For the record, here is what happened: Grand Slam Club/Ovis recently terminated its agreement to work with Foundation For North American Wild Sheep (FNAWS) on its annual convention and announced its intention to hold its own convention at the Beau Rivage Hotel and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. The dates of the convention are February 17-20, 2005.
GSCO's Dennis Campbell says the bottomline issue was money. "We just weren't making enough money at the FNAWS Convention to carry out the projects we felt were important," he told The Hunting Report recently. From his point of view, there was no fight involved and, certainly no hard feelings. "It was simply time to take our organization in a new direction," he says.
Officially, FNAWS also denies there has been any fight or hard feelings, but the press release announcing the split had a definite edge to it. The release calls the move "divisive" and says FNAWS is "extremely disappointed" at what happened. It goes on to clearly label the move as "not...in the best interest of wild sheep or wild sheep hunters."
Here at The Hunting Report, we aren't about to take sides in this matter. And we hope you don't either. Both organizations are making a contribution to hunting and providing an important forum for hunters. Rather than choose between the two conventions, we hope hunters go to both of them.
That said, we think it is important to clear the air a bit about GSCO and what it is up to. No matter what you have heard, GSCO (like FNAWS) is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization. The entire organization is; not just part of it. This means donations to GSCO are fully tax-deductible. Moreover, it means the organization has to file a publicly available tax report fully........(continued)
