Polling threads

Moderators: sg, mods

Will you vote "For" or "Against" the latest USHPA Proposal?

Yes
5
24%
No
16
76%
By blindrodie
#405869
There's discussion about how members will vote on the new USHPA proposal to lower the number of BOD's. Thought I would test the waters with an unscientific Poll! Please vote only if you are or will be a member. See proposal below... HYPERLINKS do not work.

Introduction to the Governance Proposal: Restructuring USHPA's Board of Directors
A proposal to restructure USHPA's board (referred to as the "governance proposal") will be up for a full membership vote this January. Our current board of directors consists of 26 members, of which 21 are elected by pilots in their regions and 5 are appointed “at large” by the other board members. Under the proposed new structure, the board size would be reduced to 10 nationally elected directors, and the current 12 regions would be reduced to 5. The proposal includes diversity criteria designed to ensure that, as much as possible, all regions, wing types, genders, and age groups would be represented on the smaller board.

The proposal also includes initiatives for holding a Chapter Conference Day to support chapters, developing new programs for communicating with chapters and members, and making USHPA more relatable to young people through an ambassador program, among other ideas.

At the Fall 2018 board meeting, the USHPA board of directors voted 14-7 to send the governance proposal out for a vote by the full membership. The vote will take place January 7 - February 21, 2019. To see more information on the upcoming vote, read the full proposal and proposed bylaws, view arguments for/against the proposal, and more, please see below. We will post any updates here and on USHPA's social media accounts, as well as via e-mail and the magazine.

Please contact your Regional Director or the USHPA office with any questions, and be sure to vote!

Voting Information
VOTING PERIOD: 1/7/2019 - 2/21/2019
The vote is being managed by a professional external company, and will accept both electronic and paper ballots
All current members (as of December 31, 2018) will receive a postcard and an email with voting information. We encourage you to vote online, but you are welcome to call the number on your postcard to receive a paper ballot if you prefer
The last day to vote is Feb 21 — all written ballots must be received (not postmarked) at the USHPA office by that date
The membership will be notified of results on February 28, 2019
For a more detailed voting timeline, please click here
Documents
Governance proposal (final version) [PDF]
Revised organization bylaws [PDF]
These are the core expression of what’s in the proposal, translated into USHPA’s governing documents. These are what you are mainly voting on.
Revised organization SOPs (Coming Soon)
These are the secondary expressions of the proposal in USHPA’s governing documents. The SOPs can and will continue to evolve by committee and board action; they will be included here so that you can see the proposal's initial impact on them.

Arguments For and Against the Proposal
Summary of for/against arguments
Full arguments by individual directors and committee chairs
Video arguments for/against (Coming Soon)
Member Feedback
USHPA invited member comments on the proposal from April through August 2018. The final version of the proposal reflects much of the feedback received from members. Visit the Feedback Page for member comments and the previous, Summer 2018 version of the proposal.

Additional Resources
Short video explanation of the diversity guidelines (Coming Soon)
“How to explain it on launch”: A short guide to explaining the proposal (particularly the diversity criteria) to other pilots (Coming Soon)
Article: "Why Diverse Teams are Smarter" (Harvard Business Review) [PDF]

Page updated 12/6/2018
By blindrodie
#405872
:thumbsup: Clear as MUD! Thanks JD. Thought about an edit but meh......

8)
By blindrodie
#405881
Voting is still open folks so hit that Yes or No....

8)
By blindrodie
#405933
Interesting results...

Seems the proposal is not getting the support the USHPA had hoped for. Still more time to decide.

PLEASE VOTE!! :popcorn: :mosh:

8)
User avatar
By red
#405935
Campers,

If history is any guide, with 76% of the membership voting NO to the proposal to ditch a lot of their representation, I would expect the USHPA to announce the vote passed by an "overwhelming majority," and NO, they will NOT show you the voting numbers.

Please send in your money. :evil:
.
User avatar
By mgforbes
#405936
Just to be clear, no membership vote has yet been started. And this "poll" is based on nothing more than speculation and some "me too" from folks who want to register an opinion before seeing what they're voting on. I would ask that you wait to see and read through the proposed changes before making up your mind, and then vote in the actual membership ballot when it comes out in a few weeks.

MGF
By blindrodie
#405937
Thanks for your comment Mark.

NOTICE that in the original post I DID post the most current, at that time info FROM THE USHPA website! And there is a disclaimer AND there is a link on one of the replies to ALL THE CURRENT info...

Just sayin'... :thumbsup:

8)
User avatar
By DMarley
#405950
mgforbes wrote: Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:05 am Just to be clear, no membership vote has yet been started. And this "poll" is based on nothing more than speculation and some "me too" from folks who want to register an opinion before seeing what they're voting on. I would ask that you wait to see and read through the proposed changes before making up your mind, and then vote in the actual membership ballot when it comes out in a few weeks.

MGF
That's right kids..... re-read through all those incongruously-arranged proposed changes directly before you vote. Do the proposed changes make sense as written? Unwitting loopholes aplenty? Undefined matrices? I'm holding off my vote until the last day or so, and will thoroughly read and reflect upon those last-minute changes to the revisions of the revised statements of the proposed changes.
:shock:
User avatar
By DMarley
#405951
red wrote: Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:02 am Campers,

If history is any guide, with 76% of the membership voting NO to the proposal to ditch a lot of their representation, I would expect the USHPA to announce the vote passed by an "overwhelming majority," and NO, they will NOT show you the voting numbers.

Please send in your money. :evil:
.
It's sad that this scenario is possible and even expected. :(
And Mark's retort doesn't help.
User avatar
By red
#405958
mgforbes wrote: Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:05 am Just to be clear, no membership vote has yet been started. And this "poll" is based on nothing more than speculation and some "me too" from folks who want to register an opinion before seeing what they're voting on. I would ask that you wait to see and read through the proposed changes before making up your mind, and then vote in the actual membership ballot when it comes out in a few weeks.
MGF
Mark, Mark, Mark,

I certainly realize that no membership vote has been taken yet. I am just trying to save the USHPA officials all of the time and trouble involved in counting up the votes, when history is a fairly good indicator of the results that will be announced.

There may well be some beneficial side-issues in the new proposal that the members DO want (which issues mysteriously have never seen the light of day thus far). Each of those issues should be addressed separately , not lumped into a large pile of dung as sweetener. The USHPA bureaucracy is too far removed from the will of the membership already. At its' core, the proposal to redraw the regional map at this late date and dispose of most of the Regional Directors will just completely insulate those in charge from anything wanted or needed by most of the members. Those remaining officials will welcome the members' money, of course, but not the members' input.

If you want to do something constructive, show me the complete voting records of all of the BOD members for the last year or so. (The request for that information has been made about impossible to answer, right? Who made it impossible?) I want to decide which of the Board members are worth keeping, and who needs an escort to the door. I really don't think I am alone in that request.

Yeah, yeah, I know . . .
Shut up! Send in your money! :evil:
User avatar
By DMarley
#405962
Seahawk wrote: Sun Dec 23, 2018 2:14 am And don't go more than three years without sending in your money or you will lose your ratings. :wtf:
I could be wrong, but I believe it is two years without paying dues.... Would be best to change your 'evil, wayward ways' on the third.
But I do understand this policy, as the RRRG requires your dollars to help show our good responsibility to the public and site land-owners. This is a different topic and likely should be discussed elsewhere, but perhaps there should be a much smaller 'retainer fee' to retain one's ratings while on free-flight-leave for a few years. There are many pilots who stop flying for a few years, then come back to the sport only to find their ratings have vanished. This really shouldn't be. I wonder how many pilots we have lost because of this draconian policy.
User avatar
By USHPA7
#405965
Back in the late 90's I rejoined as a non-flying member thinking why am paying for insurance when I'm no longer flying. I did that for three years as I recall. Then when a hang gliding reunion was held at Dockweiler Beach in 2000 I had to buy a 30 day membership to fly under Windsport's USHGA insurance rules. After that I went back to full membership every year.

Much to my surprise, when I started flying again in 2015, I had lost my rating even though I had never quit being a member, since 1973, but had those three years as a non-pilot member. It's possible that I have the longest continuing USHGA / USHPA membership in the world, but I had to have an instructor reinstate my H3 rating, which he kindly did, knowing my hang gliding history and viewing my flights at the beach. Hey guys & gals, it's like riding a bicycle but you should start out in easy conditions if it has been a while (a word to the wise).

We should not have to pay $150 / yr just to maintain our ratings, especially if we fly sites that don't require insurance. This is something that the USHPA BOD could easily change by making the ratings permanente. The ratings are issued by instructors and should belong to the pilot not the org. The FAA does not require ratings under Part 103. If they did they would be permanente but would probably require a "check flight" if not active for a certain period of time.

Another thing that USHPA should do is have a public (non-members as well as members) accessible archive or data base of pilot's ratings, active or inactive, going back as far as they have kept records. Then a returning pilot could reference his old USHGA / USHPA rating via this web archive database.

These two changes would go a long way to helping pilots maintain their ratings and not hurt USHPA in any way. In some quarters there has been a "knee jerk" reaction against such proposals but given time, I think everyone would agree that this is desirable. Afterall, the organization was created to help and advance our sport. Giving pilots more choices in how they keep their ratings would help in that regard.

Frank, USHPA #7 (current)
User avatar
By Wonder Boy
#405968
The reason I was told you lose your rating after a 3 year lapse is they figure you aren't current and therefore should be checked out out by a rating official. An observer can reinstate your ratings. (as long as they have the same ones they are signing you off for)
Bummer to all that: If an H2/P2 lapses, and observer can't reinstate them.
They must see an instructor as an observer can not issue a 1 or a 2 rating, even if they are just reinstating.
User avatar
By USHPA7
#405969
The fallacy is that a person could maintain their membership for many years of not flying and then fly again without anyone checking them out - because they would still have their rating. That would have been me had i not reduced my membership for those three years to non-pilot.

Here I am, after 39 years of not flying except the past three at the Dockweiler 25 foot beach bluff, flying at POM, UT.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas!
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By Rick M
#406118
Just as an FYI, there's been a lot of discussion on the Oz Report about the proposal.

The following forum links may or may not be helpful reading before you cast your vote:

The USHPA BOD reform vote
Steve Kroop on USHPA BOD Governance
Mark Forbes on the USHPA BOD reform proposal
d--- Heckman on the USHPA Governance proposal
USHPA BOD proposal

There have also been several articles in the daily Oz Report.

Look under 2018 and search for "USHPA" and you will find several articles in December. Look under 2019 and find a few more in January.
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By BBJCaptain
#406183
Done!
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