Rules changes - NSRCA role.

[Henderson,Eric]

Keith,
       When a Rules/maneuver proposal is submitted you are required to state the logic for the proposal. This time around we split the writing work between Tom Weedon and myself. Any proposals with our names on were stated as voted for by the NSRCA membership. The proposal has to actually come from an AMA member and be co-signed by two other members in good standing.


There are BIG problems that comes into play once any NSRCA proposal has been submitted to the AMA contest board.

1. Lobbying of the AMA contest board by those folks who are against the proposals. You would think that NSRCA members would respect the vote of their society. This is not the case and even though I agree that we have the right to lobby our contest board with what we feel is right, it is does get very illogical when one member can privately lobby and destroy a proposal voted for by the NSRCA. I even saw an NSRCA member who voted for a proposal subsequently go the other way and lobby the whole AMA contest board!

2. AMA RC contest board members represent AMA members and often feel that not all AMA members are represented in the proposals. Said another way Non-NSRCA members are not represented. Charlie Reed, a very conscientious AMA board member, went so far as to do his own poll of his AMA district to see how they felt. The weakness of what he did was that he only contacted who he knew flew pattern.

3. The AMA contest board can make or insist on changes or compromises that the NSRCA membership never get a chance to vote on. Three years of democratically produced and supported work can go down the tubes at the hands of one man.

One problem that I also see is that this time the AMA contest board Chairman, John Fuqua, submitted his own proposals for rules change. None of which were NSRCA proposals. 

Go figure how the board vote can be fair if the proposal is from the chair?

Knowing how sausage is made has made it hard for me to enjoy my sport.

Regards,

Eric.

-----Original Message-----
From: discussion-request at nsrca.org
[mailto:discussion-request at nsrca.org]On Behalf Of Keith Black
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 7:24 PM
To: discussion at nsrca.org
Subject: Re: Landings and Take-off's - The vote!.:


I would hope that the contest board members are privy to all the facts so
they can make the best decisions. For example, if 80% of the NSRCA members
vote against eliminating scored takeoff and landings, and we DON'T include
it on our rules change proposal to the AMA, but an individual submits their
own proposal for this change and gets a few friends to email the contest
board I'd hope they would be aware that 80% of the NSRCA are against it. If
they only knew about the one guy that submitted it and his friends emails
then they my unwittingly vote for something that 80% of the NSRCA are
against.

Seems to me that the best way for the NSRCA to serve it's membership is to
have an NSRCA poll of all private proposals not included on the NSRCA rule
change proposal. This poll would be taken after the deadline to submit
proposals to the AMA, but before the contest board meets to vote on the
proposals. The results of this poll would then be given to the contest board
so they would know the NSRCA's opinion on all proposals, regardless of
originator.

Therefore, if I submitted a rule to drop half point scoring and I got
everyone in my flying club (sport fliers included) to send the contest board
emails demanding this, then the NSRCA membership wouldn't get blind sided by
this proposal. I know we can all do this individually if we make the effort
to look up the proposals and send emails to our district rep., but it would
be much more effective as a group and the participation would be greater
than just expecting everyone to research and email on their own.

I guess you could call this the NSRCA "watch dog" approach.

Keith

 
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