Libralove wrote:
Hey everybody, this is one of Austin's most interesting and fun events
for the buck. $10. for 2 days of looking at beautiful ponds all over
Austin.

http://www.austinpondsociety.org/tour2006/

You will not be dissapointed!!

LL

Reporting back on the Austin Pond Tour 2006. The tour was a great
success financially -- over $9k. The ponds were, as usual, very
beautiful and amazing to see from Leander-Liberty Hill to Georgetown and
to deep South Austin.

However, I was less than enthusiastic about the organizers and
volunteer's relationship with the public and the neighborhood people
where the tour creates a lot of traffic and signs.

One neighborhood man with a baby in carriage was turned away by a money
collecting ticket taker for the Austin Pond Society with an admonishment
"NO FREE POND PEEKS!" after I had told him to go to the pond around the
corner and ask to take a look for free. He came back upset from being
turned away.

He was not going to the any of the other ponds all over town, only the 2
there near his house where he was baby carriage pushing, so why should
he have to pay the full 2-day price to look at two neighborhood ponds
was my thought?

The Austin Pond Society lady volunteers (some of the women with personal
agendas counter to friendliness and generosity)and some have reminded me
several times, since I complained about this, that it is the Austin Pond
Society against cheapskate men of the world who try to see ponds for
free by giving me a couple of examples that have occurred almost every
year of people making up tales of lost tickets or whatever. LOL

I was told by one board member as recently as yesterday that the board
believes basically that if we let one or two people get over by cheating
or seeing a pond for FREE "there could be millions more right behind
them". LOL Think ants crawling into a sugar barrel pond of koi and water
lilies...

I know from knowing this specific board from the inside out for the past
two years, I am not very impressed with their friendly community spirit
and public service attitude. From time to time, some board members
operate it more like a "for profit club" and to promote their own pond
related businesses and agendas without regard for community friendliness
and public relations.

Let's see if they do indeed fix the Zilker Garden ponds (leaking, etc.)
like they mentioned they planned to do with all this money at recent
board meetings. I am counting on it, since they are in dire need of
repair and the Austin Pond Society has plenty of money to fix them ALL now.

Then I will be ready to applaud the group again -- as long as they let
the neighbors into the nearby ponds for free (as long as there is no
ongoing feud with a specific neighbor or something) which is something
to be sensitive to with a ticket or not. This is another excuse they
use for making everyone buy a ticket.

If you didn't go this year, you missed a good bunch of ponds, so try to
go next year as I probably will, but I will not volunteer to take
tickets or help. I was told it was Ok for me to let the neighbor man in
for free, I just could not tell another volunteer ticket taker to do so
-- even as I was on the board. So why bother to help out for free? No
free pond peeks and no free volunteer work from me. Okay?

It was to be at the discretion of each volunteer ticket takers -- and
female, tall, blonde society Nazis could make any call they wished to
keep cheapskate men with babies from free "pond peeking". LOL

I was told by one board member that if they allow that sort of
accommodation for neighbors next year, they may require an ID with an
address if a neighbor wants to visit a pond for free. Yes, carding
people to peek at a pond or two for 5 minutes is real friendly. Doncha
think?

How much money could they possibly lose if a couple of people got in for
free to a couple of ponds -- by lying or giving a false neighborhood
I.D.? LOL Geesh...

They are never people who would buy a ticket to see the whole tour
anyway. If they are that poor or that cheap... The logic of their
thinking escape me.

But don't worry, Austin, no cheapskates are going to take advantage of
the APS. You can count on that!

Yep, that's friendly! :P Austin, Texas is a friendly pond gardening
town. Right?

LL