Election questions

[Ed Alt]

Regarding the idea of NSRCA controlling our own rules ala what IMAC has
done, let's be a little careful here.  They are our AMA rules and NSRCA is
just an interested SIG, same as IMAC.  What has happened in IMAC recently is
that the Board of Directors has exerted alot of influence in driving rules
changes through, often for the better, although sometimes not.  There have 
been
several reversals of rules put through that IMAC drove through within a
relatively short time of their taking effect, or in one case, before even
officially taking effect.  The most remarkable example of this is one of the
most recent changes where they decided that implementing a zoneless
aerobatic box , along with adding a presentation score would be helpful to
reducing the overall footprint when flying the sequence, while
simultaneously eliminating the "unfair center zone centering score bias".
This can be a fun topic to debate the logic of.  Been there, done that, got
the Tee shirt, tired of arguing and joined Pattern in '04 as a result.
Having a lot of fun since making that decision BTW - should have done this
years ago!

Without getting into all the arguments pro and con, the end result is that
the presentation score rule which will officially go into effect in 2005 and
which the IMAC BOD insisted be applied in 2004, even before it was a rule,
is now going to be recommended for removal by IMAC, according to several
well placed sources.  Ofcourse the problem is that it's a 3 year rule cycle
and everyone has to live with it until 2008, unless some emergency rules
proposal gets through or unless IMAC dictates through their regional
directors that championship points systems require that participating
contests now do NOT use the rule they pushed through.  Confusing at best.

The point here is that no SIG "owns" the AMA rules.  Should they be
influential?  Yes, within reason.  Technically any AMA member can make a
rules proposal, but the SIGs can carry great weight in driving rules.  With
that ability to influence comes great responsibility, so what I would want
to see is just exactly how NSRCA is going to come to it's decisions on rules
proposals before driving them through.  I believe that is the key question.

Similar concerns exists for how sequences would get modified, especially if
they are destined to begin changing annually.  Again, I think that the SIG
ought to be influential, but I'm not sure that they should own the process 
completely.
IMAC has tried several approaches, including member votes, BOD fiat and more
recently, what looks like a reasonably structured method of getting member
feedback through the Regional Directors, winnowing the candidate sequences
down, modifying them per suggestions, winnowing some more and finally doing
a BOD vote.  That might be a good way, who knows?  The challenge for IMAC is
that they do change them every year, because the IAC which they model
themselves after does this.  Having new sequences every year can be fun and
interesting.  It can also be frustrating when poor sequences are designed or
selected.  The faster you try to remake them, the better organized you had
better be in deciding on the new ones.  There should be well defined
criteria for sequence design before any of this is attempted.  And you need
some dedicated members who know how to design a good sequence.

Lastly, regarding the success of IMAC, it hasn't all been a bed of roses.
Their membership dropped off drastically in recent years and is making a
recovery lately from what I hear.  I don't know all the reasons why, but I
would simply suggest that we not look to IMAC as the guiding beacon for
change to Pattern. Many in IMAC have an entirely different mindset,
especially of late, where precision aerobatics is not the key ingredient to
designing sequences, setting rules or running contests, rather, it is how
closely they can copy the IAC.  Look at their 2005 sequences and study the
rules and judging guide and it should tell you everything you need to know.
My first year in Pattern has been the most rewarding in my years of
aerobatic competition, I think because I learned more about getting back to
basics and correctly applying them than I did in my previous 7 years of IMAC
flying.  In my opinion at least, you guys are doing alot of things right,
not perfectly, but you don't have to go about reinventing yourselves
overnight.
Regards,
Ed Alt
=================================================
To access the email archives for this list, go to
http://lists.f3a.us/pipermail/nsrca-discussion/
To be removed from this list, go to http://www.nsrca.org/discussionA.htm
and follow the instructions.