Originally posted by Hossfly
The original point in the Proposal submitted to AMA (AMA Forum) is to simply obtain AMA's consideration of restructuring the AMA Insurance program to allow for those Clubs that choose to do so to allow PAID FOR INSTRUCTION on that Club's facility, with the details of pay to be between the club and the individual instructor.
The AGENDA within that proposal is simply to motivate MORE individuals to make themselves available to assist Beginners in a better scheduled time-frame and to remove the load that a few individuals get far too over-burdened with. There is NO mention, plan, hidden agenda, etc of doing away with free instruction.
I guess I can see that its possible to interpret this as an attempt to get rid of free training. Interpreted that way, some of the reaction to this thread is understandable. Certainly knowing how the AMA is viewed, its not hard to make the leap that the "money grubbing" AMA is going to try and force everyone to pay for lessons.
That being said, I think the message from many (not all) of the beginners or recent beginners can be summed up as:
We would consider paid instruction under many circumstances:
For our convenience (time)
To get a good instructor
To get more advanced training
To get more personal attention and more (faster) air time
Everyone agrees that the club SHOULD benefit if an instructor does.
However, I think its obvious that very few clubs could survive long if they went to a purely fee for training model.
So, the poll is worthless as it stands, because you don't know if the only respondents were beginners or recent beginners.