Good Concept....Bad Result!

I think that Sue has some good points.
I didn’t attend the meeting, because I have come to the point that I feel it is a waste of time. I appreciate that some people in Costambar are willing to try to do something , however I still miss the intention to include the whole community and not only the same little group as always.
I realize that Pat made an invitation in several languages , but if the invitation was only send to the e mail group and posted on this forum it didn’t reach most people in Costambar.
I don’t know if any of you got a personal invitation posted at your home in your mailbox?
I didn’t get any and I know about several others, who didn’t get any either.
It is indeed a hard work to gather a big part of the community and the only way is to speak to everybody - from door to door.

The invitation to the second meeting was for paying and non paying residents - for haters and lovers we were told…. The meeting should have been handled with that kind of respect and with a true wish to listen to the non payers also.

It is a fact, that several things were handled very bad the last two years and some people cannot just forget that and pay their fees as if nothing had happened.

As a matter of fact many people in this community aren’t able either to forget another past and every time somebody speaks about Costa de Ambar another part of the community claims that “we don’t want the times with Camps and Costa de Ambar back” although Camps is not here any more. If somebody speaks about City Hall picking up our garbage, then some people claim “oh no, we tried that before and it was a disaster”. although the Major has changed since then.

As well as some people in this community don’t want Costa de Ambar or City Hall, because of bad experiences in the past, another part of the community don’t want APC, because of bad experiences too. Where is the difference and who can claim to have more right than others?

Then I just don’t understand, why it is necessary at all to speak about ,what language we are supposed to use.
If we want to live in a Spanish speaking country it is our duty to learn Spanish. It is as simple as that. If we have any respect for the country we are living in, we must respect their language too. Anybody moving to the United States MUST indeed learn English, so why do we expect things to be any different here?
Many people don’t speak English and many Italians and Germans for example have enough trouble learning Spanish and why should they deal with English too?

In order to approach as many people as possible I think it is a good idea to make two meetings - one in English and one in Spanish. We actually did that in the past and it was very good. We even tried to make a third meeting in German, but we gave up after a few times, because too few people attended that meeting ( But I am sure we could have tried harder).
General Meetings should be ONLY in Spanish, which is the legal and official language in this country. You don’t understand Spanish? Well, you bring a translator.
It would be possible off course to write an agenda and the minutes in both English and Spanish, but the meeting should be conducted in Spanish only.
( and my mother language is either English nor Spanish - I have had to learn both)

I know its not easy to please everybody at meetings, if only we could
I dont want anybody to think that I am anti APC i am not at all.

I would love to see just what the APC could do if they had the funds, I am sure we would see big changes here in Costambar if all paid there way.
This is my home now and like others here its my only home, we have sold everything we had in the UK so i want the best for Costambar for sure.

The thought of no APC or simular is a frightening thought, no security, no maintainence,no garbage collection we would see crime figures go through the roof, and be over run with vermine
But i dont see having a go at non payers as the way to go,
In the almost 3 years that i have lived here nobody has been to visit the people who dont pay,
I have been asked to be on a public relation commitee, i am not sure if this will involve visiting people who dont pay but i hope so, ( some will never pay but some just might do if asked to and explained why)

Thank you very much about your bagel comment see you soon

Sue

Sue try not to get too upset about the language thing. It is an impossibility to cover all the languages spoken in Costambar. I t has been tried in the past and it became its own problem, we used to try to translate everything into 5 languages had to give it up eventually because it became unmanageable. We have had the problem at Sunday Mass for sometime now, that has not been resolved I am sorry to say.
It seems to me that the resentment (and I could be wrong) is that we use English, it is so because it is the language that the majority of people understand even if they stem from another background.
Love your bagels :-)
Suzb

Mark
Raf was at the meeting, it was eventualy translated into Spanish but too late for the person who reqested it,

I still think that its wrong not to pay APC, We will continue to do so, but right now i feel that they have no chance of getting non payers on board if this is the attitude at meetings,
This meeting was a brain storming to find out the good and bad in Costambar, collate the info and try to work with the results.

But when people shout pay your dues its no longer that sort of meeting but a APC meeting.

Good on you APC for the concept and also for trying, but when you have the same old baying crowd doing the same old it cant work.

This attitude does as much damage to APC as the people who dont pay, in my humble opinion of course

Sue

I'm surprised by what sue says about translations since the APC Vocal for communications - Raf Beliard - is, from my experience, adequately fluent in English & German to facilitate translations for Spanish, English & German speakers. Maybe he wasn't present?

I thought the concept of yesterdays open meeting at Villa Marlena, was good, and it drew the attendance of three residents that previously had shown no interest in joining debate over Costambars future.
These three people, who I will not name..but those that attended will know who they are, attended the meeting, therefore must have some interest and concern about Costambars future, and could possibly have been persuaded to join the ranks of those that pay APC dues.
Those three people walked away from the meeting for the following reasons...
The first, requested that the English commentary be translated into Spanish, and this drew comments that this person spoke English. Now, English is not this persons first language, and sometimes he loses the content of what is being said. And, as he quite rightly stated, this is the Dominican Republic, and translation should have been available without request, sadly it was not. He decided to leave the meeting and was heckled by certain members of the audience, and one comment was.."Pay you dues"..this comment and others were totally uncalled for.
When the heckling started, the second person left and was also heckled by some of the audience.
The third person was from Germany, and requested translation into German, this was unavailable and therefore he too decided to leave.
I would have thought that as we are a multi-lingual community, thought would have been given to those of us who do not have an understanding of the English language.
Other people left for various reasons, one of which has already been addressed on this forum, and some of those were heckled too, not a good way to draw the community together.
My point is, three people were in attendance who could have been persuaded to pay the APC fees, but due to no forethought being given to provide translation, childish heckling etc, they left the meeting, and it is quite apparant that it will now be a difficult, if not impossible task to get these people to see APC or anything concerned, however vaguely, with APC in a good light..I fear you have lost these people forever.
The mindless action of a few of those in attendance, turned what could have been a potentially life changing meeting for Costambar, into a farce.
And why the APC board members in attendance did not step in and halt the rediculous taunts and heckling, I do not know!..they could have nipped the problems in the bud, quietened the heckling, and helped the meeting along in the right way.
There were plus and minus boards for people to write what they thought was good and bad about Costambar, and someone had placed "Childish Behaviour" as one of the key dislikes on the minus board..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was clear that any other people who wanted to leave were afraid to do so for fear of themselves being heckled, myself included.
I decided that the meeting was going nowhere fast, and decided to return to work at The Anchor, I stood up, invited the vocal part of the meeting to heckle me if they wanted to, and left.
If people do have a problem with individuals, for whatever reason, it should never have been voiced at an open meeting to discuss the future of Costambar.
The moment the comment was made "Pay your dues"..it became an APC meeting, or as good as!

Sue