Taxman,

As much as you don't like the activity of the homeowners association, you must understand they do not have a choice. At least in the state of Texas the law is very restrictive. If the association does not defend all Deed Restrictions completely and vigorously, they loose them.

This is not completely unlike what we should be thinking about in the regulation of our hobby. We need to be very careful of the regulations we put into force. If we have them, they must be enforced, or we will loose (potentially) our AMA insurance coverage. The insurance underwriters will be looking at any claim incident for rule following and will certainly not pay against a claim where a rule was not being followed and/or regularly enforced.

That said, I do feel that we need to be constantly reviewing our activity for the need to add/change/delete regulations. It is foolish to think otherwise. Look at the nature of the hobby 30 years ago. Were the rules in place then the best and right rules for the hobby today? I don't think so. We should always be looking at our regulations and judging whether they are serving their purpose, and are enforceable. We also have to look at the evolution of the hobby and consider if our body of regulation is continuing to meet the same criteria.

Nobody wants a fun activity such as this to be mired in over regulation. But, we do need to be sensible about it.

My thoughts anyway.

Bedford