I see your point on 'balanced overall'. I was referring to 'within a given post' that I was posting. I am a regular reader but mostly what one could call a 'lurker', I admit. I find this forum immensely useful for supporting the principles I believe what the local businesses must operate under in order to improve their level of service to attract the kind of crowd that has seen a world outside of Fethiye.
I wish more local business owners were exposed to this. There is a nucleus of business owners, and for restaurants, a few that comes to mind is Eyna, Nar, Mancero, Mozaik Garden, and now AlaTurka (then Cadde), and those are not the only ones, that are showing the effort it requires to do the right thing. I am new in town -just a little over a year- and I try to observe and soak up the dynamics of the town in order to help move it forward. I intend to develop an awareness for 'living local' and one needs not be a rocket scientist to see that it is not only the local consumer that needs to be made aware, but the local merchant has a lot to learn and needs to get his/her act together if they hope to keep any decent level of tourism to flourish in this town.
I keep on going as if you care what I have to say, so I hope you do.
I am still hopeful that I will find a decent number of ex-pats who care and are willing to come to meetings to preach and tell their experiences dealing with merchants -directly to the merchants themselves, whenever we get them in one room together for that purpose.
Coming back to 'plugging my mate' -I apologize that it appears to be so, and it does when looking at my behavior in the forum in general. However, in Talip's case he needed his story to be told in English to the forum members, In numerous other cases I do what I can to help the local business owners that are making an effort to do the right thing. Another thing i've been doing is helping with correcting errors in the menus. It is no secret that it is an epidemic and it makes the place look unprofessional. After helping several restaurants individually, now i've been telling the graphic and print shops that I come in contact with that I will proof read their work for free, if they only take the time to email it to me before it goes to print. There is no excuse for that. The list goes on with different things for different trades. It gives me pleasure to help when I can. It builds a positive energy I believe the town needs. They need not compete on price alone but by differentiating what they offer, each with what they are good at. So in that picture, I apologize if I was plugging a friend while not much contributing something else to the forum community. Hopefully, as time allows and I visit the forum regularly -not only when i need to 'update info'- I will be able to be useful more.
Right now I admit I am a 'taker', soaking up the comments of the members and taking notes to give concrete examples (names witheld of course) to teach the locals how to improve things. But I am a 'giver' too, and hope to be giving back over time to your forum.
Now, that I noticed I am repeating myself, is a good time to say god night -if you are still here of course. Speaking of 'here' I once offered to meet when I first joined the forum, but not sure what was your reply. I think you were away then. To me it seemed like you wanted to keep your distance. If that has changed or I misunderstood, I'd still want to make a face to face acquaintance with you.
ta ta.
Jb
