Originally Posted by
islandflyer
Several have argued here that the AMA is a business, which I disagree with: to be accurate, it is a NPO (Non Profit Organization - or Association) as per AMA's own description as well as the IRS nomenclature.
We are members, and the board members, as mere elected representatives of the members (us), are indeed accountable to the members.
If the AMA were a business, we would be the stock/share holders (those who pay the bills and elect the board). In a business, the management is definitely accountable to the share holders.
As for the AMA's transparency, several members have asked the AMA just a few basic questions which should be easy to answer, such as:
- Of the $250,000.00 drone program budget voted on last year by the executive council, how much has been spent, and how?
- Has that campaign led to an actual increase in number of new members?
- In the membership questionnaire, how many of these new members list Multirotor and FPV as primary interest?
No answer has ever been provided to these inquiring members so far, a few months after starting the questions.
It doesn't take a genius to realize that the questions and speculations in several threads around these subjects indicate that there is no official answer revealed anywhere we know of.
Yet, there are enough AMA drone policy fans here, that if there was any quantitative information at all that would be flattering for this program, that information would certainly be revealed and promoted.
In fact, if that policy was a success, the AMA leaders who by a narrow vote margin took the AMA in this direction would be pounding their chests boasting their success; this would certainly clam much of the dissent down.
Not every member cares, but those who do should have easy access to pertinent information. How else can we make an informed choice of who we vote for? How else can we assess if a current officer or VP is doing a good job for us so we would re-elect him (or not)? It is like the news: a lot of people don't care, but it is all readily available to those who do.
The simple solution is to ask for the information you want. If you don't know enough about the people running for office, read their literature if it's available, and if not, call or write them. The AMA provided a forum for those running for office to state their positions. Only one of the people really put themselves out there in terms of the "drone" issue, but the majority of what they all wrote was boilerplate political stuff. I'd rather see examples of what they have done (as incumbents), or specifics on what they will do if they get the office.