ORIGINAL: DSLarkin
Yes, that's certainly true of the last election or two, and I hope it stays that way. But over the past ten or so years, I think my comments are fair. MAAC , though. is a board-centred organisation, rather than a president centred organization, and it is the realization of this that has helped to get the executive back on the rails. But there will always be regional forces and so it is a matter of finding the right balance that will produce an efficient and responsive executive without any part of the country feeling left out.
But we are getting off the subject, which is whether we need to alter the zone representation. The obvious change would be to split SE Zone. On the face of it this looks reasonable. But there is a snag: as things stand, Ontario has 5 ZDs out of 13, about right for their 5K members of MAAC's 13K. If the SE Zone split, that would mean an extra Ontario ZD, which might be de-stabilizing. So the answer to Marc's query is - leave things as they are.
I agree with leaving number of ZDs as is. To split the SE zone on numbers alone would be a mistake. Consistently, despite it's numbers, that zone has shown the least amount of interest in the Association. Typically, even with proxies, they barely make their quorum at AZMs. Perhaps that will change with new leadership in the form of a new ZD this year. Maybe consideration should be given to evening out the numbers within those southern Ont. zones so that a single zone doesn't carry the weighted vote?
As far as the notion that MAAC politics are "region" driven? That was not my experience. I found "politics" was "issue and personality" driven. If anything, it was 4 of the 5 Ontario zones against the rest of the country on issues. The "big 3" political issues had nothing to do with anybody feeling "left out";
1) Proposal to sell HQ and move it to Tillonburg (SW zone)
2) Who got elected President
3) World Scale 2002 cost. I list the move HQ proposal as No.1 because the "political lines" were drawn on that issue and had everything to do with the personality clashes related to No. 2 & 3. ie: "can't the rest of you understand that a big new HQ/Museum/National flying site is the best thing for MAAC"......or...... "How can you vote that guy in as Prez, We can't stand him and will never support anything he does regardless of it's merit".
It's not pretty, but that's the way it was. It certainly didn't end with my passing as was evident with the insurance issues earlier this year and SW zone's ZD getting his hands slapped precipitating the "moving on" of SW and SE's ZD. The good news is that the executive got their personal issues behind them and core issues like insurance seemed to have the board's focus away from personalities. 5 new ZDs (personalities) may make things interesting. SW zone's politics won't change with their new ZD, but the time will tell how the other 4 peronalities mix it up.