Maytom I went thru both buckets of tickets for the gun of the year and the youth gun of the year, This guys tickets was the only ones I found except one other ticket with a lady's name on it and I think it was the only ticket she bought., I'm hurt, I really enjoy the banquets and worked hard for ours, and thought the world of our RD, but I can't be part of anything like this, The good hard working people that really make these things work, work to hard for their money that they buy the tickets with to be done like this. I hate it and I hope that our RD can come to me face to face and explain just what went on and gone on so I can trust him and the NWTF agian, I really hate to quit the banquets, but unless I change my mind I may have attended my last one.

I know if my committee members were not allowed participate we would lose committee members so they could participate in the raffles and such. Our banquets are by far the best in the area. We give our sponsors a sponsor only drawing with the opportunity to win any of the 4 guns and 3 prints for sponsors only. With 31 sponsors teh odds will be a little over 1 in 4 on winning. Each prize is worth the money it took to sponsor. You can't beat that. That is why our committee participates heavily on the sponsor side. On FEB. 5th we will have our banquet with 15 guns a couple of hunts and all the other auction items. We all encourage commitee participation amongst ourselves in order to boost the banquet. 8 of the 31 sponsors are committee members last year. I do not recall if any committee members won a gun. I have sponsored for 7 years attended several other chapters banquets and have won only 4 guns. 3 of the guns were won at another chapters banquet and people were still pissed off then that a single person had won 3 guns.
I do not however believe that regional directors and assistant directors should be able to participate in the games. Let the committee participate if the winning gets out of hand by one committee person than play pass the ticket.

I don't have a problem with committee members winning guns, even multiple guns, I have done that myself but it was 100% fair and square. On this deal though we have a person in management position that had the only folded tickets in the buckets except one single ticket, he should have known better, he cheated, the hard working members of this chapter deserve better, I feel that they were taking advantage of, I have spoken to a few of them and they did'nt even know anything about what had happened, this is just their 3rd banquet and most had'nt even heard about folding your tickets in a manner to take advantage of the ones that don't. I really like our RD, he works hard and puts on alot of miles in getting these banquets set up, I just did'nt think he would allow something like this to happen, it would be different if this was the first time it happened , but I'm afraid that he knew exactly what was going on since him and this other fellow did alot of banquets together, I'm hurt and I hope that it does not harm our friendship, I have lost alot of trust in him and considered him a friend, I hope that he can tell me the truth and that he was not involved in this but I don't know. Everything that was said and done looks like its going to point right back at both of them.

I've only been to 1 banquet. There was this one guy there that was winning every thing. He won two of the three guns raffled off and he won a **** load of auctions... I haven't been to another since. Not because of the guy cleaning house. Just because I felt like it was all about money. I know the deal... Ol Rob is laughing all the way.

As a chapter president, I have to chime in on this subject. First, I agree that the individual mentioned was probably a District Director. That position is an unpaid position. Secondly, almost every chapter president I have ever talked to experiences the same problem.....everyone can tell you how to run a chapter better than you do, but never volunteers to do anything to help the situation. I would be willing to be that most chapters would tell you the same thing...they only have about 8-10 people who show up at meetings and out of those 8-10 people you only have 2-3 who do ALL of the work! Do you have any idea how hard it is to organize a banquet with the help of three people? I finally got tired of people telling me how to run the chapter better by simply asking them "Does that mean you're volunteering to chair that project?" You should see the "deer in the headlights look" I get...."You mean you want me to do something for the chapter?" "Well....uh....I don't have the time." As for our chapter, I think I will require no altering of raffle pieces i.e, cards, tickets, etc or the piece is disqualified. I'd like to suggest that instead of complaining about this stuff, why don't you join the committee and be part of the solution to make it better. Oh by the way, most of your committees (Pres, VP, Sec, Treas) have wives, kids, careers, and a personal life on top of the time they invest into the NWTF as VOLUNTEERS. Even as a chapter president, when it comes to my priorities admittedly the NWTF doesn't always come in first. As far as committee and active chapter members being restricted to participating in the auctions...why should the people who do all the work for turkey conservation, chapter volunteer work, etc, etc not be allowed to participate?

This was not my local chapter that this happened in and I am on the committee of our home chapter, matter of fact I was one of the ones that got our chapter started, Its not that I don't like the committee members participating in the drawings and games cause they are a big part of what is spent at each banquet. I don't think the RD should allow things like this to happen though when you know it was not the first time it happened as many banquets as they work together, thats my complaint, I think the NWTF is a great organization and that this little ordeal won't hinder our own chapter but I feel like our RD {which is the same guy}has some explaining to do.

I second what Kits what saying! That must be an awkward situation Strut. Hope it does not happen here.

Strut, I hope you don't drop from the NWTF because of one guy, or one banquet. I think, on balance, the NWTF is a great organization, and I know I wouldn't be able to hunt turkeys as much as I do if they weren't there. I did not carefully read over every word of all the posts on this deal, so I may have missed it, but was there some way, in advance, that this guy was to know that fan folding his tickets was wrong/not permitted??

Yeah snowdog he had to, after the statements that the RD made after him winning the 2 nd. gun of the year, He said that this guy and himself worked alot of banquets together and that he spends alot of money and wins alot of guns. All this after he rebuked a guy in our home chapter committee to not be folding his sportsmans raffle tickets 2 years earlier. I really like the banquets and hopefully this thing will not come between us cause we are friends and have been for several years but I see this as being really unfair to the guys in that chapter that worked so hard and spent their money to win a gun, To me its kind of like those 2 were working together, at least you know as many banquets as they have done together and the RD also stated that this guy would work a banquet by himself when he was not able to attend, so you know that the gun-winner was aware of what goes on and whats fair and whats not. I will try and attend our next chapter meeting cause its about time to start planning our banquet, we have about 3 guys that do about 95% of the work and I'm one of them, instead of having trouble like this, we need to be doing the opposite and working for each other instead of doing things that separate us. The RD should know better than this if he is concerned about growing bigger and better chapters, something like this could be devastating to that chapter and to other local chapters, I know at that banquet there was at least 3 or 4 chapters represented and they all saw it, I hope things work out without loosing any much needed members in these newer chapters, I probably should'nt have even posted anything about this but it really rubbed me raw and I did'nt like what I saw.

Hey Maytom. Great 2 c your here too! It all could simply be corrected with a good ole fashioned shake of the bucket! I mean a 10 second earthquake! Also announce that any ticket pulled that was dog-eared would be thrown out!