Over the past year this board has seen drama, friendship, struggle, success, and general change. For some here the events I will describe are completely unknown, but for some their wounds are still there. What I will reveal will most likely discredit my name here. I am doing it because you all deserve to know what happened completely last year. So in the next few paragraphs all will be revealed...everything I have done, and all I failed to do. Only one person on this board has known the truth, now you will all know.
It is July of 2013, the first season of SA is beginning. Fresh off success from winning WED's Think Different Contest, I jumped at the chance to showcase my skills again. After we were placed into new teams and the first challenge I began working with my team. This team at the time included @WED99, @Matt7187, and @MAScreamin'. For tedious details: the first challenge was to create an annual marketing plan. Anyways, I have a close friend that I frequently talk to and was talking to him about this new competition. Long story short I convinced him to join knowing that he would be automatically be placed on my team.
Soon after chaos ensued. I would go to his house and he would come to mine nearly every night OR we would be on the phone talking and making joint decisions. This resulted in our decisions appearing to be the same. After using him to get my way with that weeks challenge we lost. We eliminated an additional person that had not once participated. By this time my friend DreamFinder was getting tired and codding on another project, just his luck he was placed as the PM for the next weeks challenge. He voiced his displeasure of this decision to me and I told him to take the week off and assign me the duties so he could rest. This seemed to be an okay plan...until we lost. It sparked a heated debate and opened fresh wounds from the previous week. This resulted in a minor mis-communication and DreamFinders elimination, my own would come after our next loss.
I then joined as a councilor for the competitions continuation. Those grudges resulted in minor flare ups till the competition ended. To this day I do believe that certain people on my team should have gone home first and that if their elimination had been more immediate our team could have one.
Towards the end of the first season Jdm had the truly brilliant idea of organizing all the comps into the ICS/ACS. This resulted in the creation of the Governors Board and from the beginning I will admit I was jealous of the position Jdm had.
Looking back in retrospect my position was fantastic, though I do believe that whenever a group as large and diverse as we were comes together it will result in hurt feelings and the formation of factions. Both DreamFinder and I had shared similar views, we both loved the idea of the ICS, but felt that more changes should be made to it's governing structure and essential control.
DreamFinder and I supported the creation of multiple branches. The longterm goal (at least in our minds) was for the ICS/ACS to become the ruling body of the imagineering forum. As a result we wanted the leadership to be organized, large, and democratic. We promoted the creation of three branches: The Executive, The ICS, and the ACS. The Executive branch would include the President, Vice President, The ICS Chief, and the ACS chief. The ICS Chief would have controlled the ICS branch and the ACS Chief would control the ACS branch. Those two branches would have had an electing body composed of the hosts of each branches respective competitions.
At the time we were both ignorant and naive, we believe that our plan was perfect. As a result we were not too welcome to change though in the end a similar system was planned to be adopted.
As the months continued DreamFinder and I had both felt our ideas had been shelved. In retrospect I think this is still true, though I do not feel as strongly about it and do believe that at a certain point we had stopped giving our input and participating.
One day DreamFinder called me after school and said he needed by help in planning a coup to 'dethrone' as he put it, Jdm from his position. I was a little shaken up by this and did not know how I felt about doing it. In the end I decided to do it because I wanted to select a non-biased and older leader, not because I thought Jdm was a " power hungry monster" (to quote exact words DreamFinder had said). I thought that @englanddg would be better suit for the position to lead us and make sure the organization took off. This coup did not succeed and I had withdrawn my participation early on. In the end we kicked DreamFinder off the Governors Board.
DreamFinder was obviously very angry about this decision and vented to me about it. Overtime we talked each other into creating a separate organization who's primary goal was to take down the ICS/ACS. We began using it as leverage to scare the ICS and on one infamous day we almost succeed. A brutal and bloody war had been fought through PM's.
In the end @MonorailRed suggested a peace effort. This failed as did the ICS...after a brief attempt to revive it the wounds were too deep and damage done. The ICS as it was ended and with it DreamFinder.
A part of me had also died in battle, I felt as though I had betrayed the friends I made. I allowed myself to give into the temptations of power and manipulation. I let my friend turn me against fantastic people all for the sake of power. It is an experience and chapter in my life I regret, it is a moment of weakness I hate to admit, but it is one that must be exposed.
Since then I have realized what matters here and am not the same person I was a year ago. DreamFinder has not commented in a while and his response as to why was because he thought the board was stupid. After the fallout I stopped talking to him about this board.
I am happy to be back working with you all and I hope the ICS can once again be what it was supposed to be and I hope I can help with that process.
Above all I ask for forgiveness...what I did was wrong. I hope you all can forgive me for allowing this to happen. I also hope that it does not damage the relationships I have tried to rebuild here. Thank you all for reading and hopefully understanding. This is a great community and I hope I can help make it better.
- Sam
It is July of 2013, the first season of SA is beginning. Fresh off success from winning WED's Think Different Contest, I jumped at the chance to showcase my skills again. After we were placed into new teams and the first challenge I began working with my team. This team at the time included @WED99, @Matt7187, and @MAScreamin'. For tedious details: the first challenge was to create an annual marketing plan. Anyways, I have a close friend that I frequently talk to and was talking to him about this new competition. Long story short I convinced him to join knowing that he would be automatically be placed on my team.
Soon after chaos ensued. I would go to his house and he would come to mine nearly every night OR we would be on the phone talking and making joint decisions. This resulted in our decisions appearing to be the same. After using him to get my way with that weeks challenge we lost. We eliminated an additional person that had not once participated. By this time my friend DreamFinder was getting tired and codding on another project, just his luck he was placed as the PM for the next weeks challenge. He voiced his displeasure of this decision to me and I told him to take the week off and assign me the duties so he could rest. This seemed to be an okay plan...until we lost. It sparked a heated debate and opened fresh wounds from the previous week. This resulted in a minor mis-communication and DreamFinders elimination, my own would come after our next loss.
I then joined as a councilor for the competitions continuation. Those grudges resulted in minor flare ups till the competition ended. To this day I do believe that certain people on my team should have gone home first and that if their elimination had been more immediate our team could have one.
Towards the end of the first season Jdm had the truly brilliant idea of organizing all the comps into the ICS/ACS. This resulted in the creation of the Governors Board and from the beginning I will admit I was jealous of the position Jdm had.
Looking back in retrospect my position was fantastic, though I do believe that whenever a group as large and diverse as we were comes together it will result in hurt feelings and the formation of factions. Both DreamFinder and I had shared similar views, we both loved the idea of the ICS, but felt that more changes should be made to it's governing structure and essential control.
DreamFinder and I supported the creation of multiple branches. The longterm goal (at least in our minds) was for the ICS/ACS to become the ruling body of the imagineering forum. As a result we wanted the leadership to be organized, large, and democratic. We promoted the creation of three branches: The Executive, The ICS, and the ACS. The Executive branch would include the President, Vice President, The ICS Chief, and the ACS chief. The ICS Chief would have controlled the ICS branch and the ACS Chief would control the ACS branch. Those two branches would have had an electing body composed of the hosts of each branches respective competitions.
At the time we were both ignorant and naive, we believe that our plan was perfect. As a result we were not too welcome to change though in the end a similar system was planned to be adopted.
As the months continued DreamFinder and I had both felt our ideas had been shelved. In retrospect I think this is still true, though I do not feel as strongly about it and do believe that at a certain point we had stopped giving our input and participating.
One day DreamFinder called me after school and said he needed by help in planning a coup to 'dethrone' as he put it, Jdm from his position. I was a little shaken up by this and did not know how I felt about doing it. In the end I decided to do it because I wanted to select a non-biased and older leader, not because I thought Jdm was a " power hungry monster" (to quote exact words DreamFinder had said). I thought that @englanddg would be better suit for the position to lead us and make sure the organization took off. This coup did not succeed and I had withdrawn my participation early on. In the end we kicked DreamFinder off the Governors Board.
DreamFinder was obviously very angry about this decision and vented to me about it. Overtime we talked each other into creating a separate organization who's primary goal was to take down the ICS/ACS. We began using it as leverage to scare the ICS and on one infamous day we almost succeed. A brutal and bloody war had been fought through PM's.
In the end @MonorailRed suggested a peace effort. This failed as did the ICS...after a brief attempt to revive it the wounds were too deep and damage done. The ICS as it was ended and with it DreamFinder.
A part of me had also died in battle, I felt as though I had betrayed the friends I made. I allowed myself to give into the temptations of power and manipulation. I let my friend turn me against fantastic people all for the sake of power. It is an experience and chapter in my life I regret, it is a moment of weakness I hate to admit, but it is one that must be exposed.
Since then I have realized what matters here and am not the same person I was a year ago. DreamFinder has not commented in a while and his response as to why was because he thought the board was stupid. After the fallout I stopped talking to him about this board.
I am happy to be back working with you all and I hope the ICS can once again be what it was supposed to be and I hope I can help with that process.
Above all I ask for forgiveness...what I did was wrong. I hope you all can forgive me for allowing this to happen. I also hope that it does not damage the relationships I have tried to rebuild here. Thank you all for reading and hopefully understanding. This is a great community and I hope I can help make it better.
- Sam
