfred Fingulin. I've got a few words to say about Alfred; I've said 'em before, and I'll say 'em again.

Alfred's a friend; he's also one of my heroes. A lot of people don't know about Alfred's role in getting carry reform passed in Minnesota. Alfred quite literally spent years working the tables in gun shows, putting out newsletters, helping to run meetings, and an amazing amount of stuff.

I think I first met Alfred when he was working a table at the MWCA show; he was then, as I've seen him many times since, putting in hours and hours patiently but not in any way condescendingly answering the same questions
over and over again, raising both money and (more importantly, I think) visibility, for the cause.

I was surprised to learn, two years ago, that this whole working-tables-and-answering-questions thing is something that he finds uncomfortable to do, as it always appeared so easy and natural that while I often credited him with the work, I hadn't actually appreciated his work enough

Mea culpa; I'd gotten an important part of it wrong: he wasn't merely putting in more of the hours on that particular important grass-roots organizing effort than, I think, anybody else -- he was doing it, over and over again, despite it being personally uncomfortable to do, because he thought (correctly, in my opinion), that it was necessary, for the cause.

Like I said: he's one of my heroes.

To be clear: In my strongly-held opinion, he is one of a small list of people who is responsible for tens of thousands of us the state of Minnesota being able to get carry permits, to protect ourselves and our families, and without whom that wouldn't have happened.

(Just to keep the record straight: I am not one of those without whom it wouldn't have happened.)

Okay; I got that off my chest. Personal hat off, regular hat back on. Thanks for listening.

I also know Alfred Fingulin and also consider him one of the individuals that cannot be thanked enough for the work he has done over the last 10 years. He has set-up and worked at the CCRN table for almost every gun show during the 10 years that it took to get to the current law we have. Without him and all the work he has done during that time we would not have the law we have today.

I have tried to help him at the gun shows in southern MN. He always was there both days of the shows. I have also helped him enter all the data to get the mailing list for CCRN from all the sign-up sheets people filled out. I know I only did a very small part of the work required to get this data entered. He did the majority of it. Alfred did much more work than most anyone knows. I was fortunate enough to help him at Ahlman's Shooter's Round-Up again this year, like he has been at as long as I can remember.

I also know he was getting very burnt out several of the last years. He is better now. He feels very good about the part he had getting the bills passed. He deserves many thanks from everone in the state!

Thanks Alfred for all your work!

Another thanks here.

I know there where many, many people involved in getting the law passed, and I believe Alfred was one of the front runners in getting this done.

Ditto

Yup; there were many people involved. But there were very few people, I believe, without whom it wouldn't have happened -- and Alfred's one of them. One thing that he's done, I think, better than anybody else is showing people how to be organizers and advocates -- and this is important -- in their own way.

Just to take me, for example -- I'm not an organizer/leader/spokesman-for-anybody, etc. But I've done some, at times, moderately useful (I hope) advocacy, and I learned a lot of that from Alfred.

We all have our own issues and causes that we give of our time and energy. While this cause can affect all of us, there are many other great and noble causes out there as well. I will add my thanks to those who put in time on this issue, but I guess I have a bit of a problem with Joe's holier than thou post. But, hey, we are each responsible for our own attitudes, thoughts and feelings, so in this case, I choose not to be offended.

I was up on the CCRN web-site and notice that they only have a link to AACFI training web-site and no one else's. Now this maybe off topic, but it may not be. Why would a non-profit link to or support only one for profit training orgs?

I would have to think that is because the leaders of CCRN run/own AACFI.

Or, possibly, because nobody else has asked. If I ran an instructor organization -- for-profit or nonprofit -- (which I don't), and I thought that there was any value in being listed there (which I think that there probably is), I'd send a polite email to webmaster@mnccrn.org, asking for a link. I wouldn't expect a quick reply, CCRN/GOCRA being volunteer-run, but I would be surprised if there was none at all, or if I was turned down.

That said, I'm not sure it would be a big deal, either way -- if CCRN were to link to the Forum (not a bad idea, all in all), I'd want to see how many referrals were in the logs.

The CCRN website is woefully out of date with numerous bad links and missing pages. It also has outdated information. I am sure it is hard to do the page on an all volunteer basis, but I won't judge the ethics of the owners based upon such an outdated site. I understand fully the concerns expressed above, and I think I'll ask John Caile about the site etc.

private message sent to phorvick in responce.