GTA ARES Community,

It will come as no surprise that I am greatly saddened by this decision. George Duffield is a fine, thoughtful leader and we are greatly diminished by his departure from the GTA Section Manager role.

George Duffield has the talent of putting us in touch with our "Better Angels". He was instrumental in my personal decision to stop heckling RAC from the sidelines and step up to try to make the organization better. He made me see that any idiot can tear a thing down, but it takes character to effect positive change and build a thing up.

To the rest of the ARES in the GTA, I call on each of you to re-examine how we have strayed from the path and come to this sad place.

We have a great hobby, with noble purposes in education and community service, yet otherwise good men stand idly by, allowing petty squabbles to erupt from sad little men seeking to build cardboard empires. Good men should never allow this.

To be blunt, we have all failed ourselves, our communities and our served agencies when our actions, inactions or self serving pettiness cause a thoughtful peacemaker such as George Duffield to leave our ranks.

While I am deeply ashamed of our GTA ARES community tonight, I am still hopeful that this will serve as a wake up call to the good Men (and Women) of our community and some good will come of this.

Let's wake up tomorrow determined to do better

Rod Hardman

RAC Director, Ontario South