Doug,
I look at everything thru the eyes of business. In business if you have 1300 customers, and each year you loose 90 but gain 100 then technically you are growing by ten per year. But that is a painstakingly slow growth rate. So if I want to gain 300 per year, I have to put my product in front of more potential customers. If that doesn't work then I have to add products, or change some products to gain customers.
I will give what you said some thought.
Scott,
I appreciate your apparent willingness to think about the position you have taken. I wish everyone were as willing to consider ideas that are different than theirs.
I know lots of different numbers get thrown around here on the forum and it can be hard to know who to believe. Listening to many posters here on the forum would lead any rational business man to seriously doubt the health of our organization. But let me give you some facts that if considered might lead you to have a whole different attitude about the direction the organization is going in.
At Convention time 2013, we were down to about 1,000 members. (our lowest membership count for many decades) However at convention this year we were up to 1,300 members. That's 30% growth for the last year. While we are still a very small organization and we really need many more members if we want to be an organization with any kind of influence, that will take time. But we are on a solid path and going in the right direction for the first time in many years.
There are many people who have left the organization over the last many years (over a variety of reasons), and many of these people seem intent to continue to air their complaints over and over and never let them die, even though they are no longer even members of the organization and the issue they are unhappy about is long past and settled. I believe this group is largely responsible for much of the negative impression that people get when reading threads like this.
I appreciate your thought about getting back into the "Powered Sport Flying" magazine. Many people agree with you and wish that we could get back to a printed magazine. However, in this thread we have also had people explaining that dues are simply too high and that is what is killing the organization. When I became a Board member, dues were $50 and I am the person responsible for pushing for a reduction and I was able to get the Board to agree to drop them to their current rate of $42. (going lower than that was not financially possible without bankrupting the organization and even lowering them the $8 we did, was a leap of faith and was done on the premise that we could grow the overall membership numbers, which we have done) But people are still saying that was an insignificant amount and they are still too high and they need to go lower if we want to grow the organization. Do you see how impossible the whole situation is? Getting back to a printed magazine would cost everyone a significant increase and many are already saying it's too high now. No matter what we do as a Board, we are not going to make everyone happy and we simply can't give everyone what they want, no matter how good of an idea it might be.
We believe we are on the right track and making steps to make the organization more financially sound. The numbers so far tend to support our position. But we always welcome others opinions. However if you really want to be able to influence the Board there isn't a better way than to run for the Board and personally promote your ideas. Become one of the people that are making it happen and then you can have as much influence as you are willing to earn through your efforts. I appreciate your considering what I have shared with you, and thank you for any efforts you are willing to make to support our sport (in any way you want to make it).
Doug Barker
PRA Pres.