Perhaps a discussion needs to be started as to what makes a DVP position full time.

As pointed out, district 10 is a very large area with over 28,000 AMA members. On any given weekend there are many "events" going on that would love to have the DVP in attendance. Durring the week there are many club meetings, again that would like to have the DVP in attendance. How many of the events or club meetings should he/she go to. At what cost does it take to travel to these events/clubs? How much time does it take to travel? How much money for hotels? The budget for district 10 is $16,800.00. Using LA as a center, how many trips to HI, AZ, UT, NV, Guam can be made. Let alone trips to northern CA. That's just the requested trips. There is also the expense of the AMA IMS show in Ontario, CA in Jan. Some of the AVP's travel to the show/annual district meeting on their own dime, but others are flown in from far away. Hotel rooms are paid for. Hospitality and meals for AMA members and other members of the EC in attendance come out of the district budget. How about the time on the phone. A cell phone is a must and it has to be an extension of your ear. There are no private moments. Think of the different time zones. Someone always has a problem that has to be solved by the DVP right now. Thankfully there are AVP's. Bill and I are part of the larger organization of volunteers that work for the DVP as a closer to the ground level contact. We go to club meetings and events reporting back to the DVP. There are times when The DVP will ask us to explore a particular problem within a club or event and report back to him. We are the eyes and ears for accidents that unfortunately happen. We take a big load off of his back, but the buck stops with him.

District flying site: The CA site was an interesting problem. The DVP at the time had some very good, far reaching ideas. He had some very good people working on the site and it's plans. Unfortunatly, the land selected had never been plowed/cultivated and therefore came under some CA "hug the trees" law. Be that as it may, the funding scared the heck out of the EC Council. District 10 wanted to raise funds that were to be kept in the district, administrated by the district, and to be intirely seperate from AMA. This is how the AMA district patch program was born. The patch program was to be only for 10 but AMA disallowed it and made it for all districts with the money's going to AMA. The other funding idea was to use some of the DVP money to purchase some land for a field, then use that land as collateral for buying more fields, All in district 10's name. This brought about the EC politely asking the DVP to get out Dodge. One field is enough for AMA to own, any more and you have admistrative issues. I'm not saying that a district site can't be done, just that there were problems in the past and that if history is read and believed, then the same mistakes won't be made again.

Bob Reynolds
AVP Dist 10
AMA L3006