Thanks for all of the comments guys, keep ‘em coming! All feedback is welcome. Thanks also to Rex for taking the initiative to start this thread.
When I was asked to volunteer as JPO President a little over a year ago, I agreed because I knew how important the JPO was to the jet hobby in the past and I knew that it would be so in the future. A lot of folks put in a lot of time to get us to the point where we are now, as Craig pointed out above, and we need to make sure that the results of that effort is maintained and kept up to date as the hobby moves forward.
The JPO has gone through a bit of a “quiet period” for the past couple of years. We’re working on rebuilding and we felt that it was important to get a few recent accomplishments on the books before we started an all out membership drive. In the past year we have:
- Revised the AMA turbine thrust rules to allow the use of modern 200-class turbines
- Conducted a survey of AMA turbine waiver holders to gather information on what they would like to see from the JPO
- Modernized the JPO website and added the capability for online membership initiation and renewal with electronic payment
- Presented the activities of the jet community (with an emphasis on the public relations benefits to the AMA of jet events) to the AMA Executive Council
The point about the lack of visibility of the JPO is well taken. Now that we have (re)started to move forward and have a few things to talk about, we’re starting to work on that issue too. I’m confident that Rex will be a great help in that effort and I *really* thank him for volunteering to be the District V Rep.
All of the JPO officers and District Reps. are volunteers and sometimes life gets in the way of the best of intentions. Also, sometimes, people might wonder if anyone is listening to what they are saying. The point here, is if you have a JPO District Rep. and you don’t see or hear anything from them, get in touch with them and see what’s up. Better yet, send them some pictures and a few words from your jet event and ask them to put it in Contrails. I’m sure that they would be grateful for the material.
If you are in a District that does not currently have a District Rep, consider volunteering. It’s not really too much of a time commitment – four articles a year for Contrails to start.
You can find out all about your District Rep. at:
http://www.jetpilots.org/#!districts/c5zv
Electronic renewal or new membership is available at:
http://www.jetpilots.org/#!join-jpo/p9rl4
Bob Klenke
JPO President