Originally Posted by
franklin_m
Dang....you hit the nail on the head! I'm engaged with TonyS on another site. He wants a pat on the back for providing a contact list from conferences. He's frustrated that he's not received more members talking to him about this. I told him "well, that's a complete failure of AMA's internal communication." I have to wonder how may people we're paying for such crummy internal communications?
Additionally, I told him that gathering a list of names of cities etc. that might be interested in a field is an activity, not a result. Why? Because AMA HQ & EC still expect the members to do all the heavy lifting.
Meanwhile, they continue plowing big dollars into "Taj-Muncie" and spend quite a bit more on EC travel for their quarterly conclave than they give in field grants. And there's the EVP who wants to put MORE money toward recruiting drone members -- despite two years of effort without result. I think they call that putting good money after bad.
These three actions alone send a huge signal to me as a member. I'm paying to support the bureaucracy. Back in the military, we used to call that a "Self Licking Ice Cream Cone" -- and it wasn't a compliment. That's what AMA HQ and the EC has become.
Meanwhile, you've got two folks in Government affairs, one of whom is so knowledgeable about aviation that he says the 107 material is really hard. Wow. That's who's telling people what they can and cannot do? It's like having a plumber tell you how to do brain surgery. And what is that sort of "expertise" costing us? Serve up another "SLICC."
Hi Franklin ,
I'm with you on the idea that any additional spending on either Muncie or attempting to attract a disinterested audience should be put on hold until (IF ever) the paying membership numbers rise . I remember one gent who used to post here that would get all upset if anyone mentioned the number of paying VS free youth memberships , making it sound as if anyone was the ultimate Scrooge just for mentioning it , but the unfortunate fact is that there are less paying members now than in years past and nowhere in the pattern of negative financial growth is there a path toward spending even more "good money after bad" . You at one time or another have mentioned the lack of free youth memberships becoming paying adult memberships and I think I may know a partial reason as to why ; How many of us here have signed up our own children or grandchildren that aren't all that interested in model aircraft just so the kid can be eligible for one of the scholarships the AMA offers ? Or maybe so the kid has their own membership for when (IF ever) the kid finally decides to get off of his butt and fly something real outside in the sunshine rather than something fake on a TV screen ? (yea right , like that's ever gonna happen , , NOT !) . So here we have , what , 40K youth memberships , does anyone care to wager any kinds of guesses about how many of those are youth actually into model aircraft VS "signed up by grandpa because ......." ?