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Organizational Update - November 13, 2012

14K views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  TheGeek 
#1 · (Edited)
Open Letter to the RFC Community

To our valued members, sponsors, and guests:

In late 2009, we mourned the loss of Dan Miller (Indy), the original founder and father of Rimfire Central. His wife, Mary (Mamaw3), committed herself to keeping the website alive to help preserve Dan's memory and ease the burden of his passing. Her son, Mike (Brickyard), and family friend Shawn (TheGeek) helped her with the technical and operational aspects of the site and spent months attempting to learn how to control the massive community that Dan had built.

To say we were all a bit overwhelmed is an understatement.

When we first assumed the duties for RFC, we came in as outsiders who saw it as simply another internet forum and assumed we would only need a minimal time commitment to keep the site afloat. Pay the server bill, answer a few emails, and join in the conversation from time to time, and all would be okay, right?

Well... not quite.

The passion and fervor of this community is a sight to behold and to say managing this community is a handful would be stating it lightly. With our full time jobs and other commitments, RFC continued to slide into the backs of our minds and before we knew it, the emails had piled up in inboxes we did not know existed, the support system overflowed with tickets we could have sworn we'd closed thirty times before, and sponsors and membership dues alike piled up on the desk without any semblance of structure and meaning.

Put simply, we underestimated what it took to manage this community, and we failed many of you. For that, we apologize.

But we come to you today with a new focus, a new structure, and a new dedication to this Rimfire Community. Where before we saw the site as a hobby and a part time burden, we've come to now see RFC as a family-owned business. Some families open restaurants, hobby shops, or even farms. We have an opportunity to run a website.

The three of us have formally formed the RFC Management Group, and hope to eventually transition from our current jobs into full positions at RFC. While this is a more formal structure than RFC has ever had in the past, we do promise you the the following will never change:

Transparency
Without you, our members and sponsors, we would not have this amazing opportunity and we thank you for that. So we will remain committed to making our operations as transparent as possible. For example, this letter letting you know about our plans!

Charity
One of the defining characteristics of RFC is that we've always given back to charity, and that will continue. For the past three years, we've made a number of contributions to a number of different organizations... we've just been awfully sloppy with communicating what we've done. We're proud of our contributions, and will be much more transparent (see point 1!) about our charity efforts and will look to you to help guide our future endeavors.

Dedication to Our Members and Sponsors
The idea of a hobby website suddenly being run like a business can be scary to some, but we want to assure you that we will never compromise the integrity, functionality, or fun of this community simply for a quick profit. Additionally, we will continue to support our member sponsors with low advertising rates and top promotional opportunities not offered to national groups. Many of our sponsors are small businesses and hobby shops and RFC represents a unique opportunity for them to grow their business. That's something we're proud of, and we will not stray from that.

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That being said, there are a few outstanding issues that we do wish to address right away, and we will do so in a separate announcement post. We won't solve everything overnight, but know that we're working hard to get everything in order.

To conclude this letter, let me say this is an exciting opportunity for us and we look forward reigniting the spark at RFC and getting this ship righted once more. For the rest of 2012, we will be focusing on aligning our goals and fixing some of the issues that have plagued us for quite some time. 2013 will be about expanding RFC and updating the software, and investing in new technology to make the site faster and more pleasant for members and visitors alike.

If you have any ideas for what you would like to see from the RFC team going forward, we have created a new email box: ideas@rimfirecentral.com. Please submit anything you've been dreaming of for RFC, or any new technology that you'd love to see implemented on the forums. Please do not submit support requests to this address! For pending support requests, please wait for our follow up post "Outstanding Issues" for more information on getting those resolved.

Thank you to all of you for your passion, dedication, and most of all your patience. We'll reward it all just as soon as we can.

Mary, Mike, and Shawn
Mamaw3, Brickyard, and The Geek

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