ORIGINAL: STLPilot
ORIGINAL: JUGFLIER
"The insurance is fluff and secondary. Who needs it? Sounds like you do, but I sure don't. " Quote STL.
The insurance is the very reason i am in AMA. I bet if we took a poll, that would be #1 reason form most.
Doesn't matter what the poll says. It matters what the bylaws of the AMA says. Who cares what perception of the membership is, that holds no weight on what the AMA must do to maintain it's 501C3 status. The AMA would and has existed with or without the insurance. The AMA is not an insurance company, it's a membership org.
STL, sometimes you amaze me in just how you can be so totally in error yet have such an insight at the same time. [:-]
>>"The AMA would and has existed with or without the insurance. The AMA is not an insurance company, it's a membership org."<<
Corrext AMA is NOT an insurance company, however it would have gone OUT of business in the '70s without the Charter Club liability for landowners and members insurance program installed by then Pres. Johny Clemens.
STL you may be a hotshot young business man with all the current hot marketing fads that rise and fall however I am an old modeler, one that was a very experienced modeler by the time I entered the the AMA's political arena as a Contest Director and Leader Member back in 1963. Since then I have been much more than simply a local CD. Especially after 1967, I was extremely active in the political part of AMA for the next 16 years and have been very involved since then. I will put my experience to test over any of your hotshot theories any time any way, anyday reference whether AMA woud or could have made it.
Now, AMA Leadership has failed miserably to be a LEADER of model aviation. When the landowner insurance showed positive gain in allowing charter clubs access to farm land and public parks for flying facilities, and 100% AMA membership in Charter Clubs quickly started a positive cash inflow to AMA, the attitude became, "We've got it made in the shade." Some tried to warn. None listened.
The 1981 frequencies ('91 to you newbies) was the icing on the cake for the feet-on-the-desk crowd, and the magazine publishers. Clubs have always been the AMA sales force without comissions. The bureaucracy only grew and complemented itself.
Well the permissive society of the '60s finally took over in the '80s and '90s and now no one has to be responsible for anything.
You've been conditioned to think you need it, but you don't. Wouldn't you agree there are more RC flyers in the USA then AMA members? What perception do they believe that they need AMA's insurance? It appears none and this is why the AMA is trying new clever tricks to capture them. The AMA has been on a steady decline for the last 8 years, something must have made them believe they can fly without their insurance.
Two things: The FIRST is SOCIETY Lack of Responsibility to the fellow person. Judgements are just fought in court until any monies
are eaten up by the sharks. NBD! Fly anywhere, do anything. Like here in TX. Don't need liability Auto insurance. Just run away, the cop will ticket the other guy or both can run away if situation warrants.
The SECOND is WHAT THE _ELL IS AMA? American Motocycle Association? American Medical Association? Buy a Model Airplane News or a Fly RC Magazine in a Grocery Store. If there is an AMA ad. it doesn't say anything eye-catching.
That is because these other magazines lend NO SUPPORT to AMA simply because AMA just has to publish a commercial magazine to each member, double the circulation, NOT on news-stands, and undercuting free-market ad pricing. Half the LHS clerks only know about cars and have no knowledge about AMA so newbies don't hear about it there. Clubs are way off in the sticks so no one finds them except by club effort, not by AMA's effort.
AMA BEING _ELL-Bent on their MA policy is doing everything possible to decrease the AMA membership all by themselves, except that the membership does help because the membership sits on their behinds and refuses to nominate and/or elect leadership that will put a stop to this madness.