Ok, a quick MiA question here...

[Vitalis]

Lately, I have been seeing more posts talking about Michigan Airsoft (MiA), and about it being a SEMTEX thing...

Maybe I am wrong here, cause I never did see if there was some kind of secret handshake. But aren't we all MiA if we wanna be?

I mean, SEMTEX, Draconis, etc... are just teams that belong to MiA... right? Sure, SEMTEX sorta started it if I have the history right. But we are all players in Michigan, so if we wanna be under the MiA umbrella, we are the ones who make MiA what it is, and what it can be.

Or am I just Smoken The Dope here?

As far as I knew, MiA was about bringing all the varied players and teams of Michigan together as one coalition in the state. Not about ownership and stuff...

Ok Hado...

Correct me if I am wrong here...

-Vitalis
(who wants to know the secret handshake if there is one)

[Newman]

Just so everyone knows, I was at the first MiA game.

That being said, I can tell you that SEMTEX wasn't in existance before MiA was constructed. Hadoken started the website, while Ballista, Retraw, Viking, and I were the five guys at the first game.

SEMTEX was started after lots of deliberation about making a team in SE Michigan, and doesn't "run" MiA at all, it just happens to be that Hadoken is a member of the team.

Sorry that I'm not Hadoken, but he's not on the boards as much as myself.

P.S. There is a secret handshake, but you'll never find out how to do it, whahahahha whalllalalala!

[Minky]

Yep, SEMTEX is an egg that the MiA chicken crapped out. ;D And we all know the chicken came before the egg!

[Viking]

It seems like a lot of people get this impression. No SEMTEX and MIA are not the same thing. MIA is exactly what you described, a meeting point fro airsoft fans in MI, team SEMTEX is basically made up of what I call the “originals” who happen to be regulars here as well. You have Hadoken a Semtex operative. Minky, newman, Robo, Bigmack, Ammo, Ballista, and myself who were all from back in the day when MiA opened its doors. We started playing often and came upon the idea of starting SEMTEX. Now sense Hadoken and the rest of us are in SEMTEX I can see how one might think SEMTEX runs MiA, it doesn’t, Hadoken runs MiA and is very fair in his judgment when it goes to issues between MiA and Semtex.

Believe it or not MiA skirmish #1 consisted of 5 people; me, hado, newman, retraw (sense retired), and ballista. Oct 28th, 2001.

-V I K I N G
SEMTEX Operative[/color]

[Andy]

ooooooooo, nice

[Hadoken]

Yep, we're all one big happy MiA family. I started this almost a year ago simply because I was tired of just sitting around waiting for the action. No one ever had any events in Michigan, and I was starting to think we had no airsoft players here at all either.

So, up went the cheesy old site, and this here message board. Just like that Field of Dreams movie says, "if you build it, they will come..."

*me looks around*

And they did!

More and more airsoft players are popping up in Mi. partly because of this site and the great job all of you are doing in promoting the hobby.

So yes, we're all part of Michigan Airsoft.

Eegads you all look so young in that pic.

[Bigmack]

says the ole' man... ;D

[Vitalis]

Ok, in light of all the shit flying back and forth on the board in the last few days I would like to add some comments about MiA...

Now, taking into account the very finely written post by WTS-Mike on the Regulations topic, he stated that before this summer, Airsoft in Michigan was primarily just a bunch of friends that got together and played. Not just SEMTEX, but over in his neck of the woods, Draconis only played at it's own facility, the Grosse Point players were self contained. Then we started coming to MiA and adding ourselves to this mix.

This brought many ideas and many differing opinions. The first and largest that I remember was an oposition to written "rules" because this is a game of honor... blah blah blah...

But then, after much discussion, Viking came out with the waiver that would have to be signed at all SEMTEX sponsored events. No problem there considering we are playing on Viking's land.

And no different than WTS-Mike's group having the rules about guns in cases and waiver to play on the paintball facility that they use.

At the time we also discuss fps limits because of a certain AEG that was at one of the games shooting quite a bit higher than anything else on the field. This went back and forth, and the idea of using "common sense" was put forth quite a bit. At the time, I disagreed with the "common sense" rule because now that so many varied groups were starting to get together, the "common sense" bar would signifigantly change. But we decided to wait and see, and now, we are instituting full rules for this type of stuff. Sure, I personally could waive the banner around and scream "I told ya so", but what would that do?

We now have proof that we need engagement rules, that we need field safety rules, etc.

No hard feelings, we now know.

So we talked about it, we put up a poll in the last week, etc. And then Viking and Frostee put out a typed set of rules.

These two people, spent their free volunteer time, to type things out, think about it, and put it all together. Seems pretty alirght to me.

These are tentative rules, to be changed by us after playtesting and working through them. Even being here for only about 7 months or so, I can fairly certianly say that this is not some huge powerplay by a few individuals to take over the system.

All the rules that I saw up there relate to the pages of discussion that we have had in the past. They relate to the discoveries and trial by error methods that have appeared in our games. They relate to the several PMs that have gone around talking about this subject.

No, MiA does not have a current ruling body politic, and I'm not sure if it even needs one right now, but we do have what we make it, and making it together is the only way it is going to work.

I'm not part of SEMTEX, and other than the occasional chat with Viking here on the boards, I have only ever met him for one day. But I certianly don't feel there is some type of take over going on by any person or small group of people. If you see a lot of SEMTEX members doing stuff, that is because they were the first around here. It was they who started bringing things together.

There are no government conspiracies going on, there are no black helicopters, there are no blue hat UN troops taking our Airsoft soil for thier own usage.

We are here, playing airsoft, and trying to figure our way through the differences in thinking and ideals that the many varied players have. We are develping rules that fit us and our level of commitment.

This takes time, it takes patience, and most of all, it preserves the one thing I like around here the most. That we are all friends.

-Vitalis

[DevilDog]

I must say... Well thought out, and I do agree!!!

Hopefully, the little infantry Blue UN hats won't be coming around anytime soon... ;D

As I've stated before, I am willing to donate my time to help. I may have only been playingthis game for a short period of time, but I have a numerous amount of experience to drwa from (not just Airsoft related). As does everyone else.

I welcome the day where we can all look back on this and laugh!!

There will always be "hiccups" in an organization. We just need to work through them....

Devil Dog

[frostee]

Very nice post Vitalis. I look forward to meeting all of you, on and off the field of play.

[Andy]

Ya know, I'v never seen a pic of Hadoken face, he always has something on. ;D

[Hadoken]

It's because I hide my evil battle scars.

[Bigmack]

you're lucky...he's one of the ugliest fellows i've ever seen.











;D

[Hadoken]

As of Sept. 02 2002, 12:13am Bigmack is no longer a member of the boards. Insulting the mighty Hadoken results in an instant banning.

Do not pass go, Do not collect 200 bb's.

[Bigmack]

bah. j00 t00 \/\/I11 |33 Glockzor'd