ORIGINAL: Gremlin Castle
There is indication that the AMA has become a self serving organization that is out of touch with what a portion of the current membership and non member flyers really want.
Evaluating what member flyers want is my job, even if my name isn't George.
Evaluating what non-member flyers want is gonna be a lot more difficult. Not sure how to do that.
As in two other AMA Districts, District V is under new 'management', with a new staff. For the first time in decades the District V officers are ALL active model builders and flyers, not a bunch of political appointees who hold AMA positions because they belong to a large club or because they won the "instant LM/instant AVP" door prize somewhere.
Things are changing in District V about as fast as they could change. AVPs have geographic areas of responsibility and have tasking heretofore unheard of - submitting a minimum number of event reports per quarter, with a guarantee of having at least two such reports published in MA per year (there are or will be 20 AVPs, so two events per year per AVP ain't bad). The District V AVPs are going to work meeting with clubs and members, covering events, and more importantly, jump-starting the lines of communication in the District and to Muncie.
For the first time EVER there is a Leader Member discussion list for D-V. There is or will soon be a discussion list for the Safety Coordinators in the District, and that's another first. The District V web site staff listing includes e-mail addresses and phone numbers. The days when an AMA member could not get a response from a District V officer are well and truly gone.
AMA may have been headed toward a self-serving organization in the past, but those days are over down here. I betcha that's also true in the two districts which elected new Vice Presidents last fall, and I'm real sure it's already going on in Dave Mathewson's district.
Muncie doesn't recruit new AMA members, those are found or created at the club level - model flyers don't sprout at the National Flying Site, but they pop up like weeds out here in the woods.
It's my opinion that most clubs don't think AMA does much for them beyond providing insurance for events, and that most members don't think of AMA as anything other than an insurance provider. That's all wrong, but I think I'm safe in calling it a real popular opinion.
Getting the clubs back up to speed in communicating with Muncie, with the District, and with each other is my job.
Servicing 34 clubs in North Georgia is gonna put dent in my building schedule, but I think that in the end it will have been well worth the effort.
Now, it'll take us some time to get District V untracked and working again, so how's about let's see if AMA is still a self-serving organization in a year or two ?