BOD Meeting July 2018

[baronn 111]

Geez Gary, WTF are ya doin? I've known both you and Mike for too many years for any of us to want to admit to. If Anyone had said to me that I would live long enough to see and hear this kinda behavior outta either 1 of you, I'd have said they were nuts. Yet here we are. What gives? Clearly the membership wude like to see some changes, don't believe the Museum should have member money put into it, and yet both of you seem to oppose the general opinion. Time to wake up. Appears that neither 1 of you care what's being said here. Very disappointed.....

[peek 21]

baronn

Clearly the membership wude like to see some changes, don't believe the Museum should have member money put into it, and yet both of you seem to oppose the general opinion.

Well, I don't quite know what you are talking about. I voted against the museum donations. The only thing negative I have said is that video of meetings will likely not happen in the near future.

Mike and I posting here makes us easy targets for criticism. Try contacting other Directors and see who even responds to you.

I hope you come to the PIA Symposium this winter early enough to attend part of the BOD meeting. It will fill you in on a lot of the things we are all talking about.

[MakeItHappen 15]

Here’s my take on the museum motion.

I am on the BOD and am the USPA secretary.

Jim McCormick gave a presentation to the FB at the summer 2018 meeting and one about a year earlier. I’ve known Jim since the early 1990s. He’s a professional speaker and made a living at that time by giving motivational talks to corporate clients. He’s an excellent speaker and very well organized in his presentations.

Jim gave a presentation at the summer meeting that was a sales pitch- not a motivational speech. It was sprinkled with motivational tactics, as well as, sales tactics.

The pitch was to get USPA to agree to become what the museum calls the “Host Country Affiliate” (HCA). The HCA is a new thing, I have never heard of it before. I am listening to this idea and thinking that for the greater portion of the past 18 years, USPA has been trying to rid itself of the ‘USPA Museum’ moniker because so many members thought USPA was synonymous and the same as the museum. I thought to myself that this was strange and probably wouldn’t fly just for that reason alone.

Jim goes through the rest of the presentation and eventually presents a cross-comparison chart of annual donations for several countries. I don’t remember what countries he used, but they were some of the larger skydiving/parachute organizations from around the world. There were columns for donation levels ranging from $10K to $25K.

The breakdown of this chart implied that if country A gave an annual donation it would be something on the order of $4-9 per member of country A’s skydiving association – even at the lowest donation level. When the column for USPA was listed it worked out to be a fraction of a dollar per member – even at the highest donation level of $25K.

USPA membership just eclipsed 40,000 members. I don’t know who comes in second, but it is a distant second, maybe under (or well under) 10,000 members?

The pitch basically said USPA “only” had to donate a fraction of a dollar per member when these other countries would be donating several dollars per member. That’s a false assumption because these other countries would mostly likely NOT be donating at those high levels. I thought that this was so obvious that everyone would see that.

Then the USPA treasurer said that USPA could not afford this, even at the lowest level. We have just raised dues this past January and that brought us to be even in the forthcoming years.

But for some reason, 13 of the current board members voted to saddle USPA with an unplanned expense of $25,000 per year for the next six years. Nine board members, including me and, as previously noted, Gary Peek, voted no.

The good news is that this can be changed at a future board meeting, provided you elect people that actually understand USPA’s business.

I also want to say that Jim McCormick was 100% honest, did not deceive us in any way, and gave a great sales pitch that worked on several board members.

The current state of affairs is that now the “International Skydiving Museum” is now the “USPA Museum” because USPA is the “Host Country Affiliate”.

I think that the museum zigged when it should have zagged and all of this will be rectified in the near future.

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Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[3331 137]

Thank you Jan Meyer. Eloquently written and informative.

Can we find out how much the Canadian Sport Parachuting Association and the British Parachute Association have given to this boondoggle museum.

I Jumped with the guys who invented Skydiving.

[faulknerwn 38]

Beto O'Rourke - a candidate for senate in Texas - live streams every single town hall he does - just using an iphone and facebook live. These are in rooms of several hundred people or more.

Has anyone even tried doing it on something like an iphone to see how well it would work? Even as just a test?

[grimmie 186]

Thanks Jan.

Jim is a great guy. But this is a lousy idea.

Our treasurer, Albert Berchtold, said the USPA can't afford it and yet some members voted yes. Can we get the list of those votes?

[peek 21]

faulknerwn

Beto O'Rourke - a candidate for senate in Texas - live streams every single town hall he does - just using an iphone and facebook live. These are in rooms of several hundred people or more.

Has anyone even tried doing it on something like an iphone to see how well it would work? Even as just a test?

Not that I know of.

I don't want to say too much about it because this is not my area of computer expertiwse.

With a USPA BOD meeting, multiple committee meetings are going on at the same time, so I think meetings would be better recorded and available on a web site for later viewing, rather than live viewing.

How does Beto get audio from questions asked by people at the meeting? Does he walk among the audience? Do you have any links to recordings he has made of meetings?

[Ron 10]

Quote

at least we have a USPA. Even with the USPA, basically every DZ still has people that do unsafe stuff, and there are no shortages of entire DZs that are unsafe. Imagine how things would be if it was completely unregulated entirely.

You are using the logical fallacy of 'False Dichotomy'. Even with the USPA you claim there are dangerous practices, but then use those dangerous practices to defend the USPA?

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[baronn 111]

This was a response to 2 different things. Perhaps I needed to clarify. Here goes. Your vote and position is well known here Gary. The general opinion I referred to was the live streaming of meetings. Your response to this appears to be its too difficult vs lets see what it takes to make it happen.
Mike's position appears to be in favor of the museum. I don't know how he voted but, it seems by his posts here, that's the case. All I'm doing is pointing out what other members are saying. Let's get the meetings online and let's shit can this USPA funding ANY museum.

[Ron 10]

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I am on the BOD and am the USPA secretary.

Thank you. How could the membership get a list of who voted for and against this?

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[MakeItHappen 15]

Steve-
I do not know how much or which skydiving organizations have donated to the museum. You'll have to ask the organization.
I will posit that it is extremely doubtful that they are donating on levels of several dollars per member.

Rich & Ron-
USPA generally does not take roll call votes. On this particular motion no one even voted by name.
The exact motion is:

Motion 14: 13-9-0 Passed (Mr. Berchtold)
Move to establish USPA as the Host Country Affiliate of the International Skydiving Museum & Hall of Fame in accordance with the attached specifications titled “USPA & ISM Host Affiliate Specifications-2018.” This represents past cash donation of $25,000, past in kind support of $87,200, future in-kind support of $34,200 and $25,000 per year for 6 years. This totals $296,200.

The vote count is 100% correct. Both the president and secretary count and confer the tally. The vote count is recorded in real time.
If you want to know how each board member voted, you'll have to ask them directly.

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Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[Moggy1990 0]

I may be corrected by someone actually on the BPA council, but going off the financial statements it doesn't look like any contributions which is what I would expect given there is no benefit for British jumpers.

[baronn 111]

Sooo, when the BOD votes, the individual votes aren't tallied by name? Am I reading this right? WTF? So let's put the invite to all the BOD members to explain this. I (and I'm pretty sure every member) would love to hear the rational for this.

[gowlerk 2,192]

I've served on BoDs. The rational is simple. It's just much easier to record the total votes than individual votes. It is the normal practice. Usually recorded votes are only taken at the request of one or more members. I'm sure you will argue that someone should have insisted on one in this case. But very likely no one thought it to be needed at the time. In general only exceptionally contentious issue would go to a recorded vote. It gets used so rarely that no one even thinks about it.

[billvon 2,991]

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Beto O'Rourke - a candidate for senate in Texas - live streams every single town hall he does - just using an iphone and facebook live.

I am certain if some tech-savvy skydiver showed up at a BOD meeting and said "let me set up streaming for you" they'd be all over it.

Any volunteers?

[peek 21]

gowlerk

I've served on BoDs. The rational is simple. It's just much easier to record the total votes than individual votes. It is the normal practice. Usually recorded votes are only taken at the request of one or more members. I'm sure you will argue that someone should have insisted on one in this case. But very likely no one thought it to be needed at the time. In general only exceptionally contentious issue would go to a recorded vote. It gets used so rarely that no one even thinks about it.

Thank you for your understanding and for explaining that even better than I could.

Here is some interesting history about USPA BOD meetings and electronic voting.

1. A few years ago Jan Meyer created an online system where the Secretary could set up a vote for each motion, and BOD members could enter their votes from their laptops to a web page on the server. (It inherently recorded all votes "by name"). Unfortunately she had to bring and set up a server computer at the meeting, and it was a bit ahead of its time for the BOD. (Some users were impatient and critical of it.) This system could of course be done better now, but you would need to ask her about that. It would be a lot of work for her to put it all together again, work that she would have to volunteer (again) with no guarantee of acceptance.

2. Many years ago, before the internet was popular, BJ Worth asked me about (wired) boxes with switches that could connect to a computer and record the switch positions corresponding to the voting of the individuals. I thought about it a lot and realized that I would be volunteering a lot of work and a fair amount of money, with no guarantee of acceptance, much less reimbursement, so I never did prototype it.

[ILUVCHUTERS 1]

CSPA has not donated any money to the museum.

Izzy Perry
VP, CSPA

[faulknerwn 38]

Because even other people in the audience could not usually hear audience questions, he would normally repeat them himself over the microphone.

https://www.facebook.com/betoorourke/?ref=br_rs is his facebook page. If you scroll down you will see thousands of live stream videos

[grimmie 186]

Thanks Jan, As I figured about the vote.

And thanks to you, Gary Peek, Chuck Akers and Mike Mullins for expressing your views here on a somewhat regular basis.

I know quite a few members on the USPA BOD personally and a handful of the USPA staff. No one will ever agree with certain moves and decisions made by everyone and I applaud your openness here.

I have spoken to probably 50 or so skydivers that are members of the USPA. Not one of them was pleased with the recent museum expenditure vote.

Thank you for reminding me what the total USPA buy in will be.

It would be nice if the USPA had an online forum for questions and comments on the web site. Like the AOPA has..https://www.aopa.org/login/[url]

[DiverMike 5]

Rather than spending $25,000 for the museum, perhaps the money would have been better spent developing a web portal (like AOPA, PADI) that members could 'vote' on issues presented to the BOD. Maybe then, the BOD wouldn't be surprised by the hostile reaction to this expenditure

For the same reason I jump off a perfectly good diving board.

[baronn 111]

It's really Amazing that the BOD is even trying to defend this decision. This reveals an even larger problem than just funding a truly stupid idea. It shows stupidity in making decisions. To any BOD members that voted for this, you need to take a serious look at what the job of being a representative of your due paying members really is. Having someone come in and give a speech in favor of funding a museum was the 1st step in a series of dumb decisions. It really is too bad Roger Nelson isn't around now. We need to drain this swamp and get back to the business of promoting and building our sport/business up to what it can really be.

[grimmie 186]

baronn

It's really Amazing that the BOD is even trying to defend this decision. This reveals an even larger problem than just funding a truly stupid idea. It shows stupidity in making decisions. To any BOD members that voted for this, you need to take a serious look at what the job of being a representative of your due paying members really is. Having someone come in and give a speech in favor of funding a museum was the 1st step in a series of dumb decisions. It really is too bad Roger Nelson isn't around now. We need to drain this swamp and get back to the business of promoting and building our sport/business up to what it can really be.

The BOD members that voted yes are thinking that is what they are helping to accomplish. "Promoting and building our sport".

[skyfox2007 22]

Grimmie,
Maybe the BOD voted for the museum with the best of intentions, but I'm curious how the topic of a museum first came up. Was it an idea circulating among skydivers at large that several BOD members championed and pitched to fruition? Or was it an idea that originated in the BOD itself?

Either way, it's become rather expensive for a sport that isn't yet mainstream with the public in the same way basketball or football are today or even were in their infancy back in the mid-twentieth century. The latter's hall of fame originally cost $400K to build back in 1961 in Canton, Ohio - that comes out to slightly more than $2 million today and less than 1/7 what our proposed hall of fame currently costs per Ed Scott's comments in this month's Parachutist.

A better, less expensive way to promote our sport would be to examine the ways in which we can increase retention. Commissioning a study on that - maybe with a research group like Rand - would be a cheaper, worthy investment if retention is the aim.

-JD-

[baronn 111]

Any BOD member that voted for this thinking that it was gonna be " Promoting and Building" our sport, needs to come on here and tell all of us that feel otherwise how that is gonna happen.

[PhreeZone 20]

I've been out of the loop for a while on the museum but if I remember right the plans were looking to also include an onsite wind tunnel so that "visitors could experience freefall" while onsite and serve as a revenue generator for the facility. This was what was driving up the cost of the building so much - getting a big building and the exhibits in it was not going to be that much but once the tunnel was added the costs jumped but 10-12 million. Is that still being proposed?

Issue is that there are now a lot of tunnels popping up and in that region of the country I count the Louden, the Baltimore, the Gathersburg and Kind of Prussia are all up and running today and are within 90 minutes of the proposed build site.

Edit - I see the proposed location is now north Orlando. There is already a double tunnel that is in Orlando and then one in Tampa and one in Fort Lauderdale.

Question is if the museum even could get the money is the demand there to support the tunnel and use its profits to run the rest of the property?

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