2001 Ballot Comments

Good things gcrg is doing:
Bqr. Dealing with Park Service.
Continuing to crank out a most awesome bqr issue after issue!
The newsletter—always impressive and informative.
Gts—land and river.
Providing a forum. Monitoring the politics. Encouraging stewardship.
Being a voice of support for the river corridor. Gts is fantastic.
Bqr—but would be better emulating the cprg rag with more research/scientific articles.
Oral histories. Monkey wrenching the existing system that hurries up, does a ton of work, and then throws it away. Keep at 'em!
The bqr is my lifeline.
Bqr! Adaptive Management—we must develop a guiding influence. And Adopt-a-Beach. Keep up the good work!
A way for members to have a voice.
Guide training trips and seminars. Keeping guides and members informed about Grand Canyon issues.
I would just like to thank everyone who makes the bqr so great. I hope I can contribute someday!
Educational function is fantastic.
Adopt-a-Beach.
Technical Work Group of the Adaptive Management Program.
Education, the gts land and river and as always, the bqr!
Trying to please everyone.
Informing public and guides of issues. Great informative newsletter.
Bqr continues to be great. Fall Meeting, Spring gts and river trip. Don't ever stop.
Newsletter is really good. Gts and Fall Meeting are great. Sense of community.
You're just great!
Bqr. Spring and Fall meetings are great. Involvement in responding to environmental issues.
Being a voice, a forum.
Giving guides an identity outside the outfitter they work for.
Creating a “voice” for guides. Oral history of old and new guides. Art & poetry, science, political and continuing education articles in the bqr. Guides Training Seminar.
Keep up the fine publication. Love the history pieces and also the policy happenings concerning the Park Service. I look forward to every issue—always something to learn and pass on to passengers while we float.
Lynn Hamilton, Adopt-a-Beach, the histories of living legends in Grand Canyon, bqr and Guides Training Seminar.
Great to have someone looking out for us.
Bqr—the oral history. This publication has become an institution in and of itself.
Misguided things gcrg is doing:
Need harder line with Park Service. Need to support Glen Canyon restoration project with much vigor!
Not focusing on guide working issues, i.e. health plans, retirement, wages. Listening only to your “inner circle” of folks.
The bqr should be the bmr (Boatman's Monthly Review) with more short stories, poems, geology/botany/ natural history.
Not taking any stands on issues.
Take positions on heated nps issues that polarize gcrg.
Not resisting all the bullshit regs. More fighting the man!
Do you feel guilty about something? You're awful quiet about boatman-outfitter relations. You'll take on the Gov'mint but not one of your bosses.
Neglecting to get this great slate of candidates to run again if they don't make it this time.
Gcrg continues to straddle the fence separating the two sides in the fight for increased private allocations. The gcroa bosses say private “repeaters” abuse the system and clog up access…but crew are not even counted against the commercial allocation! You guys need to remember that you're all private boaters, too.
Can't think of any, but I like to focus on the positive.
Dam removal—let it go. Think geologic time frame. Your efforts are better spent elsewhere.
Get some women running for the Board positions.
Gcrg has no teeth unless it unionizes.
Inadvertently causing more regulations for river runners and higher qualifications for boatmen.
Trying to please everyone.
Don't worry about any misguided things gcrg is doing, when gcrg is doing the best ever.
Should be neutral on the motor/oar issue.
The motor/wilderness thing has again divided the guide community. How do we patch this up?
It would be nice if labor issues were raised more often like stagnant wages and lack of benefits. Represent the guides more, not the darn outfitters.
Not taking a firm stand against the excessive enforcement at Lees Ferry by Dave Chapman.
Sometimes it feels a little biased toward rowing and unsupportive of motor outfitters.
Not working to resolve private permit/access.
Letting guides get away with calling what they provide “The Experience”.
Not taking stands on key issues affecting the river. The outfitters amendment sucked! We watched the gcpba privates go it alone. Can't we take a stand on anything?
Right on track. No misguided things as far as I can see.
Need better website. Compared to gcpba site, it needs much improvement. Need to be more vocal in commercial—private allocation issue.
Do not fall prey to the often one-sided, distorted, manipulative and often hysterical eco-mindset. The eco-hysterians have become the equivalent of the worst 19th Century snake oil salespeople. Be wary! Taking it all so seriously.
Things gcrg should be doing:
Publish info in the bqr from talks given at the gts land & river seminars—the stuff is dynamite for gc education! Archaeology, geology, mapping canyon bottom, science projects, water purification,—the list is endless. How about one article an issue?
Addressing boatman issues!
Get a health care plan. 401k plans. License issues (1st aid, food handlers, etc…)
Encouraging benefit packages from outfitters to employees. That's a good thing.
A damned shame no females signed up for the board! Where's the babes? Thank heaven for Lynn, Mary & Katherine.

Focus on interp, education and stewardship.
Majority of guides I meet are terrific. If some want “professional” recognition, they should get with less juvenile judgment (3–4 “old timers” come to mind). Help 'em plan for retirement or lifestyle change. Battle the bureaucrats for rational management guidelines. If it wasn't broken, go back to before they “fixed” it.
Not focusing more in the arena of guide benefits (or lack of). Let's be more interactive with outfitters on this.
Getting water back in the Rio Verde!
Lobbying heavily for re-igniting and seeing to fruition the revamping of the crmp.
How about setting up a group health plan.
Breach the dam. Mess with the man. Ditch the glam. Open the spam.
Use our position & clout to encourage a resolution to the crmp process. Act as a middleman, instigator & “coach”. We occupy the center!
Simplifying the boatman's duties and responsibilities!
Unionize the guides and strike against the outfitters. Guides should share the profits.
Need more attention to private allocation. Situation is not fair. Someday you will retire and want to take the family on a private trip. Want to wait 20 years?
Wilderness designation for the Colorado River.
Help bring Glen Canyon Dam to an end as the destroyer of Grand Canyon.
Now that sat phones are on every trip, why wfr for the guides? We need to help the Park think!
Keep up the good work. I appreciate being informed about what is happening.
Should take tougher board stance regarding Grand Canyon wilderness issues. Kowtowing to the outfitters will in the long run not benefit river or guides.
Try to work more on guides' employment issues. Keep struggling against the bureaucracy.
Trying to unite guides' community. I think outfitters & nps prefer a divided guides' community and a diminished gcrg. Divided we are conquered.
Advocate for the natural resources of the Grand Canyon and the guides who educate thousands of people about the resources and the threats to them. Support wilderness designation and the lowest impact visitation possible!
Working toward a sector-neutral access system for privates and commercial passengers.
More guide get-togethers in places other than Flagstaff.
Keep it up with the oral histories of the old timers.
Support and defend our 4th Amendment rights (oppose drug testing without probable cause or at least reasonable suspicion). Support wilderness designation.
Be a voice for all aspects of Grand Canyon.
Restart the crmp process.
Speaking out on crmp issues. E-mailing.
Help provide better beach deposition flows. Calling absurd talk of eradicating tamarisk.
Keep working towards comprehensive guide benefits.
How about getting more involved with the issues?
Fight/obstruct bullshit.
Publish financial information of each Grand Canyon river outfitter, including income/expense, profits, etc…
Get a handle on the Park Service requirements for 1st aid. It's becoming ridiculous.
You guys are doing an awesome job.
Still don't have a clear, easy inet interface. You really need to have a way and place to inform about what gcrg members are doing for other rivers and watersheds. So many of us have moved beyond Grand Canyon to apply lessons learned there to other rivers. We are all one. Help us celebrate that reality.
Need to be more involved in the current debate over access, allocation, and long term planning (Park). What are gcrg's positions on motors, helicopter exchanges, future of the dam, expanded use on the Canyon? Gcrg has remained silent on these important issues. Get it together, speak out, lead.
Work on labor issues for guides.Better ways for you to be involved in gcrg:
Being on the North side of the canyon makes it difficult to be more involved.
E-mail & forums online. We can't all be in Flag!
Move back to az! But I'll continue to rant and rave about the canyon from here in California. Sometimes I even see a gcrg sticker on a vehicle here. Cool-o!
I need to be closer to Arizona.
I do what I can!
Keep moving meetings around—at least around the Canyon perimeter if you can.
Regional meetings, seminars, et. al.
Keep the faith. Don't take any wooden nickels. Keep all the dots on the dice.
Run for office.
I would need to move a lot closer.
Write an article
I suppose I would be more involved if I lived in the area. I try to keep you people supplied with food by working in the agriculture business in beautiful South Dakota.
Come to board meetings. Write for bqr. Attend a gts river trip.
Emails and such that petition help for particular battles to be fought. Bqr is great, but doesn't come in due time to fight the good fights.
Hand out tasks via website (signup sheets, etc…).
Adopt-a-beach. Attend meetings. Continue positive p.r. with private boaters on/off river.
Adopt-a-beach.
Come to more meetings.
Organize strikes for professional wages and full benefit packages.
Need some kind of branch office for those of us on the north side of the ditch.