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Oh, ok, I'm awake now........

Here is the deal. I belong to a club of about 15 flyers that are comprised from three small towns. At present, there are more than 12 flyers in the area that will not, and do not give a damn about being insured, they claim they are poor and want to spend their money on airplanes. I cannot change that, I have tried, but have been told to go fly myself. We fly from both city and a private field. 7 years ago, only three flyers belonged to the AMA and the rest said the hell with them. We convinced these guys all the benefits of being protected and then got the city to let us fly at their abandoned airport. I commended the AMA for its support at that time. But since they "reorganized" to the new Muncie site, there has been a lot of problems as far as communication (First notice calculated our increase at 70%, the second made about 40%)and handling paperwork (Lost membership papers, lost the charter application, and lost the site insurance paperwork that was sent registered mail). I was the secretary and had personally good relationships with the gal that was handling our account, she was honest and sincere, but had problems getting information at her end. But some other members who had their memberships screwed up claimed they had different dealings (rudeness, feeling of being ignored), and that did not help matters when I got the notice of the charter dues increase and announced we had to increase our dues as well.

Now, since these guys joined, much of their flying budget has gone to dues increases, both local, individual, and site. They now feel that the charter fees are not worth the hassle and want to dissolve the club. As of September, our club will begin the cease and the charter will be allowed to run out as of December 31, 2003.

We live in an area where the economy was always so so, and now the GNP here is almost compared to El Salvador, 2/3 of our flyer's are either unemployed, or have taken huge cuts in salaries. All of us are experiencing huge increases in insurance premiums, taxes, and utilities. We just feel we need to make cuts, and dissolving our club was the first before not being able to fly at all. The paperwork screw ups at AMA did not help convince our members that they wanted to stay. Out of fifteen voting members, only three of us voted to keep the charter. Many express that the AMA seems to focus too much on the Muncie site, and since these members claim they deal with insurance companies and banks everyday messing up information, they didn't want to deal with it in their hobby.

13 out of the fifteen members will still keep their individual memberships (Remember, only 3 of these 13 want a club). The other two will become rouges and besides forcing them at gunpoint to stop, can and will continue to fly wherever they can get away with it.

As far as flying, well, I'm still trying the convince these guys that the City is now off limits. And since one of the pilots that voted to stay in AMA is the son of the land owner who has our field, the rouge flyer's will lose that option as well. AMA members ONLY will be allowed on the property.

It would be nice if we could buy a site coverage policy for this land owner without having a club.

What will happen? Us that want to support AMA will now fly at the private field with an invite from the owner (at his own risk), and join surrounding clubs that belong to the AMA. (1 to 2 hr drive)

And the rouges will go back to flying off dirt roads and sneaking onto the golf coarse.

To get back to my personal issue with AMA, I think it needs to revamp it's image. All I get is publicity on how it is insuring its members, Some old guy with a rubber powered airplane, what improvements are being made at Muncie, and a few blurbs about kids building Delta Darts and a flying site that has been saved.

To me, it should be the other way around. There should be huge publicity on kids building airplanes and news about clubs and flying sites being saved, how it is working at protecting our frequencies and lobbying for more support from the government, Using events like TOC as huge marketing campaigns, and small blurbs about the problems we are facing with insurance. AMA loves to air dirty laundry which is quite upsetting. Yes, we need to know about it, but does it have to be so strung out in every issue and in every forum?