jonlowe

My Feedback: (12)

I am posting this here in an attempt to reach the most NSRCA members possible. I also posted it on the NSRCA mailing list, so if you read it there, this is the same thing. The existing bylaws can be found on the NSRCA website at nsrca.us.


Since the bylaw change ballots have now been sent out, in accordance with the current bylaws, and since the NSRCA board has failed to provide any rationale for the changes (if they are going to propose changes, you'd think they'd own up to why they want to change them), I thought I'd review the proposed changes here and provide comments. Jim Quinn said that we could either vote for or against the entire package, or for individual items within the package. I will review the changes item by item, and provide what I think is the rationale for the change. As you will see below, I am recommending voting NO on several of the changes. I have not seen the official ballot yet and won't until at least Wednesday since I am out of town, so I am commenting on what was provided in the July 22nd NSRCA Board minutes. Note that there were several typos in those minutes, and that I have attempted to correct them where possible.



Article II, Section I: This would change the business address from the Secretary to the Treasurer of the club. This is probably ok, since bills to the club are sent to the business address, and this could prevent delays in payment.



Article III, Section I: This is part of the object and purpose of the Society. It would delete "...in all of its phases." from the second sentence so it would now read: "To aid, insofar as possible, the Academny of Model Aeronautics and other AMA activites, to further the advancement of model aircraft aerobatics." This change appears to be a clarification change, and should be ok.



Article V, Section II(b): This appears to clarify the dues payment, and makes clear that dues should be made payable to NSRCA and not the treasurer. Appears to be ok.



Article V, Section III: This would change termination of membership from one month to three months dues delinquency. I see no reason for this change, and would commit the club to keep mailing K-Factors to delinquent members for two more months. At a time when there is a lot of debate on the board about the expense of the K-Factor, this makes no sense. Recommend voting NO on this item.



Article VIII, Section II (c): This change would remove the requirement to mail out ballots, and changes the wording to allow whatever method the board deems appropriate for voting, without specifying any method at all for votes to be taken. This change would also allow votes to be accepted until 10 days after Dec 31st, IF they were mailed out to members. This change appears to be why the abortive attempt was made for an electronic vote for officers this year, which disenfranchised many members who were not aware a vote was being taken. We do NOT require web access to be a member of NSRCA, and until we do, we MUST allow for ALL members to vote on officers of NSRCA. Strongly recommend voting NO on this change.



Article VIII, Section III (e): This would change voting for District VPs in the same manner as the method in Article VIII, Section II (c) above. Strongly recommend voting NO.



Article VIII, Section III (f): This change was listed as Article VII, Section III (f) in the Board meeting minutes, which I believe was a typo. This is a continuation of the change above to Article VIII, Section III(e) on voting deadlines. Strongly recommend voting NO.



Article IX, Section I: This removes some unnecessary wording from the first paragraph of the Communications and Promotions portion of the by-laws. It appears to be a mistake made when this portion of the bylaws was written. Appears to be ok.



Article IX, Section II: This would remove the requirement for the K-Factor to be mailed to members. It would have to be "made available to all members", but doesn't say how. Since the proposed wording is unclear, recommend voting NO on this change.



Article IX, Section III (a): This removes the requirement for a Communications and Promotions manager appointed by the BOD, and changes that responsibility to the BOD itself. However, it does not assign that responsibility to anyone on the board. But it retains the provision for the board to appoint someone to be that manager. As a result the paragraph appears to contradict itself. Recommend voting NO on this change since the resulting language is ambiguous.



Article IX, Section III (b): This change changes says that the Board "...shall appoint a Judging Program Manager." It currently says "...should appoint..." This change appears to be ok.



In summary, I believe that there are several problems with the proposed changes, and recommend that you read them carefully and understand each of the changes. I'd recommend either voting NO to the whole package, or voting against the specific changes I've outlined above.



Thanks for reading.



Jon Lowe
NSRCA District 3
Candidate for NSRCA President

Surefire

My Feedback: (1)

To all NSRCA members - There have been a few posts on the NSRCA list regarding our upcoming election and current issues that I think must be responded too. Just to be clear while I am a member of the current Board of Directors (D7 for 3 years) and I have served as Chairman of the NSRCA Judging Committee for 4 years and I am running for NSRCA President, I am primarily writing this as a pattern flyer who happens to have some knowledge of how the NSRCA is governed. The first point I would like to address is the “tone� of these posts. They seem to imply that the Board of Directors (BoD) has some “secret� agenda to ram through these Bylaw changes and “disenfranchise� some portion of the membership. Please! The BoD is made of dedicated, active pattern flyers. We all volunteered to serve on the NSRCA Board because we love pattern and we want it to grow and thrive. I believe that every member of the BoD is an active CD and runs one or more pattern contests every year! Does this mean that the BoD has not made some mistakes? Of course not, the current BoD failed to get a general membership vote on these Bylaw changes that were discussed at great lengths at the July NSRCA BoD meeting. Then we forged ahead with an online election. This was in error. We had not followed the rules of our organization nor had we communicated properly with the membership. As soon as this was brought to the BoD’s attention we immediately began working to rectify the mistake. It takes a little time in any organization to correct the course. I think that our response time of generating correct paper ballots and getting them mailed out was not excessive. As we move forward, we must ensure that our communication with the membership is both timely and complete.

There also seems to be a feeling that the printed K-Factor is the “only� official means of communicating NSRCA business to the membership. I am not a lawyer but I have read the Bylaws pretty carefully (especially lately!) and I cannot find this stated. In fact, the current Bylaws already discuss and allow the electronic dissemination of the K-Factor. (Note 1) When the NSRCA began it truly was the “only� way to communicate with the membership. That was a long time ago though! We now get e-mail, we read news sites devoted to pattern, we have an “official� NSRCA discussion list, we have dedicated NSRCA discussion lists for most of our individual districts, heck, even though I don’t use it very much we have an “official� Facebook page! I certainly don’t think it is too much of a hardship for members to subscribe to the NSRCA discussion list. That being said the printed K-Factor is still relied upon by a few members and we need to continue to keep it available. Please keep in mind though that as an organization I believe we need to move away from paper and towards electronic media! We need to carefully manage the transition but it needs to happen. I currently maintain my membership in 4 local AMA clubs and one AMA club in Indiana and they all rely on electronic communication as their primary point of contact with their membership!

This brings me to the actual proposed Bylaw changes. The bylaws were discussed at great length at the July BoD meeting. I think you will all realize when you receive the actual ballot in the mail; most of the Bylaw changes are minor in nature. Clarification, correction etc… I certainly urge a “Yes� vote on all of these. The significant change that has been proposed is to allow the BoD to choose how an election (for executive office and District vice president) is conducted. Putting aside conspiracy theories, the BoD is not attempting to disenfranchise anyone in the organization. One possible, easy way to do this is to have each member indicate a preference for electronic or postal communication with the NSRCA. (This data would be entered in their profile when they renewed) Then for the next election the members who want to electronically vote can and the members who want to vote by mail also can. These problems are certainly not insurmountable and I assure you there is no “vast conspiracy� involved. I urge a “Yes� vote on this issue also.
Another issue that has been raised is the NSRCA’s relationship with the AMA. As I indicated in my brief resume the current BoD is well aware of this problem and steps are already being taken to repair this relationship. If I am elected I believe we can finish this process and have a strong and productive relationship with the AMA. Let us not forget that all of us are AMA members and that the NSRCA is the official SIG for pattern in the USA!

On a more positive note, what can we do to promote pattern in the USA and grow the NSRCA? Two areas that I believe are important are promoting F3P in the USA and strengthening our ties with the Classic Pattern community. In D7 we have started running some rounds of Classic Pattern at our AMA contests and I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback. If the numbers of pilots who express interest in this grows some clubs might actually host some Classic only events. The synergy here is obvious. Our current NSRCA District 7 Intermediate season champion started flying AMA pattern because he attended one of these “mixed� contests. He tried AMA pattern and he liked it! The key here is fun and the more flyers we expose to the fact that pattern is not a “chore�; that it can be fun the better! We all do this (pattern) because we love it and enjoy it, let’s not lose sight of that.

In terms of F3P the NSRCA is the recognized promoter of F3P in the USA and I think we need to put some effort behind this. This is another area where we can leverage of the natural synergy between these two disciplines.

In summary I am excited to be a part of the AMA and the NSRCA! We have challenges before us but also great opportunities. If elected as NSRCA President I look forward to growing our organization and ensuring that we preserve and promote the sport of pattern in the USA.

Thanks

Jon Carter
Candidate for NSRCA President



Note 1 – from current bylaws.
Section 2 - Communications

a. There shall be a newsletter type of publication produced on a target of monthly basis wherever physically and fiscally possible. Normally this newsletter will be sent to all eligible members. For promotional and communication purposes the Newsletter may also be sent to others deemed valuable to the purposes of the NSRCA. These other recipients may include, but are not limited to, officers of the AMA, and officers of other Modeling Societies and AMA Special Interest Groups (referred to as SIGs).

b. The editor of the Newsletter shall be appointed by the NSRCA Board of Directors.

c. The communication and transport of the newsletter is not limited to current mail services and can also employ the use of electronic options as they may present themselves today and in the future. (bold added for emphasis

glowplugboy

My Feedback: (17)

A very interesting and necessary discussion. This is an important election, and not just because of by-law changes. I would wonder what is the evolving vision each of you have for the NSRCA? How would each of you sell this vision to the membership? What specific ideas do each of you have to maintain and grow the organization after a decade of shrinking membership numbers?

Kind regards,
Mike

klhoard

My Feedback: (10)

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[broken record]
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This will never happen as long as "they" keep turnaround maneuvers in Sportsman and Intermediate class . . .
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It's too high of a bar skill-wise to get in, and it only gets worse from there . .
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[/broken record]

</snip>

Columbus Ron

Keith,

I disagree. I was in sportsman for one year, intermediate for 5 or more and last year was my first year in advanced. I had to move up to intermediate after one year because I won a contest with more than 4 contestants. I remember worrying all winter about whether I was ready. Well after about 2 or 3 contests it was clear that I was ready. Was it pretty at first no but clearly I wasn't going to crash. Dito last year when I move up to advanced. I think most people should be able to get through sportman in one year. And for that reason I believe turnaround in sportsman and intermediate is what makes it fun. This is a competitive event and pilots giving it a try for the first time should and must have some level of aerobatic competence before they give it a try for the first time. We don't want people who just soloed with a trainer moving directly to aerobatic competition do we??

Silent-AV8R

I know everyone hates to mention IMAC, but if we are talking about participation, etc. maybe we should take a look at them.

The chart below shows (as best I can tell) their contest participation for 2012. These are IMAC members who flew in a contest. I'm not sure what their total membership (USA) is, but I think it is between 800 to 1,000. NSRCA has what? Just a hair over 500??

Then look at the fact that they had 566 members fly at least one contest. In my District/Region they had 136 IMAC pilots versus 61 for pattern.

In California there was a pattern contest (Hemet) and an IMAC contest (Prado) on the same weekend. IMAC got 50 pilots, pattern was pleased to have gotten 27 or so. The largest D7 pattern contest drew 35 pilots, of whom 24 were NSRCA members. Their average turn out for Basic exceeded our average contest entires!!

So perhaps the question should be "What are they doing that we should?" It's not the cost of planes, travel, etc. IMAC planes on average cost more than the average pattern plane (40% + 150 to 200cc and 10 to 14 large digital servos - low end total over $3,000, high end closer to $7K or more!!). Add in that IMAC planes are a bigger hassle to transport, store, get ready to fly and so on, and it seems to me to be a valid question.

Again, my point is that if we are talking about by-law changes and the effect on attracting and retaining new pilots, we need to look at the "competition" for those pilots.

glowplugboy

My Feedback: (17)

Interesting ideas and discussions, gentlemen. Any organization, whether it is a special interest group for model airplanes, or a large corporation, depends upon its leadership to move it forward. I asked some specific questions of our candidates two days ago, and haven't heard from them. These questions, one regarding vision for the organization, and the other, specific ideas on how to maintain the current membership (~400), and grow same. So, Jon and Jon, you both want to be President of the NSRCA. How will you be agents of change for good in the NSRCA? A public forum like this is a great place to tell the members where you stand. Perhaps a separate thread asking the same questions might be helpful...

Happy Holidays,
Mike

rcprecision

My Feedback: (6)

I'm impressed with IMAC's ability to capture and quantify membership participation...data like this would be helpful to NSRCA's leadership in understanding our strengths and weaknesses, set goals plus measure results.

glowplugboy

My Feedback: (17)

It is interesting that you mention this Glen. The NSRCA Board of Directors was presented data from a national membership survey in March of this year, which leads to another interesting question for our candidates to consider: Jon and Jon, how would you use the data from the NSRCA National Membership Survey to move the organization forward?

Happy Holidays!
Mike

klhoard

My Feedback: (10)

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[brokenrecord]
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Well, I'll start out by pointing to the track record of how well the current program is working to bring in new people over the past umpty-ump years. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results . . (see Washington D.C.) I know that guys love to compare pattern to IMAC. Chicks dig big gas airplanes . . .pattern planes - not so much.
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Last spring I put on a pattern primer at my club. 23 guys (normal Sport Flyers) showed up at 9 a.m. all eager to learn the ins and outs of pattern flying. All went well until I hit the part about turnaround maneuvers - then their eyes went glassy and all scattered to the winds . . . . And I can guarantee that none of those 23 pilots are going to IMAC any time soon, either.
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Take a look at the F3C / AMA helicopter events. They used to have a large Nats until they upped the difficulty of their patterns. Now they have maybe 10-12 guys show up across all classes. . . Then look at the IRCHA event that happens the following week on the same Muncie site - 1049 registered pilots this last summer.
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Like clockwork, this subject raises its ugly head every six months. We get on here and the mailing list, grumble about it for a couple weeks, then go back to what we were doing before.
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The bottom line is that participating in competition is something that a very small percentage of guys want to do, and no amount of marketing, cajoling, begging, or whatever is going to change that. As long as we leave the current bar where it is, then that percentage is going to be even smaller.
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[/brokenrecord]

Silent-AV8R

The data would indicate otherwise. IMAC seems able to attract, and retain, new pilots. Their Basic class is all turnaround (as are all classes) AND it has a spin in it. Their Sportsman has a spin and a snap roll on a 45 downline!. So fear of the dreaded turnaround has not stopped IMAC.


In some respects I think this goes more to how few people are actually interested in competition, regardless of the specialty. Look at the IMAC NATS. 50 or so pilots. Then look at Joe Nall, over 1,000 pilots. Largely the same planes too.

I agree with this in large part. But other areas seem to be better able to attract and retain pilots in their competitive areas (IMAC, soaring). My point remains that perhaps there is some utility in looking at what others are doing to attract those pilots predisposed to competition.

Sorry if I got lost in the quote levels too.

klhoard

My Feedback: (10)

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I'm not saying it isn't a worthy cause. Knock yourself out and let us know how it turns out!!!
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glowplugboy

My Feedback: (17)

The discusson continues! Again, I wonder what the two candidates have to say about these issues?

Happy Holidays,
Mike

Silent-AV8R

Well, that about sums it up then. Status quo.

jetmech43

My Feedback: (9)

Then you have a guy complain the the pattern I do is unsafe because it takes up to much room and I have to fly north and south

Columbus Ron

Lets keep this in perspective. Our goal is to have between 25-30 contestants at each meet. Any more and it is difficult to get 6 flights and any less and you don't have enough judges and quite frankly it isn't as much fun. Yes we need to attract new members but we also need those new members to stick with it. D4 has had a recent infusion of new blood. Even better that new blood has decided to stick with it.

CDs need to make the meets as fun as possible (good food etc) so that people have fun and want to come back.

Veteran contestants need to welcome the new pilots.

I remember my first few contests.

The one think that rubbed me wrong was that you couldn't touch certain peoples airplanes.

Instead of barking at someone for touching your plane why don't you teach them the proper way of picking up your plane and then caution them about getting permission before you help carry someones plane.

klhoard

My Feedback: (10)

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Ummm, OK. . .
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I hereby propose a new NSRCA Bylaw:
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At any sanctioned contest any spectator or contestant can feel up touch anyone else's airplane at any time.
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Do you guys think that should take effect on the Friday afternoon before a contest, or perhaps wait until after the pilots meeting?
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</snip>

rcflyer4fun

My 2 cents for what its worth, I believe the turnaround pattern in sportsman is perceived to be to difficult by the majority of sport flyers and thus they don't participate. I support a club level simplified sportman class that is non-turnaround. I really like the idea of naming it Club Class too because of the "marketing aspect" that name could bring to our sport.

Does anyone else support this idea?

PatternPilot

My Feedback: (58)

Yep..... It is called CPA - "One Pass One maneuver"

wattsup

My Feedback: (1)

Scott, I agree with you! There's nothing wrong with having to fly CPA especially if you do not have the desire or ability to fly turnaround. Unless or until I am no longer able to do so, maybe I'll consider CPA but until then, I will continue to enjoy the challenge of turnaround and love every minute of it! Everette

PatternPilot

My Feedback: (58)

Here is another option that is being done at some AMA contest .. It is a combo contest AMA & CPA- Non-turnaround... been having good results with guys trying pattern and others like Everette said just don't want the TA challenge. This has been done out on the West coast and at Green Sea...

scott

wattsup

My Feedback: (1)

Once again Scott, I agree with you. Kirk and I would be more than willing to assist you with such a "combo-contest" in the future. Would you and your group of pattern fliers be interested? When I last talked to Kirk, he was going to contact Keith H. and Al or AC Glenn in Memphis with the idea of a pattern contest next year. As we all know, Memphis, TN's central location would draw a very large number of participants from the surrounding states, especially if it was a "combo-contest". We need to get Tennessee back in the pattern contest business! Everette

PatternPilot

My Feedback: (58)

I'm in !! Combo contest , maybe a barbecue dinner and a cold drink

I will PM you with some more info..

jetmech43

My Feedback: (9)

Im in for a contest here in Memphis, there are only a hand full of us that have the bug, I helped Keith put on his primer and like he said the interest was there but soon turned south

glowplugboy

My Feedback: (17)

Fellas, I like your ideas and I am taking notes. I just wish we could hear from the candidates and their views and ideas.

Happy Holidays!
Mike