Thats the whole gripe behind this IMO. That they had to have an email for the S.O. If you read the first post in this thread it doesn't say anybodys email, just the s.o.'s. They had all of our phone #'s on the form I sent in, they could have called him. The email deal is because they have got so dang lazy up there they don't want to pick up the phone an call. This is pure B.S. IMO an if I want to complain its my right to. If the rest of ya don't like it, tough....


Ron

The exploding LIPO issue is a great example of how this high tech, rapid communications network really works.
How many thousands of batteries had to melt down or explode before the AMA suddenly decided that it was urgent to spread the word to all Safety Officers at the speed of light?
What a joke.

CP
in the case of the LiPo Meltdown,
or the CX Heli Battery recall (?),
why is that info from AMA restricted to SO emailing
rather than blanket emailing all members and club officers that have an address on file with AMA?
How long do non club members of AMA have to wait to hear about their stuff being a fire hazzard?

Are nonclub members of AMA supposed to call the nearest club every day
to find out if that club SO knows about some urgent danger that cant wait for the monthly newsletter?
What safety info from Muncie is so urgent that SO are required to have email, yet the non-clubbed members can go months waiting to hear about it.... wow, thats pretty urgent.


It goes back to trying to figure what level of urgency requires sending an email to JUST the SO's,
not all club officers?

This is where some of you guys go off the rails. How many clubs are there? 2,400 or so? Have you ever tried to make 2,400 phone calls in a timely manner? Have you incurred the expense to prepare and mail 2,400 envelopes?

Now I know there is a reality distortion field in place within this forum, but surely at least some of you can understand the difference between those two options and selecting an e-mail list and clicking on send.

Everybody complains about the AMA, but they're trying to simply take advantage of a common, inexpensive communication method. If there are people in this world that are stuck in the 20th century... well, they'll either die off or adapt soon enough.

There's a certain delicious irony of discussing this here.

Mike, I don't think I've seen anyone here say that email shouldn't be used if it's available, and I think your comment about making 2400 phone calls is rather disingenuous. To the contrary, most seem to believe that email is the quickest and most cost efficient way for AMA to communicate with it's chartered clubs. To any reading this, if you disagree with that comment, then please speak up.

IMO the issue ISN'T making phone calls vs email, but INSISTING that email MUST be available in order to issue a club charter. Those are NOT the same things.

AMA should NOT be in a position of refusing to issue a club charter for lack of an email address. Further, for those clubs where none of the officers, including the SO has an email, then yeah, pick up the phone or send a letter. I'm not going to hazard a guess as to what that percentage may actually be, but I'd be willing to bet that the number of clubs where no officer has email is fairly small. It's certainly not 2400.

"Everybody complains about the AMA, but they're trying to simply take advantage of a common, inexpensive communication method. If there are people in this world that are stuck in the 20th century... well, they'll either die off or adapt soon enough. "

Welcome to the collective... this kind of narrow minded thinking is sick... I agree that almost everyone has email or access to the internet however there are many people that find better things to spend there time and money on... If the AMA requires you to have email then why not completly do away with any paperwork... send everything digital,reduce the cost and therefore the price of membership???

To me, narrow thinking is being resistive to change for the better. I guess we all have different ideas of what narrow thinking might be.

Times change. One thing that doesn't change is the tendency of some to make mountains out of molehills.

New is not always better.... Change for change sake is not always better.... better can be defined many ways...IMOO

Mike, you're putting words in the mouths of others, and then chastising for having said them.

Who here has indicated that AMA shouldn't take adavantge of email? No one that I'm aware of. If you believe someone has, please point that out and I will be the first to agree with you.

The issue the OP brought up is not a complaint of AMA wanting to use email for notifications to club members. It's a complaint that they are holding up charters when an email address is not available. Those are two totally different concerns and I think you are co-mingling them.

Here's my last exchange with Ron:

Bob: "The AMA SHOULD be using electronic means to notify clubs of any issues that may affect them, such as the restrictions which surrounded the national conventions that were reported here several months ago. But to hold up a charter because of lack of email address is ridiculous. "

Ron: "Mr. Mitchell, you have it exactly correct. There is no problem with using e-mail as a means of information dissemination, but requiring it to get a charter is ridiculous."

Perhaps that will clarify the issue for you and make it clear that those that have an issue with AMA holding up charters because of lack of an email adddress are not techno-phobic luddites.

You must have missed a good portion of the deleted posts. More than one person said they don't do business over e-mail. Of course, the person who made the biggest stink about that happens to be a retiree, but hey... Not all of us have been exposed to the modern workplace. You also must have missed the "we never did it that way before doing it that way was possible" messages.

Welcome to how change happens. If you want to move an initiative forward, it takes time. Sometimes you have to speed that up. It's not unreasonable to expect that the AMA wants to use e-mail as a means of fast, inexpensive communication. You and I agree on that. If the AMA wants to be able to contact all of the SOs this way, then putting a hold on the club charter is the way to do it. Very few people have an honest difficulty in fulfilling this particular requirement, particularly the people posting here.

This isn't asking anyone to push a boulder up a hill. It's not requiring anything that is difficult to accomplish. They just want to have the cheapest, fastest means of communication available as an option to them (the AMA). Would they hold up a club charter if a name were missing? Sure. A phone number? Sure. And guess what? If they want to require an e-mail address for the SO, that's pretty far from being unreasonable.

You know, sometimes people are difficult for the sake of being difficult. Imagine the AMA going to an optical scan system for entering club data, and requiring people to write in black pen. Can you imagine how the end of the world would be near, according to some here? This isn't all that different from that.

Bob
absolutely
besides, we are not talking about a club that muncie cant send email too,
but a club that does have an email address to send AMA stuff.


Muncie does not have to call the club with a bunch of email address listed, except the SO's email.
Muncie can, and has sent email to that No-SO-Address club....
they didnt have to call the club with no SO email listed.

So why is Muncie calling it a deal breaker
if the club has some email addresses for Muncie to use
but not every single officer has their own,
or bothered to list the one club yahoo account over & over & over & over & over for all the officers

Muncie staff are not idiots, they did figure it out,
but some committee policy is lame in requiring it even if the old guy SO wont check it.

Does Toolman's club have an email address for Muncie to use? YES.
Why is muncie making with all the drama over it

I thought you guys liked drama?

I saw a significant number of the deleted messages, not sure if it was all of them or not....no real way of knowing. I will submit, though, that an individual saying he doesn't do business over email (that was Horrace, if I remember correctly) is not the same as saying AMA shouldn't use email. I don't believe he said that. And further, the "we never did it that way before" seemed clearly to me to be a comment about the few who may not have an email for AMA, not a blanket statement that email is not a useful tool. IOW, (my paraphrase) "AMA got along OK before email. If there are some that don't have email now, then AMA will still get along".

I don't think the people here who take exception to AMA holding up charters for lack of an email address are speaking for themselves. I think what they (and me, for that matter) are saying is that:

1. The reason AMA has singled out the SO for this requirement is for quick notification of safety issue. There is really no other real justification for it being the SO and not just one of the other officers.
2. Holding up a charter will just end up with either a dummy email on the paperwork, or a real email that was set up for someone who doesn't have a PC. That's the work-around that you (I think) and others have suggested.
3. Such a work around pretty much torpedos the reason for the email in the first place. As I've said, it's a good idea, implemented without enough thought.

And I think this has probably become the proverbial dead horse at this point. Don't you?

Thank You Mr. Bob Mitchell for your reasonable posts. Apparently you see what I am talking about.



Ron

You are welcome, and I think so.

I think this is a dead horse forum, by design. It's what gets done here.

See, you use the term "holding up charters" as though they're being significantly delayed. I see it differently - - those who were unable to successfully complete their club application have been asked to provide the missing information.

This is a beginning. It's a good effort on the AMA's part to increase the speed of communication while reducing costs. Nothing is perfect, and if the perfect solution is sought there will never be a solution. How individuals choose to behave is up to them. If useful information is sent via email, people will use it. If not, they may not. If a handful of clubs have to take 30 seconds to create addresses for their SOs, it doesn't torpedo the effort - - it just makes it an ineffective initiative for that handful of clubs. The larger membership is better served by the process. That really shouldn't be difficult to see.

Anyone can nitpick flaws in a program. Around here, that's what many seem to specialize in. It's great, it's very valuable, and we all respect those in our lives that are very, very good at pointing out problems. Of course, we tend to respect those who actually get things done a bit more... but progress can't be slowed because of imperfect processes. This isn't an end-all, be-all of communication and I rather doubt anyone expects it to work that way. What it does do is to begin the process of streamlining communication. There'll be people who drag their feet - - there always are. What's new?

Come on Bob, you know so! An agreement. Champagne for the house and a toast. To Ron and Bob.

Speaking of inebriating beverages, was it me or did the forum go through a change to new forum software in the last few hours and back again? If it happens again, and I'm reasonably sure it did happen, you can get your posting life temporarily continuing if RCU is down, if in fact RCU has issues changing over to different forum software, by visiting rcbottomfeeders.com. I set this up for information about patch sales, which will always be non-profit, and as an oasis. I don't know anything about forum software and quite frankly I've spent the past two days setting it up and making it look at least like a place where someone would go.

Yep, I actually think it went back and forth a couple of times. Initially I couldn't even post replies. I'd register, but as soon as I hit "reply" or "new post" it took me to my forum profile and wanted me to edit it. Then it suddenly started recognizing me and I could post. Obviously they were/are having some significant problems with the software. I wasn't all that impressed with the new "look", but it's hard to evaluate it when it's having functional problems.

I took you up on your offer, registerd and posted a message. Does that make ME "Bottom Feeder #2"? Oh, the irony!

I beat ya to it early this morn.....


Ron

MikeL your post 57 is well said and hopefully well taken. I agree with you this should not be a big deal one way or the other. For the great majority of clubs it will be and already has been a better way to communicate with the AMA. Hopefully we could even have the charter renewal online someday, as an option of course. Even Uncle Sam still lets us file our taxes by paper if we choose, but online is usually alot easy for most things.

I guess we're going to have to let the Blue Sky (I guess he's the forum Admin over there) sort it out. He's told both Stick and Mongo that they are number 1, and me that I'm 2. I hope he doesn't get out of hand and he has to ban somebody.

Bob, as you can see, this is a very controversial and touchy subject! There is the overall claim and acceptance of a member number, and there is the member number of the Bottom Feeders Club. Basically, Stick is member #1. He always will be. If he registered over there he'd be the honorary club member #1, but Ron will always be member #1 of that club.

I guess..........

Hey, I'm in front of Abel. That's good enough for me.

i will be glad to let stick have the #1 over at the BF forum, cause #13 fits with my other numbering so much better.