Jim Payne's Notes from the Fall 2003 SSA Board of Directors meeting

JP's Version 1.0 Notes from the Fall 2003 SSA Board of Directors Meeting
The Fall 2003 meeting was at the Radisson near Cowboy Stadium from 8:07 AM until 4:44 PM on Sept 13th. 21 of 23 Board members attended. (Fletcher and Jacobs absent. 3 seats were vacant.)

The Board voted to appoint Ed Byars to serve out the remainder of Billy Singleton's term and voted to appoint Sam Zimmerman to serve out the remainder of John Sharp's term. Sam was at the meeting so he was seated immediately. The third vacant seat was a Director at Large position.

The Board approved the Spring Board minutes as corrected and the EXCOM meeting minutes.

As part of the consent agenda the Board voted to forward a Lilienthal Medal nomination of Piero Morelli to the FAI.

The draft budget for 2004 was discussed. The Board established a Finance and Budget Committee which was charged with reviewing and proposing a final budget by December 1. The Board will then vote on it. The financial condition of the SSA during the past year has not been good. The Budget Committee will look at things like changing the grounds at Hobbs to native plants via xeriscape to save up to $15,000.

The Chairman's report noted that membership has decreased 9.5% during the past year. This is a big concern. A lot of time at the meeting (and before and after the meeting) was devoted to discussion of promotion. During the past few months the SSA has supported three promotional efforts that have not borne any fruit. The Board approved television deal with Leading Edge Productions (LE) did not happen due to lack of sponsorship. The SSA-Sporty's "Try Soaring" 50% off coupon promotion has not had one coupon redeemed. The member retention initiative in which Board members were asked to call non-renewing members was not well supported and where tried only had about a 5% success rate. (The sport depends heavily on the local sites. Their reception of visitors, ability to train, and ability to provide ongoing value to pilots are critical. It does the SSA no good to get people to the gliderport if the sites cannot provide the next step.)

The SSA continues to invest significant attention to preserving our right to soar. With lots of work by Glenn Collins and others in the SSA, M-ASA has worked an agreement for flight operations when P-40 is active. The Board voted an off cycle SSA Achievement Award for Glenn.

Dean Carswell proposed a "Code of Conduct." It was referred to committee and will be on the next Board agenda. (My input is that it is a great idea as long as the SSA starts a Policy and Procedures Manual so it is not forgotten and as long as it has consequences for bad behavior.)

The Board received a report from the Site Selection Committee. The Vice Chair for Services, Dick Mockler, said that the solicitation for bids was wrong and that one site that wanted to bid had not because of the error. He recommended the bids be reopened to which the Board agreed.

For the record the report recommended the following contest sites and dates for the year 2005:

Standard, Mifflin, PA, May 17-26
Sports/18M, Waynesville (CCSC), OH, Jun 28-Jul 7
Open, Ephrata WA, Jul 5-14
15M, Montague, CA, Jul 19-28
The World Class did not receive any bids.

Planning continues for a 2004 SSA Convention in Atlanta. The 2005 SSA Convention will be in Ontario, CA. A representative of the Arlington, TX Convention Center gave a presentation about Arlington for the 2006 SSA Convention. The Board plans to have the 2006 in the south central part of the USA but has not selected a specific site.

The Board received no nominations for the Soaring Hall of Fame within the established time line. (This was a major failing on the part of the Board members. The process is done in a vacuum as no Director knows who any other Director is nominating unless he or she starts calling around. Two people I wanted to nominate asked not to be nominated this time.) It was recommended that the SSA populate the ballot with the names of folks nominated but not elected during the last five years.

Cindy Brickner volunteered to administer the Symons Wave Memorial.

Chip Fitzpatrick discussed the plans for ssa.org. He is leading an effort to overhaul the web site.

Dean Carswell was elected Chairman of the Board for 2004.
Steve Northcraft was elected First Vice-Chair.
Chip Garner, Dianne Black-Nixon, and Chip Fitzpatrick were elected as Vice-Chairs.
Doug Jacobs was reelected Treasurer.
Tim Welles was elected Secretary.

Ray Johnson (NAA rep), Doug Jacobs, Eric Mozer, Charlie Spratt, Larry Tuohino, and Ken Sorenson were elected Directors-at-Large.

Other Items

Editorial comment: The SSA desperately needs a Policy and Procedures Manual. Dennis Wright indicated that this is a project that he will undertake.

Speaking of Dennis, he is off to a great start as Executive Director. He was even able to get the Board Books out in a timely enough manner to use surface mail instead of overnight just before the meeting.

During the evening after the Board meeting the NSM hosted the Barnaby Lecture by Bernald Smith. He gave a rather interesting talk about "People and Planes."

On the day after the meeting, Cindy Brickner, Jim Skydell, and I had a late flight to LAX so we rented a car and drove out to the Texas Soaring Association Gliderport. It had been a rainy morning so things were pretty quiet at the field. They have an outstanding club-owned facility that would be a great model for any soaring club. Any one interested in starting a club would benefit from a visit to the operation. But for all of TSAs success we learned that they have an instructor shortage. Any SSA marketing will be for naught if we get prospects to the gliderport that we cannot train.

This was my last meeting and hence the last set of these notes. I served seven years on the Board (one term as Director at Large and two terms representing Region 12) and two years on the EXCOM. I was fortunate to be able to attend all 14 Board meetings and all 4 EXCOM meetings along the way. I would like to thank everyone who supported and helped me especially Jackie who put up with it all.

Soar Safe, Have Fun, Go Places,