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Posts: 327
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Joined: 8/21/2010
Last Login: 6/19/2013
From: College Station, TX, USA
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quote:
ORIGINAL: mjfrederick
First and foremost, I would like to thank Scott and the rest of the NSRCA board for their volunteering to do what is, for the most part, a thankless job.
That being said, the whole rules proposal cycle this year was done bass-ackwards. Now that I have decided to become a full-fledged NSRCA member again I don't have to hold back letting the board know when they did something wrong. It is not the job of the board to provide a solution to a problem that has not been clearly defined. This year a committee was formed and they came up with rules proposals based on grumblings at the field, or complaining here on RCU or other online forums or mailing lists. None of that constitutes a problem. If the NSRCA board thinks a problem exists the first thing they need to do is poll its membership directly. Unfortunately the polls should not be open to just anyone at all because then we'll have the problem of people who don't fly pattern at all or don't fly in the USA participating. Their opinions are irrelevant, and the only way the NSRCA can filter them out is to keep it to active membership. The content of this poll should not be specific rules proposals, but simple questions regarding how people feel about the rules that are being called into question: Do you think the weight limit should be changed in pattern? (YES/NO) If you think the weight limit should be changed should it go up or down? How much do you feel it should go up or down? Once the polling is completed the data should be crunched to see how many people actually think something needs to be done. I've seen in the past it took a 60% affirmative before the Board would push a proposal through to the AMA. This year simple majority was used. Frankly, given the long-lasting ramifications of making rules changes it should require a 2/3 majority before any rules are even looked into. Once it is verified there is a problem, the detail questions on each "issue" could then direct the committee on how to word the proposal with their members' interests in mind. Finally, the proposals should be presented to the membership for discussion, re-working if needed, and a final poll done to make sure 2/3 of the community actually wants the change proposed.
While I appreciate the board's work, I do not appreciate the product they produced this year. Frankly, they should ask the AMA Contest Board to ignore all proposals from the NSRCA this year and gear up now for the next rules cycle.
Hi Matt,
Since you have just rejoined (and I'm very happy about that), let me give you a little insight into a few items. The NSRCA is the special interest group to the AMA for precision aerobatics. That means that, regardless of affiliation, the NSRCA is responsible not only to its members, but to the whole pattern community as well. It is our position to take everyone in the community into account and not just its member as everyone should be heard. When the results of the poll were submitted to the NSRCA BoD, there were both numbers given; those of just current 2011-2012 NSRCA members and all persons who decided to take the poll regardless of affiliation. 12 non-members took the survey and 95 were NSRCA members.
Secondly, you are absolutely right about what should have been done. This committee was put together at the end of January, suggestions submitted to the BoD at the beginning of February, candidate proposals drafted, survey set up and results given to the BoD the first week of March and results of the BoD decision submitted to AMA by March 15. As I'm sure you are aware, we were changing our submissions to more fit the needs of the pattern community in the 11th hour of the deadline. This year, it is the board's intention to rewrite the By-Laws and set specific time frames when any of these committees shall be formed and processes started so that the perceived "rush" does not happen again. You, of course, are entitled to your opinion just like everyone else. Jim Quinn, Don Atwood, John Gayer and myself went back through years of BoD Minutes and could not find anything that constituted a 60% rule or a 2/3 majority in order to pass. We also contacted Derek Koopowitz who sat on the board from 1999-2010 and he was not aware of any rule like that either. If we were to have found that, we would have pulled those proposals that did not fall within those limits. There are many conversations that happen behind the scenes, that was one of them. Each of the 8 DVPs had a vote and that vote should be in line with his/her district member's desires. All DVP's, save one, voted in favor of these proposals. The Executive Officers shall vote with all persons in mind and should side with the majority as well as the DVPs personal opinions in mind. There should definitely be a distinction between a DVPs personal opinion and his/her constituents wishes and we feel confident that each of the DVPs voted with their district's opinions in mind as a whole.
Lastly, the NSRCA does not make the rules, the AMA Precision Aerobatics Contest Board takes care of that. The NSRCA merely submits its findings and suggestions to the AMA Precision Aerobatics Contest Board. On that board, sits a member from each district of AMA. Your representative is Lance Von Nostrand. These individuals are appointed by the AMA's District Vice President to hold a seat on the board. The board's chair is John Fuqua. There are also other proposals submitted by other individuals whether they are NSRCA members or not. The AMA Precision Aerobatics Contest Board will now take all submitted proposals and go through them, contacting the authors of the proposal to first, try to take similar proposals and come to a consensus and see if they can be "merged", and then proceed with the process.
Although there have been a couple of suggestions (meaning two, both of which submitted here and not through official means of communication) to the NSRCA to remove the submitted proposals, the BoD feels confident that the proposals submitted support the pattern community and are looking out for the betterment of our sport. It is quite obvious that "status-quo" is doing nothing to improve attendance at competitions or to help our community grow. This can be seen not only in attendence, but how many different manufacturers are building items for pattern and how few of them are gearing advertising dollars to pattern. In actuality, I feel the job of the NSRCA is to promote pattern and look out for the betterment of our sport. Resistance to change is not always the right thing to do. In my opinion, the NSRCA Rules Committee, as well as the NSRCA BoD, did a great job with these proposals and now it is in the hands of the AMA R/C Precision Aerobatics Contest Board to take our suggestions and move forward by means set forth in the instructions of the AMA itself.
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Scott McHarg
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All Forums >> RC Airplanes >> Pattern Universe - RC Pattern Flying >> RC Pattern Flying >> RE: NSRCA Candidate Rules Proposal Survey is available 
RE: NSRCA Candidate Rules Proposal Survey is available - 
Fun part is, the more I make that statement, the more true it becomes. Nothing like a self-fulfilling prophecy (or statistic in this case) to really get the juices pumping on a Monday.