I'm new this whole thing but it appears to me that the voting thing is simply a matter of members asking, "what's in it for me".
I just joined the AMA, mainly because I was told that I had to, to be covered to fly on the local flying field. Ok, viewing things from a beginner's perspective, I have secondary insurance, which is required, a magazine, which I haven't received yet, but apparently, not much else as far as receiving what I need most at the moment, which is flight instruction. What I'm saying is that beginners most likely couldn't care less about anything else so many benefits of joining AMA until we learn how to fly.

In investigating the sport and AMA before I decided to join, I discovered that there are opposite persrpectives, that of those who know how to fly, those wish to learn and those on the profit making end. It appears that those who know how to fly are for the most part quite satisfied with the status quo, but the other two enities seem to be getting the short end of the stick. No one offers any guarantees for the hobby shop owner or his newest customer, the beginner. Thing is, according to the veteran flier, he cannot be expected to be at the newcomer's beck and call to teach for free, but at the same time he has too much integrity among other legal road blocks, cannot be paid to teach. Where does that leave the beginner and the hobby shop owner?

The more I investigate this, the more it puzzles me, as no one seems to have any solutions, to a problem, that few, if any even admits to there being a problem in the first place. To me, this appears to be the root of all the problems I have read about in my very short involvement in the sport.

So, back to the beginning; perhaps the 130,000 or so who didn't vote, apparently didn't think that there was anything in it for them one way or the other.

nascarjoe