Several specific items.

1. If I led anyone to the conclusion that Dave Brown was claiming the ideas he floated out were his and his alone, that is erroneous.

2. We used to have more than three candidates. We also had run-off elections. As Red has often posted, a large number of contests are run un-opposed. The reasoning for limiting the number of nominees on the ballot and going to a plurality was simple. It costs less. Unfortunately, it appears that unintended consequences have caused unforeseen problems.

3. My wife is a financial analyst for a large company. As Abel pointed out, he as a project manager, has to get his reports in within 30 days. That's normal. Then all of those reports have 30 additional days to be rolled into a divison report. The accouants then require an additional 30 days to verify all of the information and roll it into a financial statement. Then it goes to the auditors. I don't mean to equate the AMA to that size of organization, but, the one thing I am sure of is that it could be done quicker if more people were in the process. That means more money spent on salaries. Again, this may not be the case with the AMA, but, without knowing, it is impossible to be sure how long it could/should take. The question becomes how much of your dues should be spent on expediency. I doubt that the AMA is going to make public unaudited interim reports. Again, for the 2-3 % of the membership that cares, how much is it worth. I don't have the answer, just the question. IF you could put together a special section in AMA with the Financial Statement for $1 each, it would cost roughly $150,000. (The current one is 20 pages in length.) I doubt such an insert could cost so little. How much is it worth?

4. In my opinion, DB's ideas are worthy of discussion, as well as any other ideas developed in the thread. There are major changes in there somewhere. For anyone to throw darts at the current structure, then say there is nothing wrong with the current structure, is a mistake, in my opinion.

5. There is a by-laws committee, chaired by Rich Hanson D 10, that is trying to put together a new set of by-laws for consideration by the EC and ultimately by the LM's. It has not been and will not be a quick process.

This thread was started with the idea of developing membership concerns and developing ways to deal with them. If you think the AMA is broke or headed in the wrong direction, and can be specific, or you think not, please post your thoughts. Also post any answers you may have to the concerns of others. Don't let one person, or group of persons throw a bucket of water on the concept in this thread.

JR