Hello Mark65x55,

I am repeating here (e-mail sent to you earlier today) so please bare with me as I owe that to the AR forum members/friends.

The bottom line is "The buck stops here" (with no intention at bravado), the responsibility is mine.

I sincerely apologize for the frustration, irritation and dissapointment that you and LaRita have experienced and placing trust and friendship shown towards me, in question. I am refering to the trust and friendship of you, Larita and all the forum members who have hunted with me and spoken well of my operation.

It was never my intention to leave you with a bitter taste of your first African hunting experience.
The fault is mine for not rounding a lucky and good hunt off with the delivery of your shipment in an effective and timely manner. Classic Safaris has grown and I did not grow with it. I neglected to ensure that the hunters (many AR members) who made all of it possible recieved the back up service, for this I also sincerely apologise.

I did offer a future plains game hunt to you at half the daily rate in an effort to "make it right". I thought about this and realised that to have you choose to hunt with me again, I will firstly have to regain your confidence and trust and that at best could take time. My initiall offer stands however given my reasoning above I am also offering to cover 50% of your shipping costs.

To avoid a delay like this happening again, I have employed an admin officer and an additional driver. One of their responsibilities will be submitting trophies for quarantine requirements and then once the trophies have cleared quarantine, the transportation of these trophies to the shipping agent and finalising all necessary paper work from our side.

For the most part I have run this business as a one man operation, I have learnt a few lessons from this experience and served a reminder on the importance of paying attention to detail. The lessons being, encourage and improve communications, hire help where necessary, follow up until the task is finalised and grow with your company.

To our host Saeed, the moderators and fellow forum members I sincerely apologise.

I pray that we can put this behind us and start repairing and rebuilding.

Hi Vaughn,
Thank you for trying to clear this up. I was wondering if I would contact you if I was ever going to hunt Namibia. At first it was a no-brainer but then after following Mark's troubles I had my doubts. I believe I'll wait and see how the dust settles. Right now I'm on Mark's side. I think he has been as close to a gentleman as one could be. I feel his frustation and anger everytime he vents. Hopefully everything will go smoothly now, but I have to be honest and say I'll believe it when Mark posts some pictures here. Safe and happy hunting to all.
Joe

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Originally posted by goosejoe:
Hi Vaughn,
Thank you for trying to clear this up. I was wondering if I would contact you if I was ever going to hunt Namibia. At first it was a no-brainer but then after following Mark's troubles I had my doubts. I believe I'll wait and see how the dust settles. Right now I'm on Mark's side. I think he has been as close to a gentleman as one could be. I feel his frustation and anger everytime he vents. Hopefully everything will go smoothly now, but I have to be honest and say I'll believe it when Mark posts some pictures here. Safe and happy hunting to all.
Joe

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goosejoe, before you write off Vaughan as someone you'd like to hunt with, I suggest you contact others here on AR who have hunted with him, and have nothing but good to say about him. Screwups occur with every outfitter from time to time. Not one of them has a totally unblemished record. Vaughan has admitted several times that he fouled up, and has done his utmost to make things right. If I were in Mark's shoes I'd be really ticked off too. In my hunting career most of the time things went like clockwork, but a couple of times things just turned into a major cluster fxxx. And this was with some big name outfitters. As I mentioned, don't write Vaughan off because of one incident. His reputation has earned more than that.

Vaughan,
As you well know, from the e-mail I sent you this morning, I talked to Patti at Coppersmith this morning and she stated I had a shipment from Namibia waiting to clear Customs. My plan was, after I actually had the package in my hands, to discuss this matter with you one last time and with your permission, I wasn’t sure if you wanted anymore publicity on this subject or not, make a statement that I had indeed received our trophies. I figured, at the least, I owe you that. I would also like to take this time to tell you and all the members of AR that I have made more than one error in judgement in handling this matter and hopefully I too can learn from these mistakes. This has been very troubling, tiring and frustrating for both of us. I fully agree with you it’s a shame that things have gotten to this point and feel its time to put this behind us, so we can both move forward. Actually I’ve felt that way for sometime now, but by nature most of the time I find it hard to ever give up on anything. Sometimes, like a bulldog on a bone, I don’t know when its best to back off. Anyway Vaughan, I thank you for being a man of your word and seeing this through to the end. I will let you know when I have the trophies in-hand, and will be glad to post that here if that is your wish, and that will be the last you will hear from me regarding this subject. Good luck and good hunting.

Mark

Mike, I guess I didn't make myself clear. I wasn't in any way shape or form writing Vaughn off. What I was implying was that if everything works out well I would most certainly contact Vaughn. You are correct, I have heard a lot of good things but I also would not want to be in Mark's shoes either. If I get the chance to hunt Namibia I will for sure check out Vaughn's other references. Sorry about the confusion, I didn't mean to infer that Vaughn has this sort of thing happen often. Good hunting.
Joe

Hey Mark

I'll give you $20 for that 50% discount if you don't want it!

Not sure if Vaughan would go for it but it might be worth a try.....I'd love to go back and hunt with him again!

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Originally posted by goosejoe:
Mike, I guess I didn't make myself clear. I wasn't in any way shape or form writing Vaughn off. What I was implying was that if everything works out well I would most certainly contact Vaughn. You are correct, I have heard a lot of good things but I also would not want to be in Mark's shoes either. If I get the chance to hunt Namibia I will for sure check out Vaughn's other references. Sorry about the confusion, I didn't mean to infer that Vaughn has this sort of thing happen often. Good hunting.
Joe

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goosejoe-no problem my friend.