Poker Forum > General Discussion

Dear Des, wtf is going on

(1/7) > >>

TheSnapper:
Recent announcements continue a worrying trend for me, Mark gone, Leigh quickly follows, folk of this calibre are hard to come by :(

There is genuine concern amongst the community and the membership imho have been politely quiet, publicly at least.

With the utmost respect, we seem to be on a slide from the Tighty and Leigh days were, we knew them, they knew us, and nothing was a problem. I feel we are heading towards the other end of that spectrum were we become tied up in dogmatic rule setting.

Is it just me who gets that vibe?

Des:
Hi Brendan,

Change is never easy and losing a huge contributor like Leigh is particularly tough - ditto Mark, who despite only being with us for a relatively shortly time, worked his bum off and got to know a lot of the members well.

Leigh will tell you his own reasons for leaving, but I know he"s got a lot busier recently with his own work; and coming at a time when APAT's development roadmap is huge, the timing appears perfect for Leigh to step back.  I hate to lose him of course, we all do, but before he came on board he was a player like many of you - and who knows what other players might step up to fill Leigh's shoes (would need big feet admittedly!).  In addition we will be recruiting for Mark"s successor in the near future.

Similarly Tom's new to APAT and he was a very successful navy officer and businessman before becoming involved with us as the owner of LPPL.  His style is get the detail agreed up front and is very thorough, and those are qualities that will help us very much in some of the growth challenges that APAT has set ourselves going forward.  He"s a great guy in person and will fit in very well at APAT events I"m sure, but he will need a little time to understand the ropes at APAT.  But the changes seen in the Scotland thread earlier confirms that Tom gets it a lot more today than he did yesterday.

The last thing I would say is this.  Ultimately I still make the final decisions on all things APAT.  It was my vision seven plus years ago and while the market and the way we operate has had to change, the vision of giving players a great weekend poker experience still remains.  My favourite day of the year is when we publish the new season schedule.  I hope the next one will be bigger and better than ever, but we"re definitely going to need you guys to continue to give us some space to develop our strategy ahead of next year.

I need to spend more time on the forum too. 

Cheers,

Des.

Paulie_D:
I think the "dogmatic rule setting" was more of a misunderstanding than anything else on Tom's part.

It"s his first time running a live event for APAT and there"s a lot to cover and take in and no-one get"s it right first time.

**

Notwithstanding the above, re your general concerns...no, you aren"t alone.

INSTA-EDIT

I see Des has already replied before I finished typing so I"ll leave it there.

SirPercival:
WTF is going on with......

Player committee?

USP? what is it?

Vegas package added value? what exactly is it?

The current APAT strategy? what is it? (I"ve asked this year on year without a clear answer. tell me to GTF if you want I won"t be offended. I just think players can contribute more if they know the vision)

Online schedule. Has it been published? If yes, then even some of the hardcore have missed it.

Team games. Have they been devalued to the extent that Scotland couldn"t get 2 teams and the Welsh and Irish also had similar issues?

Online Leagues? are they happening soon?

LPPL? Do the members actual resent APAT as much as some people say?

The Travel Guru? More like a google geek IMO. Others try to make helpful sugggestions are are shot down instantly every time.

The management. Who does what? Who"s running the show?

The forum. when its working... How many members have stopped posting and why?

The transparancy that used to be there. Has it now gone?

The sponsorship. Is it an option and will it "fix" things?

A National event in Yorkshire? will it EVER happen?  ;)

And finally......

Drinks at the bar? Will Des ever buy a round?  ;)

TheSnapper:
Just to clarify, the "dogmatic" aspect is not a single person observation, of course I understand the difficulties Tom faces, as with Mark he is in at the deep end trying to get up to speed whilst also carrying the considerable workload an Apat weekend offers.

As an example, for the recent DTD event, we ran sats for side events value £55, it wasn"t permissible to use these as part payment for the ME, a small thing like that did not fit with my previous Apat experiences. Previously my understanding maybe even expectation, was, so long as I wasn"t taking the piss I"d be looked after.

The difference is not one big change rather lots of small nuances that for me anyhow, have a combined effect of eroding that  indescribable Apat experience. I get the feeling I"m slowly becoming less a member and more a client if that makes any sense.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page