After I started really showing an interest in birds, Eric asked if I wanted to go with him to a meeting for this bird club. I wasn't sure what it was but I was curious to find out so I agreed. He had been a member of this club for a while, mostly for the expos but he hadn't gone to a meeting before. The Rocky Mountain Society of Agriculture was their name, a club for educating and helping birds in need of a home, among other things. The meetings weren't very interesting to me, they were kind of boring the first few times we went. At least that is how I felt about them. I liked going to see different and new birds. Eric really enjoyed going to them, for the education, for the interest in helping birds, and for the people. He found many good friends from attending the meetings.

    Eric got to know more about the club. He didn't like that the clubs meeting location was hardly at the same location twice. It was held at Lakeside until they closed and after that it was held in a couple different bird stores. They weren't very organized and he heard rumors about people on the board. He decided he wanted to help the club. He told me he was thinking about running for a board position but wasn't sure which one. By this point he had got to know most if not all the board members, they all seemed to share a passion for birds. The first thing he did for them was offered his shop area for the meetings to be held and a storage space for the club's stuff. He did this because he wanted to see the meetings held in a place where people could bring their birds to meetings to socialize and make them a little more fun. I am sure he did it also so they wouldn't have to pay a place for the use of space as he knew from experience the price for such a venue. The next thing I knew the president of RMSA stepped down early and Eric was voted in. All I thought was how fun this will be and I couldn't wait to see the changes he would bring to the club.

   I think most can agree that Eric brought the people in the club closer together. Being president of the RMSA became his number one priority, he was always doing something for the bird club. He made sure the meetings were professional yet comfortable. He organized the treasury records so they were easier to manage by giving his own laptop to be used to hold  the RMSA info, before him they did not keep records on computers, nor did they keep up with current records very well. He showed the treasurer how QuickBooks could help keep financials records in order and up to date. He helped put all the money the club had scattered in different accounts into one account. He basically turned a club from a high school organized like club into a club that could actually conduct goals in a professional manner. But the best thing I believe he had done was kept the members friendly with each other. This was important to him because the previous president had wished him good luck on getting people to get along, as they were to often shunning one another for reasons that would be understood later.

     Tasha, a long time friend of his and the person who happened to introduce him to the club, informed him of problems within club members. Mainly board members (former and current). Most of it seemed minor and fixable but there was one issue which seemed to be hushed, not by him but by the members who were aware (some who new a lot of details and some who only knew the rumors). Lisa McManus, events manager for the club, before he really got to know her as a person, he saw a devoted and knowledgeable board member. What he had heard (from Tasha first) about Lisa was that she had a lot of birds. At the time Tasha was getting along with Lisa until she said she could no longer associate with a person who owned that many birds. Eric didn't know how many birds Lisa owned but he was aware that she was a breeder and he knew she brought a new bird to almost every event, and Lisa never denied the fact that she had a lot of birds, but how many is too many? This is a question that made members uneasy. After getting to know Lisa, he became really good friends with her. She was nice and fun to talk to and a joy to work with. She knew how to run things in a way so the club progressed and she put more effort and time into the club then any other member.

     But Lisa was not favored, he liked all the club members and wanted to do all he could for them. A position opened up in his business and one board member told him that Iris (treasurer at the time) was looking for a job, so Eric had her come in to interview. He had already got to know her and liked her as a person. She had no book keeping experience and didn't know ten key but he thought she could learn and he wanted to help her out as a friend so he gave her the position. He knew their was a risk by hiring her, not only because she was under experienced but she was treasure of RMSA also, but that was one reason he went a head and hired her. She had been working there for almost but not quite a year, but she still wasn't understanding the AR and AP parts of her job well at all. The bookkeeping was totally wacked. He tried to go over things with her, he explained along with the office manager the order things needed to be done and many different ways to get them done. She failed to show any progress. So he brought back Mary, the previous bookkeeper, in hopes that she could train her and help her fix the problems in QuickBooks that she had made. It was to be temporary until Iris understood enough to do it on her own.

     Eric really liked Iris and valued her friendship. It was nice to have her at the shop, he enjoyed being able to take care of bird club stuff in-between Westech stuff and he believed Iris was a true friend who had his back and believed in him as a president as well as a boss. He got numerous complaints from the office about Iris spending to much time on bird club stuff during Westech hours, it was beginning to interfere with not only her work, but everyone's. She was doing doing her part so everyone else was having to do double. Eric told her to spend more time on Westech work, but he never enforced it too much, I believe he over looked the mistakes she made and the pace she moved just because he really liked Iris. He let her get away with doing things no other employee had ever been able to do or at least had never been allowed to do for that long. He started to see Iris wasn't learning her job and probably wouldn't ever get better than she was, so he just made Mary a permanent job (as dispatcher since he didn't want to fire Iris) so Mary could help pick up where she was lagging. He kept iris as an employee, for reasons I am not sure of why, but my theory is simply because he liked Iris and thought she was a true friend.

     Back to the club, with Eric as president the club earned more money than I believe they had ever had. All board members were giving the right time and attention to the tasks that needed to be done, and the members were happy. i bet more people attend meetings now than in the past, and I believe it is because Eric showed people how getting along with one another benefits the cause of helping birds more than anything. But behind the Shadows there was one issue that was yet to be formally addressed. Lisa McManus and the amount of birds she owned, and rumors suggested kept in filth, was an issue that caused problems. If someone brought up the amount of birds Lisa had they would let it be over looked time and again. Eric and I finally went to Lisa's house to get a cage that belonged to a bird she had gave to me after I was unable to adopt a bird that we fostered that I really got attached to. (She did this out of the kindness of her heart because she didn't want me to be upset). I thought about what Tasha had told me a while ago when describing Lisa's house. She said ceiling to floor and wall to wall cages. I figured that it was like that in one or two rooms, I was wrong.

     We pulled into her driveway were she greeted us and lead us through her garage to her house. The garage was filled and I mean packed full of empty cages, there was just enough room to walk through to the inside of her house. On the way in I could hear the noises of what sounded like a living room full of birds, but I was wrong to think it was just the living room. The first thing I saw was around oh eight or so large cages placed around her living room which homed I believe around six or eight African grays. He introduced us to each of them and the birds seemed to really love Lisa and Alan, they were happy. On top of the eight large cages, there was a shelf built into the wall, I am not sure how long, but there was cages and birds living in them, some had another cage on top them.. She held the majority of those birds for us and introduced us to them, they too were very happy when Lisa was with them. You could just tell by the way they reacted to her that they were bonded to her. Okay remember we are still in the living room and with cages on the shelves and the eight large cages oh and the chair, couch, coffee table and dresser with a small TV on top, there was barely room to move from one place to the next. Suddenly four black dogs came running down her stairs and Lisa asked us if she could get by to let her dogs outside, it was nearly impossible for her to get by because the coffee table was almost touching the couch so there was barely enough room for your feet to comfortably rest in front of you. I couldn't believe that with all these birds she had dogs too.

Okay so next we were taken up her stairs to her computer and kitchen area. There was around five maybe less, macaws in this area plus Maddie, her Vaasa. She introduced us to those birds, I remember her bird saying "I want a peanut". I thought that was cool, I tried making him talk again but he didn't until Lisa looked at him and started paying attention to him. That bird lit up and starting saying all kinds of things, you could just see how much he really liked Lisa too. I was enjoying meeting her birds, I thought yeah she does have way to many but they seem to really love her. Then I was the kitchen. It had four by six cages that covered the left side (stacked), the counters had cages covering them and some cages held more than just one bird. Also in the back of the kitchen there was her incubator and nursery I guess you could call it. She showed us her babies, and once again I saw a lot of birds but that was the only problem I saw up to this point. Until I noticed these cages to left when first entering her kitchen. There was 3 medium cages stacked one on top the other which Quakers I believe occupied. There were no trays in the bottoms of the top cages and I noticed that the bird living in the bottom cage had nothing placed between his cage and the cage above to stop the food and waste from landing in his cage, in his food dishes and on him. That image stayed in the back of my mind every time I thought about Lisa's house. The bottom bird had little food and the water dish looked like poop stew. What really got to me was he was drinking that water. I told Lisa about the dirty water dish and so she right away gave the bird more food and changed the water. So what else could I do. It still didn't make me like Lisa any less, I thought perhaps it was a day away from cleaning day or something, I believe that she would take care of it.

     She led us to her basement area, which was covered with bird dander, very thick. There once again was cages on every wall from floor to top, well after Eric got the cage we went there for out, there was some open room. She introduced us to some finches, her two eucalyptus birds and a couple other misc. birds. Most of the medium sized birds had plucking problems as they all had a bold spot somewhere, some worse than others. But once again Lisa held a few of them and they didn't seem miserable to me, especially when she was holding them or talking to them. As her and Eric were in conversation I was looking around. I was amazed at the amount of birds in some of the cages, they were all small birds, lovebirds and finches. I started to go down the hall when Lisa turned the light switch off and told me I don't want to see back there its just breeder birds and they aren't supposed to be disturbed at this time. I thought nothing of it and fallowed her back upstairs. I really enjoyed Lisa's birds and I was glad to have finally seen what I only heard of from Tasha, Iris and other people/members who told me. I was shocked that she found it livable to have that many birds and I couldn't believe animal control hadn't been there to address the issue (I wasn't aware that they had in the past). I thought that even if it wasn't breaking any laws with the amount I thought the fire department could at least call the place a huge fire hazard because if there ever was a fire she could no way get herself out of the house let alone all the animals. But I have to make clear that when we were at Lisa's house it did not have any foul odors, there were no birds that we saw that looked ill or abused. There weren't any signs of rodents anywhere and the carpet was freshly vacuumed. The food dishes were all filled with adequate food and the water dishes were dirty but very few looked slimy. I figured even if she just changed the waters, after a few moments of birds flapping there wings, the water could look as though it hadn't been changed in days, when really it was simply the air.

     Lisa is a friend of mine, because I feel she has a good mind heart and soul. She has never been nothing but nice to Eric and I and she has never lied, cheated, or stolen from us and she has helped us with our birds. I do believe she had to many birds, I did mention that to her one time. I asked her if she thought she had to many birds. The first thing she  said was "Don't tell me how many birds I can handle". Then she explained what seems like too many to one person, seems like just enough to another. I sort of admired they way she wasn't going to let me put her and her birds down. When all is said and done there are a couple reasons why I didn't keep telling her she had to many birds but my main reason was how her birds reacted to her. There were 100 birds give or take but almost every single one of them she handled showed only signs of love. Anyone who could have witnessed her with anyone of those birds in her house you could feel just how much she loved them and they loved her. So to me that is what mattered. Lisa has a lot of bird experience, she is very knowledgeable and can direct you in the right direction to find answers for just about any question you may have on birds. I never told her how to raise her birds because it would have been like telling someone how to raise there kids. And those birds were her kids, and I know that they loved her. I also know Lisa has a lot to offer the club, I believe she is the most dedicated person when it comes to helping the club. She has done more than anyone I have heard of or known in the club. I don't hate her for any reason even though we may have different opinions as far as how many birds it too many and how to feed and clean cages.

     With my experience shared about Lisa's house, lets get back to Eric and what happened to take place. Tasha had been friends with Eric for years and when he joined the club they got to be even better friends. When Tasha wanted to earn some cash she asked Eric if she could be paid to clean our cages. Eric agreed and liked the idea because Tasha could handle our birds without us having to be there and he wanted to help her out as well. She came over once a week and I enjoyed it when she did. There were times when Tasha asked me questions about Eric and RMSA, of course she always was upfront with her despise of Lisa, she would make some agreeable points but most of it seemed personal to me and not having to do with her care for birds. Her problem with Lisa I got was having to do with Lisa always getting her way with the club. She said Lisa traps people in her world and mind controls them to benefit herself so she can get the birds she really wanted. She believed that Lisa's intentions with the club were all for herself and those who are her friends. I didn't think to much of what she was saying because I believe there is only one person who can control your mind, I also can understand Lisa's side which she doesn't think anyone in the club has the authority to tell her when she has too many birds. But Tasha seemed to be upset with Eric and Lisa's friendship because she told Eric when he was first deciding on being on the board not to let Lisa pull him into her cesspool. And I think she felt like Lisa was taking Eric's friendship away from her. So when Donnie called Tasha and told her about Lisa's house she decided she wasn't going to allow this to go on for any. Calls were made and Lisa had 111 birds taken from her home.

      Eric would have still be friends with Tasha, he understood her reasons for wanting to turn Lisa in. If Tasha wouldn't have lied about it at first the way that she did. You see Tasha cleaned cages for Eric and I and she was cleaning cages and talking to me. She asked me if I had heard anything about Lisa recently. I told her not really and asked her what she meant. She told me that Donnie called Animal Control on Lisa and that she was just wondering how that was going to play out. I told her I hadn't heard anything. Of course when Tasha left I phoned Eric and informed him of Tasha and my conversation. He then of course called Donnie and asked him what the hell (remember he believes there were others ways we could have helped the birds at Lisa's house). Donnie was angry that and said he never even talked to Tasha and he wasn't the one who made the call. It wasn't until many people started praising the deed that Tasha starting admitting that she was the main hand in it. Eric didn't care that she did it what upset him about Tasha is that he thought they were close enough friends now that she would have told him herself that she called so he could have planned a course of action with the RMSA. No Tasha instead was purposely trying to turn the membership against him. I truly fell that Tasha was always looking for a way to pay Eric back for something he did to her (which he had already made it up to her for what he did). Tasha also had always despised Lisa so she wanted to bring her down. It just so happened that she helped some birds in the process. Tasha stabbed him in the back. 

     Being the friend that Eric is when he received the call from Lisa that her birds were taken away, right away he wanted to help her. He could imagine what he would do if his birds were taken away, so he sympathized with her and probably acted too fast. But you have to remember, Eric hadn't been to Lisa's house in years so he was unaware of its conditions. But if he was he would have helped her because he believes we all benefit from helping each other. I too feel that we should help each other, no matter if we have to keep helping. After Eric's president letter he received a lot of praises and he also received a lot of complaints. The complaint that made him regret his letter was what he had said about the Gabriel Foundation. He didn't mean to make it sound as if he was against them and their work, he apologized to Julie Murad personally. The damage there had already been done. Another mistake he knew was that he suggested for people to help her out by sending money, which he also wished he could have taken back after seeing the pictures from her house. Just to be clear Eric never gave Lisa any money to help her with her case. He didn't do anything as far as her courts went.

     Now the complaints of Lisa being a board member began. Someone with Animal cruelty charges, some believed should not be allowed to be a board member. Eric agreed to that and so he asked Lisa to take a leave of absence. So she did, Shortly after her announcement of taking a leave, it was time for the November Expo. It had already been in order and so Eric was running things as planned. There were members that were upset that Lisa was allowed to have a booth at the Expo and that she was even allowed to be there. They didn't think she should have been able to do anything because she took her leave of absence. Everyone seemed to be doing good, until Lisa started freaking out on a few individuals. I think that her actions are what caused the troubles to go to the extreme afterwards. I'm not sure exactly what happened but I do know that Lisa spoke to Barry Schneider and was angry with him for having Glenda sitting at his booth. She told him he was harboring the Enemy and basically she ranted and raved, apparently Lisa thought if you were her friend then you wouldn't talk to anyone who had anything to do with turning her in. Which I believe was a big mistake on her part. This angered Barry very much because he was Lisa's friend but he did not like the condition of her house but he left it alone, he wasn't planning on shunning her for it. Her actions I think is what made others see that she truly believed she did nothing wrong. It infuriated many.

     When Eric learned what Lisa had said to Barry he was immediately angry. He told Lisa to just keep her mouth shut and not cause anymore problems then she already had and that it wasn't doing anything but making things hard for him and the club. Then he went to Barry and apologized for Lisa's behavior and wanted to know if there was something he could do to make it up. I'm not sure what Barry said but I do know that he was nice to me and seemed to be okay.  Then as Tasha showed up towards the end of the day, more problems began. Papers were floating around about Lisa case, which was totally inappropriate since the case wasn't over yet among other reasons. Eric was trying to find out who was passing them around. I heard Iris tell him that Tasha was the one passing them out so I went to Tasha (Being her friend at the time) and I asked her if she was passing them out. She said she wasn't passing them out but if I wanted one she had one I could have. So I took one and gave it to Eric and he made Tasha leave the expo for trying to cause problems by addressing issues that were not yet needing to be addressed. Of course there were some who saw this as Eric trying to push the issue under the rug and stand up for Lisa. I don't believe this to be the case, I believe that he felt the expo was not the place for such information to be passed out.

      The next general meeting I believe was the Christmas Party and Elections meeting. More members attended that meeting than I had ever seen at any meeting. I am sure it was because more people had became aware of the details of Lisa's case and wanted to get involved. Many new people were nominated for board positions, people who were genuinely wanting to be apart of RMSA and then some who I believe only wanted the position to make sure Lisa was exposed and kicked out of the club. Either way Eric was glad there would be new faces on the board. to be continued......