On Fri, 10 Oct 1997 Michael Price wrote:

snip
>Vancouver (BC) Natural History Society, the leadership of which
>you are part. It would be graceful of you to show some appreciation,
>perhaps, instead the snide undercut quoted above. I find it fascinating
>that even though I was one who did the work, which included figuring
>out from first principles *how* to do the work in the first place, that
>you're implicitly accusing me of suppression and mockingly
>challenging me to put up or shut up. By the way, are you speaking
>ex officio, or as a private individual, John? Please make this explicit.

snip
>Or maybe, since it's my work, *I* get to decide when and where to publish.
>Would that be alright with you and the rest of the VNHS leadership, John?
>Gee, just let me know if that's okay with you all, hm?

Oops! Looks like I pushed a hot button there. So let's try and clear some
of this up.

I am an intermediate birder who, like most birders, is trying to learn more
about the complex world of birds. The thought occurred to me that it would
be useful to know the range of arrival and departure dates for all
migrants.
I therefore posted a request asking for this information.

My post was not intended to be snide, accusing or mocking. Many of your
posts to Tweeters contain an element of humour and I tried to include
something similar in my request. It is evident I missed the mark.

I'm a member of the VNHS and do some volunteer work for the Birding
section, including the Bird Alert two months of the year. I am not part
of the VNHS leadership. My request was my own idea. I didn't discuss it
with anyone in the VNHS. At a recent Discovery (the VNHS's quarterly
publication) editing session, I casually mentioned it to another VNHS
member who is not an official of the society.

For some reason, Michael, you think I am part of the VNHS leadership and
therefore feel the need heap abuse on me. I post a simple request and
receive public and private flames. Can't figure out what I did to deserve
this. Anyhow, I've learned my lesson.

Two things I would ask: don't associate me with the VNHS leadership, save
your vitriol for the VNHS leadership.

I promise I won't ask anything else of you.

Incidentally, in a recent post you described how you manually calculate
average arrival/departure dates. I entered the dates in your example in
Excel and arrived at the same answer.

John Chandler
Alandale Training Corporation
Richmond, BC, Canada
Phone: 604-274-8777
email: chandler at uniserve.com