ORIGINAL: rcpattern
What amazes me, is the number of people who want to complain about the rules and how things run, but yet, NONE are NSRCA board members, or on most of the committees. If people want to make a difference, or see things change, then run for office, rather than sitting at home on the internet complaining about it. I will openly admit, that the last year of being an NSRCA VP and understanding how difficult and time consuming that is, and then reading people complain about how things work, has really worn on me.
I understand how the rules are stated, the issue becomes enforcing them. If guys are willing to pay 3-4 times their NATS entry fee to justify paying the additional help, I'm sure it can be done, but until that time, there is only so much that can be accomplished. There is NO reason to change the rules, just because you can't enforce them 100% of the time. All you will do then is drive people away. Many VERY good people in the pattern community have already been driven away by the constant bickering of people, and for years, it had mostly gone away, but it is definitely coming back. If you have a complaint, fine, but then have a solution as well and don't make that solution, lets get rid of the rules. Currently, every plane that is in contention to take home a trophy gets weighed, and processed at some point, and people are explained how it works before hand.
If you want more than that, then be willing to stand up and volunteer to do the work. A lot of people give up their vacations in the summer to come help out at the NATS and make it as good an experience as they can on a VERY limited budget. We need to start thanking those people rather than complaining about how it works, unless you want to be the person to take their place.
Arch
A few of us have been there and feel the pain. Arch is on the money on this one.
Strange thing is it has always been like that. From the time when RVP was a pup and I didn't exist. Makes you wonder if RVP is in the running for sainthood