About this forum

[Ramey]

This started out as a reply to James Zender's post on another thread regarding the west bowl collision. It's really a different topic so I made a new thread for it.

His suggestion was the that this topic be placed on the agenda for a club meeting.

I think this forum is far more effective for addressing these kinds of issues than the club meetings are. I think the club meets are very inferior for this. There are lots of reasons for this:

a) it's an orderly process where everyone gets his say.
b) it gives everyone an opportunity to organize his thinking before he "types".
c) keeps the discussion at a higher level
d) discussions of such topics a club meetings tend to drag on forever and tend to be dominated by those who just love to hear themselves talk. On the forum, one is free to just skip over the side issues, rants etc. (feel free to skip my posts).
e) For these reasons, many more people follow the forum than show up at club meetings. You can see this by looking at the "views" statistics for each thread on the forum.
d) This forum serves no beer.

I'm very pleased with the forum and I think that Chris has been doing an outstanding job of maintaining it. The only thing that occurs to me to improve would be to require that people use real names rather than handles. Experience has shown that this helps maintain a higher level of discourse. In fact maybe we should take the next step. The club mailing list - maintained by me for 15 years - might be integrated into the forum software - thereby leaving us with one modern system as opposed to a "clunky" albeit robust one.

I'm aware that there is concern about low attendence at club meetings. This has been a concern for a number of years and it seems to be getting lower all the time. I believe that this concern is misplaced. Low meeting attendance has been used as an indicator of lack of interest. I think that's a mistake. I went to big sur trip and found more people in attendance than I've ever seen. So instead of using attendance a club meetings as a measure of interest - use attendance at events instead. To summarize, I would suggest:

a) Cut general meetings down to every other month - or less. Perhaps, such meetings should be Ad Hoc - held only occasionally when there is a real issue that calls for it.
b) Post BOD meeting announcement and remind people that they are free to come
c) Post BOD meetings on this forum
d) Consider using this forum for elections and votes.
e) Restructure the bylaws so that the club has a budget once/year and this budget is approved by the club membership via online voting on this forum once/year. This would address the problem that ideas for spending money arise in general club meetings on a piecemeal basis and are voted upon only by those present which might be as few as 10 people. The club has had financial difficulties in the past due to the current system.

Just a thought,

Robert Ramey

[cortf]

Excellent points, Robert. I agree 100%.
That brings up another point I've been thinking about. I've heard some people say recently that we shouldn't discuss mishaps on the forum because the posts could be used by someone, at some point in the future,as ammunition against the flying community. While that could happen, I think there is another perspective that is more significant. In most professions and industries, including aviation, accidents are not kept quiet, but rather openly and actively discussed and analyzed in an effort to learn how to avoid such incidents in the future. Such analysis recognizes that people are human and accidents are never totally avoidable, and that systems, rather than individuals, are often to blame. But just as important, it demonstrates that the people involved, in this case the SB flying community, are taking an active responsibility to make their sport as safe as possible. That message can only benefit our public image.
Cort Flinchbaugh

[Chris G]

Just three points.

First, integrating the old mailing list into the discussion board would be tough. I've actually been trying to cut down on the number of custom modifications to the board. It makes applying updates 100x easier. However, it's not hard to create a google spreadsheet that only members could access. Just needs someone to manage the access list. Totally doable.

Second, forcing real names has some advantages, but I think most of us know who is who at this point.

And lastly, discussion of incidents COULD be done in the Members Only section which would prevent the general public from reading it. The list of users that can access the Members section is still REALLY small because I don't have a complete list of members but it could be completed and used the way it was intended. That would certainly be an appropriate place for BOD minutes, finances etc. since that's not really stuff the general public needs to know anyway.

[sbkiter]

I went to my first meeting this month and it was a packed room. Maybe this isn't always the case, but I thought it was great to see so many people there. The meeting was a chance for some of us "new" people to get to meet some of the veterans of the sport. The meeting was very informative with several people giving input and presentations. I like the forum but if the normal meetings are like the last one... then I would vote to keep them monthly.
-Jon Blake

[tom mayer]

Jon, though I don't go to all the meetings, there's nothing like a face to face, whether it's a convivial discussion or a in your face debate. It's the very reason that online tele-conferencing didn't take off like some thought it would. Besides, it's a great excuse to get out of the house on a Thursday night, drink a beer, listen to the usual suspects brag about their flying heroics and just plain keep the spirit alive. I've been a member for over 30 years, and my only concern about the monthly meetings may be that in another 30 years those stairs to the top floor of Rusty's are going to be tough!

[JimmyZ]

Bob, I do agree that the forum is a great place to discuss this... God knows, I love using forums to discuss these types of issues. I also think that there are others that do not use the internet as a form of cummunication and I thought it would be a great topic for our local meeting... not to talk point fingers or talk specifically about those individuals involved (of which I'm sure they have heard, talked, or pondered what happened enough), I just thought that a basic run down of what-to-do would be a great refresher for everyone (sorry for the extremely long run-on sentence).

I believe our meetings are getting much more structured, organized, and "bi-partisan", which should make EVERYONE feel welcome and able to learn from each other. No big deal as to how the information/message gets across... as long as it does.... Just a thought.