Earlier this week I emailed Dave Mathewson with some questions I had concerning the Park Pilot Program. These are questions I raised/posted in the "Make It Up in Volume" thread a couple of weeks or more back. I received a return email from him last night suggesting that we speak on the phone as he was traveling to Muncie today from his home in New York and had several hours to kill in the car while enroute. He called me just after lunch today, and we spoke for about 20 minutes. Obviously I don't have a "transcript" of the conversation, but here's a synopsis:

1. What is AMA doing differently this year to improve on last years disappointing membership results (only ~1100 PPP members)?

- More advertising to be placed in electric flyer type publications
- Work with additional equipment suppliers to include AMA PPP information in the boxes, logos on the boxes, etc. Due to the fact that much of this is made overseas there will be some lag in seeing this show up in/on boxes in the hobby shops or purchased online.
- Promotions at the hobby shops, specifically making copies of the PP magazine available to the shop owners to be given away or included with purchased equipment.
- PPP promotions to be a part of the general membership drive scheduled to kick off on or about April 1.

2. What, if any target has been established for PPP membership in '09?

- 2008 membership reached ~1100. Membership needs to reach ~5000 for the program to break even. Target for '09 is a 300% increase over '08, or ~3300 members. This is an aggresive target and will be difficult to reach.

3. How long is the EC willing to carry the program if it remains as not self-supporting?

- Speaking for himself, and not the EC, Dave indicated that there has to be some "serious discussion" at budget time this October concerning the future of the program, or even carrying it into 2010 even if the membership targets for this year are realized. Although he didn't flat out indicate that he wanted to see the program killed if targets weren't reached by the end of the 3rd quarter I believe that he's leaning that way. That's MY interpretation of the conversation.

My impression is that he and the EC are committed to playing things out this year, and evaluating where things stand prior to beginning the budgeting process for 2010. If you feel strongly that the program should be killed (and that's where I am at this point, barring some really unforseen membership numbers) then IMO the thing to do is to start lobbying your DVP in late August or early September of this year. I wouldn't just stop with your own DVP, either. They may not represent you directly, but they all have a vote.