Wills Wing
Flytec

Oz Report

Volume 22, Number 244
Thursday, December 6 2018
Quest Air, Sheets airfield, Groveland, Florida, USA
https://OzReport.com
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

to Table of Contentsto next topic Paul Voight on the USHPA BOD reform vote

Wed, Dec 5 2018, 6:40:14 am CST
He's against it

Paul Voight|Risk Retention Group|USHPA

Paul writes:

Well…even with the newest "improved" governance proposal…I'm not a fan.  I recommend the members need to vote against this proposal.  You do not want it to pass.  Here are some of my arguments on the matter:

My MAIN objection…is that I don't think the old system is broken.  I saw it evolve and work great for many, many years.

The decline in our Sports is what has folks frustrated…and they think changing the BOD structure is going to fix the Sports.  Not going to happen.  When the insurance crisis happened, yes…the mechanics of the "large" BOD were problematic in a time crunch situation…and also frustrated these same people.

The decline in the Sports won't be fixed (more easily) (or at all) by a smaller BOD.  Creating a small board…so it can function "effectively"…like the RRRG group did…(Making a BOD & Bylaws that allow this to be "proper" procedure) is not in the USHPA membership's best interest, (IMO).

A great analogy for this proposal is: "The ship is sinking fast… and this "restructuring the board idea" is just changing out the motor… rather than dealing with the huge hole in the side of the ship" (Losing instructors… not generating new members…. Basically withering away to nothing…)

We have wasted the last 12-18 months discussing this already…. And plan to waste the next 3-5 months even if it doesn't pass the membership vote.  THEN… we will have to expend time & resources to address glitches in the roll out…if it passes over (I predict) the next 3-5 years or more.  (while still addressing RRRG fires).

In 5 years… new board members will inherit this nightmare, as the board changes personnel, and they will have one mess on their hands.  (and very few instructors and pilot members)

The 5 Regions idea in the proposal is very hokey.  It's just a "fix" (to the original proposal that had no regions) to appease the folks who were not in favor of the original proposal.

I don't think the membership will have enough Intel or enthusiasm to vote for people from all over the country for this "new board". I'm not convinced vote minimums will be met.

I believe self interest groups could get a person (or more) on to this new board with enough lobbying amongst the conspirators.  LOL

I don't believe committee work will happen as they hope it will…outside of this small board.  Why would it? ;-)

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to Table of Contentsto next topic Oceanian record claim

Wed, Dec 5 2018, 6:40:50 am CST
Like in Australia

record

FAI Records «record» sends:

Type of record : Straight distance to a declared goal
Course/location : Birchip, VIC (Australia) - Ivanhoe, NSW (Australia)
Performance : 343.3 km
Pilot : Adam Stevens (Australia)
Date : 2018-11-28
Current record : no record set yet

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to Table of Contentsto next topic Bob and friends at Wallaby Ranch

Wed, Dec 5 2018, 6:41:10 am CST
In November and December

Bob "Skydog" Grant|Bob Grant

http://www.skydogsports.com/hg-1/2018-Wallaby-December.htm

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to Table of Contentsto next topic Mark Forbes on the USHPA BOD reform proposal

Wed, Dec 5 2018, 6:41:28 am CST
He responds to my suggestions

PG|USHPA

I write:

Maybe just expand the executive committee (which does the hard work) to 7.

Mar writes:

That's essentially what this proposal does.  It reduces the size of the body that makes binding decisions down to ten, which is a number that can reasonably operate on a phone call with monthly meetings.  I've been a member of the EC for quite some time, serving as Treasurer and VP over the years, and I've participated in a lot of our conference calls.  Getting 26 directors together on a call is virtually impossible, and there's no way to have a discussion that works.  Even with plenty of advance notice, on such a significant question, we were only able to muster 16 voting directors for an evening phone call to approve moving forward with the draft of the proposed Bylaws.

I've been a member of the strategic planning committee that was tasked by the board to work on this proposal and come up with the details.  I have had some significant reservations about it, as would anyone contemplating a major change in a management structure.  But I see good reasons for doing it, as well as some drawbacks.

The insurance crisis illustrated the difficulty of engaging a large board on a complex task with time pressure.  There was simply no way to keep the board informed and get consensus approval of our effort to solve the problem.  We figured out what needed to be done between the small group of the EC and a few other select people, and we told the board what they needed to approve.  They did, but they felt left out…and they were.  That was unfortunate, but in a fluid situation with many unknowns and new information arriving hourly, it's the best we could do. It worked, and we pulled off a two-year project in just a few months.

We survived that crisis.  For quite a long time it's been noted that our board, by comparison with most other nonprofits, is unusually large.  The question was how to structure a board large enough and diverse enough to represent both regional and flight-specific viewpoints, but small enough to act quickly and decisively when faced with urgent issues.  The Bylaws proposal that will be presented to the members and voted upon is the best consensus structure we could come up with.  Maybe it's an improvement to our board, or maybe not.  When we surveyed the membership asking their opinion, it was 2-to-1 in favor of a smaller board.  So that's what we're proposing, and we'll see what the members think.

Tiki's right about needing to focus on membership retention and growth.  But for all the doom-and-gloom, our overall membership levels are not dramatically declining.  We have a structural problem in that many of our hang gliding members are aging out, and we've seen that one coming for well over a decade.  But our original Articles Of Incorporation say that we're an organization devoted to "the development, study, and use of fuel-less flight systems and aircraft capable of being launched by human power alone". That's not "hang gliding" or "paragliding" or anything else specific.  It's human-launched, fuel-less flight, in whatever form that happens to take.  We're seeing increased interest in speed wings over the past few years.  We'll need to figure out how to incorporate them into our organization if that's where the dominant interest of the public goes.

Tiki's focus is specifically on hang gliding.  That's a worthy focus.  But the decline of hang gliding participation is not confined to just the US; it's a worldwide phenomenon, along with a general decline in recreational aviation.  While we should do what we can to promote all facets of our sport, there are tides of public attention which may be far beyond our efforts to change.  Not to say we shouldn't try, but we need to recognize that there are competing modes of flight now, which wasn't true back in 1974. (Well, there were, but most of them didn't evolve successfully.  See the December 1975 issue of the magazine for a directory.) Perhaps a future evolution of hang gliders (or something like them) will once again gain market share?

A 26-member board has talked *for decades* about "growing the sport". It has not succeeded in making any meaningful change in the number of people taking up foot-launched flight.  Perhaps a different structure would help?  I don't know, and my gut feeling is that whatever the board does, at whatever size, is not going to materially affect the public popularity of our sport.  What we *can* do is to operate prudently and efficiently, with the greatest level of responsiveness we can manage.  A smaller board will, I believe, operate more efficiently and be able to make decisions quicker.  All of its members will be directly involved in the decision process, not sitting on the sidelines while a small subset does the work.  At least, that's the intent.

The flip side of this is that a smaller board will have fewer viewpoints, and may possibly miss things a larger board would not.  That's why there's a diversity aspect to the voting, to try to include as many disparate viewpoints as we can within those ten voting members.  There are fewer regions nationally in the revised proposal, so it's much more a national-scale election, rather than a regional one.  Candidates are required to submit answers to a list of questions about their experience and qualifications, to insure that members have enough information about them to make an informed decision.  There will be no write-in candidates; if you're serious about wanting to be on the board, then you need to make a convincing case for why you should be elected.

You should read the proposed Bylaws, and the various discussions and opinions both pro and con.  I'd encourage you to not reflexively vote for or against on the basis of someone else's opinion, before you've even looked at what is proposed.  Consider the proposal fairly, then vote based on information.

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to Table of Contentsto next topic 22nd Open de Canarias

Thu, Dec 6 2018, 3:32:18 am GMT
Task cancelled

Open de Canarias 2018

Wednesday, December 5th

https://airtribune.com/xxii-open-de-canarias/blog__day_4

Things are not going well for this meet either.

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The Oz Report, a near-daily, world wide hang gliding news ezine, with reports on competitions, pilot rankings, political issues, fly-ins, the latest technology, ultralight sailplanes, reader feedback and anything else from within the global HG community worthy of coverage. Hang gliding, paragliding, hang gliders, paragliders, aerotowing, hang glide, paraglide, platform towing, competitions, fly-ins. Hang gliding and paragliding news from around the world, by Davis Straub.

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