ORIGINAL: burtona
Perhaps 100% of the board was in favor of the proposals. That's well above any margin of error.
In most representative forms of government we elect people to use their experience, knowledge, and judgement in our collective best interest. They are not obligated to decide whichever way the majority wants. It's not a democracy, it's a representative form of government. We elect them to use their best judgement on our behalf, and if we don't like the decisions they make it's our responsibility to vote them out of office when their term ends.
NSRCA members vote by not voting too. If a majority don't respond to a survey, it doesn't invalidate the survey. Same as any election where people don't vote.
Also, we are talking about AMA rules, not NSRCA rules. Any AMA member can and should have a voice in making decisions that affect the AMA rules.
First and foremost, the NSRCA is not a governing body, the AMA is. The NSRCA is a Special Interest Group that has the sole purpose of voicing the opinion of its majority. As I have said repeatedly, they failed to do that properly in this instance.
Secondly, how many people on the NSRCA board or are district VP's were actually elected? I'm betting the vast majority were appointed to the spots they're in because someone stepped down. That doesn't necessarily take away from their abilities, but it casts doubt as to whether or not they would have actually won an election of the membership. Unfortunately the NSRCA has recently been run by people who, although capable, were in their positions by default because nobody else wanted to do the job.
Lastly, a survey is not an election. It is a statistical analysis of the opinions of the membership. It has a margin of error that is based off of what percentage of the "population" actually responded to the survey. Given the small sample size (roughly 20% of pattern pilots), there was a large margin of error that made it to where the board should not have acted on any proposals not receiving at least 59% because anything less is not a statistical majority. A majority doesn't have to respond to a survey to make it valid, I agree with that. But without a statistical majority in favor of a proposal the board should not act. Also, as I stated earlier, the board shouldn't be coming up with proposals without a clearly-defined issue.
I completely understand that there were time constraints, and the proposal committee was put together at the last minute to come up with proposals. Given that simple fact, the NSRCA should not have done anything for this rules cycle because they did not have the proper amount of time to poll the membership to find out what issues they actually felt should be addressed. Just because an individual submitted their own proposal to the AMA to increase the weight limits, doesn't mean the NSRCA needed to do their own. Just because the FAI added new safety measures for electrics doesn't mean the NSRCA needs to come up with an AMA equivalent this very second. Sometimes those in leadership need to realize they don't have all the information they need to make a decision, and opt for doing nothing. That's what being a leader is about.
One last thing, 100% of the board was not in favor of the proposals.