Class Politics Why Have an Association? philosophical discussion??

gouvernail

Super Opinionated and Always Correct
This is an extremely toned down second attempt to begin a thread addressing this subject.

The genesis of this thread and the previous deleted thread is very personal.

My regatta; the Easter Laser Regatta; the regatta which I have personally financed and hosted for 25 consecutive years, was not included in the Winter Laser Sailor. It was left out of the 2009 districts schedule which was published on page 37.

Last year the Vice President of the Class showed up at the event and demanded that we all pay dues to the Laser Class Association. Each of us paid annual dues to that associtaion. A year later, a schedule has been published and the 26th annual version of the event where each of us paid our dues is not included.

I feel not only slapped in the face but I feel I let a person come in to my registration area and rip off my friends.

After calming down for a few weeks, I am attempting for the second time to start a thread about this matter without violating the "friendly love and kisses" nature of this forum.



The philosophical question upon which I would like to read feedback and discussion:

Is it the responsability of our paid employees to gather information and publish that information or is it the duty of our sailors to get that information to the office?



My take:

I believe some of each is necessary but uiltimatly, the responsability for information gathering, planning, scheduling, publication, and dissemination of that schedule to the various media falls on our paid staff.

Failure to receive information is not an acceptable excuse.

Briefly? I believe publication of schedules for 13% of our districts is a failing grade and, after years of even the most dedicated service, should be considered as grounds for immediate termination.

One man's opinions do not make a thread.

Please if you would, take the time to give your perspective.

Who do you feel is responsable for gathering, organizing, and disseminating scheduling information?
What do you believe is the reason we pay a staff?
What tasks do you expect them to perform?
Should our paid staff do its best to glean regatta information from any available source like last year's hosts, the internet, and personal calls to district secretaries? Or should the staff only publish information delivered to the office by particular individuals in a particular format?
In general, theh staff works for you:
What is your particular pet task and unacceptable performance that would cause you do ask for their dismissal?
 
I am with you all way..our class must have bigger problems than this. Why would anyone want to kill a local and very good intiative like this. Growing and marketing this class is key…its about backbone and good spirits and not stupid and ignorant formalities….keep up the good work…they will see the light.
 
I am with you all way..
Same here. I'm pretty much a "joiner" in general, I'm currently Commodore of my local Iceboating club, and the Treasurer-elect for the International DN iceboat association. With that said, I haven't been an ILCA member in so many years I've forgotten when... :confused:

I just haven't seen any value to the kind of Laser sailing I do to bother supporting the association.

Cheers,

Geoff S.
 
Is every regatta for the next year scheduled by November when the Laser Sailor need information for the Winter edition? No.

If the newsletter doesn't get them in time they are up on the class's calender when they are known then sent in for the next newsletter.
 
Is every regatta for the next year scheduled by November when the Laser Sailor need information for the Winter edition? No.

If the newsletter doesn't get them in time they are up on the class's calender when they are known then sent in for the next newsletter.


I posted all the Easter Laser Regatta dates through 2012 sometime back around 1999. When the class re-did their website they didn't think it was important to transfer the future NOR.. I have reposted the dates at least a couple times sice I left the job as webmaster in 2002.

This is a perfect example or something I believe we need to decide.
. Should I be responsible for visiting the class website constantly and checking to see if they lost my information and re-posting every time the Class Website goes under some minor maintenance or should the class website be managed by our paid staff such that future scheduling is not lost??

Clarification:

I absolutely do not wish to rip on Sherry if she is doing as she does because she is given direction by the other officers.

I started this thread to learn:

Are my expectations way out of line with what the current officers believe is proper management?

and

Are my expectations out of line with the District Executives?

and

Are my expectations out of line with other regatta hosts?

and

Are my expectations out of line with fleet captains?

and

Are my expectations thought to be unreasonable by those members who simply pay their annual dues and sail?

I already know how I feel. I am asking ...What is your opinion?
 
For those outside the North American Region, or not (yet) members of ILCA-NA, here is a link to the Winter 2009 issue of The Laser Sailor (you'll need Flash 9 or better to view the page turner, if it doesn't work let me know and I can point you to a pdf... also, you can some back issues of TLS by going to www.laser.org, highlightinig the "Information" tab and then selecting "The Laser Sailor" link).

As Eric mentioned, the deadline for the winter issue was a bit earlier than normal due to some scheduling - sometimes things like this happen. With such an early deadline, even a district like the one I live in, which has plenty of sailing year round and doesn't finalize its main season schedule until around the end of February, didn'tt appear. I can't speak for District 15 since I don't live in Texas but it doesn't surprise me the full schedule wasn't available and why commit something to paper when its not finalized?

On the other hand, as events come in the online calendar at www.laser.org is constantly updated - by sailors, District Secretaries and Class Office. In fact, the Easter Laser Regatta is there (and has been for some time) as you can see at this link (though, Fred, I do not see it entered through 2012 so you may want to cross check that). In addition, thanks to James Freedman, the new District 15 Secretary, the District 15 schedule has been updated (e.g. see this link). In fact, as I type this, some 3/4 of the districts either have their schedule online, or are in the process of getting entered. There is still work going on here but its coming together, at more or less the same time it always happens. Check out this link to see how things are shaping up.

When it comes to the changing world I have to admit to still being something of a luddite... while I do have a cell phone its not web enabled (in fact, its actually hardly ever on) making me the only one in the Bay Area without an iPhone, or a Blackberry, or some sort of hand held web accessible device. That means everyone but me can pull up the latest regatta schedule on their hand held device just about anywhere they go.

Besides being mobile accessible, online calendars offer many extras you can't put in print. For example: google maps. When an event is entered it can be attached to a locatiion so a nice map will show people just how close the event is to them and, more importantly, allow them to get detailed directions to a event they may not have attended before. This you can't easily do in a print magazine.

Another big advantage to having the full calendar online: rss feeds. Ever wonder where TLF is getting the North American Laser events it displays? Several district sites are starting to do this as well, allowing them to consolidate their district calendars into one location at www.laser.org. In addition, with rss feeds, you can create a "live bookmark" on your web browser thaht will allow you to see all the upcoming events in your District, or nearby Districts, etc. Its not perfect yet but sure offers far more to the sailor than a printed list in a quarterly publication.

And there is even an option to sign up for a "newsletter" which, as we roll into the season, will email you weekly the events you have asked to see in the upcoming week. Follow this link to the main calendar page, then select "Newsletter" to sign up.

Because of things like this, a large number of active Laser sailors (and, yes, Class members) have suggested to me that its becoming less and less important to publish, on paper, a static schedule in the class publication. Rather, they believe the online calendar is the more appropriate way to get the schedule out.

It would be interesting to know what people at TLF think on this.
 
I don't see any need for a printed newsletter; the internet works for me.

Ok, seems strange that a physicist claims to be a luddite.
 
I do not know what the actual charter is for the Class Secretaries, so the following is my opinion based on this.

We all know putting together newsletters is a royal pain the tush. Most people in this position are volunteers, and have lives full of other demands. The editing process takes a lot of time, and most people probably feel that would like to give more time to the effort, but can't.

Than being said, our situation is a little different. We (the Class) have people (employees) who do this as their day job. During the day, when most of us are doing what we do, the class secretaries are getting paid to handle all our class business. It seems to me they have the time to do what needs to be done.

Given that, I hold their output to a higher standard than that created by a volunteer editor. I would like to have seen them call each district secretary (especially the ones who did not submit any material for the newsletter) and ask about any updates, new info, etc. People obviously get busy, forget, etc. A five minute phone call could go a long way to filling blank spots in the newsletter.

In reality, doesn't the editor usually ending up writing some to most of the articles in any newsletter?
 
Tracy: Thanks for the extended comments. My cell phone has lots of capabilities I don't use either.

My question revolves around whether we want the staff to do things like "use the internet to discover every single place in North America that allowed Lasers to race last year and then publish a list with as many updates for this year as possible."

or//

Do we only care about regattas that are posted on district schedules sent to the class by district governors?

I hopneslty don't knowm teh answer.

merilleee cdalled it bottom uop or top down and she suggested bottom up is how rthings simply must be.

I think both are necessary.

but I don't know what others think and why.

When I was secretary in 2002 , District 5 secretary John Dawson Edwards complained because, when he sent nothing about his District's schedule, I had a local college sailor search the internet for North American events and I used that information without confirming it with him first. Some of the websites where we found information had posted inaccurate material and I put that inaccurate material in print. He was furious.

Maybe the District secretaries have warned Sherry never ever to publish any district schedules of any sort without their prior approval.

On the other hand nobody complained about the other 350 events we found and listed in that newsletter and most thanked me for adding to the lists they had sent and for helping promote sailing in their districts.

I believe it is a reasonable goal for our staff to publish a minimum of 300 future events in each newsletter.


Even if that 300 is a shared goal of yours, do we use association money to help make it happen??

If everybody thinks I am totally wrong ...I can shut up..
 
I much prefer the online format, for all the reasons Tracy pointed out and then some.

I know I have said this in the past but IMHO, I wish we (the NA class) would do away with the TLS in print, just publish it on the NA class site and/or morph it / blend it with the content on the NA class site.

Let's enjoy more timely communication and a richer reading environment (video etc) and save some money and some trees.
 
Quite frankly, I find the newsletter obsolete. I vritually get all my my regatta information via the web. I was trying to figure out my sailing schedule for the year long before the latest newsletter ever showed up. I was googling various yacht club websites since late last year trying to find regatta dates.

That being said, I know there are still Laser sailors out there who still rely on the newsletter. There is one well-known sailor who I am pretty sure still doesn't have e-mail. I try to call him periodically to make sure he knows about some events.

edit - My last paragraph illustrates a point. People who rely on the newsletter probably won't be online to defend their point of view. It's sort of like trying to get a good statistical sampling when taking a poll of Fox News viewers.
 
Because our newsletter runs quarterly I always trust the internet for up to date information. Many districts do not get information to the class for timely publishing in the Laser sailor. That said I don't think it's too much to ask the US class office to contact the district secretaries 3-4 times a year to touch base, check in, and request information for the "Laser Sailor".

I do like getting the magazine for articles and to be able to browse listed events, event write ups, results and so on.

As for being a class member I think it's important, but it's also a fine line for some. For instance, I think non class members should be allowed to sail in district series events. This pulls up participation and may encourage someone to join the class, but for national or regional championship events I think class membership should be required.
 
I think the Laser Sailor adds value due to the articles and features but not for the schedules as others have mentioned. Schedules are a moving target. While I'm sure improvements can and should be made, the class office have supported the growth of my local fleet and they have reached out to me and others in my area for content they could include.

My experience has been very positive and feel that my annual dues have gone further in this organization than in others I've been a part of. Though in the end I believe it is up to each and every local sailor to take accountability and make their experience the best it can be and what they want it to be.
 
Going forward we could use a more dynamic homepage with an easy to use content-publishing-software-platform. Everything now is static and boring…and close to obsolete information.

A race calendar should be live and segmented into official, non official, regional, local etc.

The technology is there…we are just not using it.
 
Going forward we could use a more dynamic homepage with an easy to use content-publishing-software-platform. Everything now is static and boring…and close to obsolete information.

A race calendar should be live and segmented into official, non official, regional, local etc.

The technology is there…we are just not using it.

Hi Martin, perhaps you are referring to www.laserinternational.org, the ILCA website and not www.laser.org, the ILCA-NA website? The former is semi-static right now but they are working on a major upgrade which will allow for much more dynamic content. Pieces of this work are surfacing already, particularly in the world championship registration pages. On the other hand, the ILCA-NA website uses Joomla for the content and Helios for the events calendar (with some customizations). The calendar will display events in categories... for example major ILCA-NA events, Masters' events, etc. (and you can find each District's schedule on the District pages, start at the main Districts page and click on your District to find the schedule).

There are plans to add more video, in particular we're hoping to pick up an rss feed from SailGroove for Laser events they do (like what they did for MWE), and we'd like to set up a YouTube group for collecting Laser sailing videos. Video is an area where someone with real experience could help us out a lot.

Sorry, getting a bit off track...
 
I do not know what the actual charter is for the Class Secretaries, so the following is my opinion based on this.

We all know putting together newsletters is a royal pain the tush. Most people in this position are volunteers, and have lives full of other demands. The editing process takes a lot of time, and most people probably feel that would like to give more time to the effort, but can't.

Than being said, our situation is a little different. We (the Class) have people (employees) who do this as their day job. During the day, when most of us are doing what we do, the class secretaries are getting paid to handle all our class business. It seems to me they have the time to do what needs to be done.

Given that, I hold their output to a higher standard than that created by a volunteer editor. I would like to have seen them call each district secretary (especially the ones who did not submit any material for the newsletter) and ask about any updates, new info, etc. People obviously get busy, forget, etc. A five minute phone call could go a long way to filling blank spots in the newsletter.

In reality, doesn't the editor usually ending up writing some to most of the articles in any newsletter?

Sherri does ask for reports and gives a deadline. Every DS gets the deadline ahead of time and sends information in. The DSs are volunteers and they write the reports and send in anything they have for the district including a schedule. Articles can be sent in by anyone and usually goes straight to Sherri. At least that's how I've been doing it.
 
As I see it there are two separate, but intermingling issues here.

One, Fred's main point: what' the job of the class staff secretary? To accept information "pushed" to her, or to agressively "pull" information from the source when it's not immediately forthcoming?

Two, Tracy's point: Paper magazines have long lead times, and those can lead to material ommission, especially when local schedules are late in being formed. And further, is there even a point in having a paper schedule in the class magazine in this day and age?

Folks, there's room for common ground here. We all recognize that time and energy are finite. When spent as if they were infinite, the result is burn-out and bitterness. I work in the software biz. Tell me about burnout. ;)

That being the case, most of us would rather see one job done well, than two jobs done poorly.

My suggestion, then is to make the NA laser class website the authoritative site for Laser regatta info, and drop that section from the NA Laser class magazine. That allows the secretary to focus more time and energy on getting it right, and on the *people* process, as Fred suggests, of hounding out info and making sure all the districts are represented.

My further suggestion would be to make sure the schedule section is "self service" so that district secretaries can update/correct info in their own areas, but not to *require* them to do so. Why? Because you don't want any "bottlenecks" in the system of getting info to the sailors. You don't want an overburdened Class secretary getting weeks behind and not getting updates up in a timely manner because she's too busy. But you also don't want some districts under or non-represented because the volunteer district secretary is away on business, distracted with other life events, or simply not computer savvy enough to navigate and update the system.

All that being said, I'm pretty happy, right now, today, with my local district 24 calendar as represented on www.laser.org and as previously sent out by our district secretary via the district email list.
 
My experience with district articles was:

1. About five of the district secretaries sent in fresh material written specially for the specific newsletter. It didn't matter whether I contacted them or not. The material arrived well ahead of any deadline.
2. Another five or six would submit something that had already been published in their District Newsletter. I would contact those secretaries and ask if they had anything else to add so the material sent by the central office would be interesting to the members and not make me look lazy.
3. The rest of the secretaries would need various levels of encouragement.


First, we would send emails requesting material.
Those who did not respond to the email would get a phone call.
Usually those phone calls found message machines at the other end and about half of those secretaries would call back, email, or send an article within a day or two.
Those who had not responded by those means would get an additional call or two or three until I managed to actually talk to somebody on the other end .
If the Secretary did not have the energy or time to write someting, I would ask a few questions and write something myself.
Sometimes the district did not currently have a secretary and my only choice was to gather some information and write something myself.

Sometimes I failed miserably to perform muy job and I let a newsletter go out with some missing material.I didn't always produce an aticle for every single district. ...and I was fired in 2002...

If you do not include the time it took to attend 25 events per year so I could bring the association's help to the local scene and personally gather much of the above mentioned information....

The entire process of either gathering or making up my own articles for the Around the Districts section including laying out the articles and photos consumed about one day per issue or four days per year.

Also, within the goal of showing 200 faces per issue, I made it a point to include at least one photo of at least one sailor from every single district in every newsletter. I would ask the secretaries and regatta hosts and people in general to send something but if I had nothing from anyone that was fresh, I would use one of the photos in thousands we kept on file. Most of the photos on file were taken by one of our paid North American Executive secretaries. Many more were taken with my camera when I handed my camera to parents while their kids sailed in events. Many more were taken by Lainie Pardey and the remaining 5% or 10% came from the constant begging to anybody on the planet to please send photos to the class.

( I bold faced MY CAMERS as sometime in 2002 one of our members had a hissy fit about my use of Association funds to purchase a camera for this purpose. SO, I bought it from the Association adnwhen it was lost along with ten rolls of undeveloped event film at the 2002 North Americans, it was my personal $1600 that went away.)

The huge section of regatta NOR and smaller simple regatta schedules ( which, including our fleet listings, had more printed words then the current entire newsletter) was the product of daily updating and when it was time to actually publish each newslettter I would simply cut and paste all the events I expected to happen after the arrival of the particular issue.
I don't buy all the excuses about dynamic schedules and difficulty of gleaning the information sufficiently in advance to maintain great schedlues and lists of NOR for the quarterly newsletter. I always manged to publish information about 200 to 300 events and only about 10% more would become available such that I only managed to get the information up on the website...

Does someone have examples of these ( mythical) regattas that change their dates, venues and other information so often we cannot actually publish anything about them??

and while I was accomplishing all this...which really isn't all that much......I was still on the steepest part of the learning curve about how to even make websites and newletters happen.

Back to the thread subject>>


When I asked, "Why have an Association?" and asked for your philosophies about what we ought to describe as the functions of the tool which is our Association...

I wanted to know what things the rest of you believe our Association should do for the game.

I repeatedly harp that the paid staff MUST perfom a myriad of pedantic tasks so the association will be vital and the game will grow.
I want to now if others agree or differ with my concepts and wishes.

There is a huge difference between

"Your job is to publish information about every district in the region and distribute it on a quarterly basis to the membership"

and

"When somebody feels like sending it in it will probably be up somwhere on the website."


I am quite adamant about my position:

I believe our Association's primary goal is to gather and disseminate information about Laser sailing.

I see the Association not as our mommy who tells us what to do and punishes us with time out when we don't turn in our homework in time. I see it as a simpe tool. The Association is a tool for the Builders to sell more boats. The Association is a tool to help us all find sailing events and for the sailors to get more friends out sailing.

The builder's contributions and the members contributions are given to maintain and operate the tool.

if the Association is no longer going to be a tool that does its basic job, I believe it must be reorganized or disbanded and replaced with an association that serves our purposes.

Something about:

We don't give a hoot if your events are scheduled or promoted or happen or not ...

does not fit well with

Send us some money.


So what's your philosophy? Why have an association?
 
I agree with others that a printed schedule with such a long lead time is not as accurate as net-based info. Put it on the website. But I do like the magazine, the photos, the articles and sailing tips, info about other fleets, the ads (weird, I know), etc. I probably wouldn't comb through all that info on a website. And I can pass old copies to interested parties. If there is not a magazine, and all the info is available online, what else do I use to sell class membership to local sailors?

Fred - are you saying none of your Easter attendees were Laser class members? Do they need to be if it's not a District championship or similar? I have this problem in 22, where I have a grand total of three members and I need tangible reasons for more of them to join.

As others have said, we DSs are notified well in advance by the fleet office of the need for reports, then reminders if it gets close to the deadline, then a reprieve this last week after the deadline passed! (Thanks Jerelyn).

The only thing I have noticed that was funny was that our District champ results were never published in the mag or on the website last year.

As staff paid by the members, I agree that the class office should do much of the homework to round up info from the districts, organize it, and publish in some format. It requires the DSs to assist however - hard to do by email remote control.

My opinion is that the class office should do more print and web marketing to increase membership and grow the game. We are generally invisible except to a few insiders. Most of my friends have never heard of a Laser, had no idea that they are in the Olympics. We need a presence and the credibility that comes with being an international class in order to attract newcomers.
 
My goal was to pose a question and watch the discusion develop and here I go blabbering again..phooey.

Easter is relatively early in the year and many of the sailors had not paid their annual dues...so they paid up at registration..

The publicity thing?? In the real world outside sailing, out annual gross budget wouldn't buy one prime time ad on one TV show. Any time you see anything about Lasers in any other media than our little magazine, somebody has managed to work an angle and obtain some free attention.
I cannot complain about a lack of visibility in the mainstream media.

and of course..
Master Mike is a great breath of fresh air in District 22. His predecessor had worked long and hard for many many years and I was always amazed he had not burned out altogether.

Go Mike go!! Someday we should all visit Flathead!!

Nationals on Yellowstone sponsored by the national park service??
 
I'm all for whatever gets more people out sailing lasers.
So I don't really know what the staff does that helps with this. I know they publish the laser sailor and I suspect they are very busy with supporting some of the top sailors and some of the top regattas.
What I would dearly love is a way to sort the online calendar by distance from a location - that way I can get a quick look at what is "close" to home.

I've never looked in the magazine for the calendar -- of course I don't look on the website either. I seem to hear bout them through the grapevine and then go to the host club website to find details.

I would really like it if the staff would possibly work on aggregating and organizing all the great info regarding things like boat maintenance.

I have to repair my mast step pretty soon and it just wasn't that easy to search the forum and find really good info -- finally found the link to Fred's stuff. Same with sorting out the basic info on how to sail the laser right
 
I'm all for whatever gets more people out sailing lasers.
So I don't really know what the staff does that helps with this. I know they publish the laser sailor and I suspect they are very busy with supporting some of the top sailors and some of the top regattas.
What I would dearly love is a way to sort the online calendar by distance from a location - that way I can get a quick look at what is "close" to home.

I've never looked in the magazine for the calendar -- of course I don't look on the website either. I seem to hear bout them through the grapevine and then go to the host club website to find details.

I would really like it if the staff would possibly work on aggregating and organizing all the great info regarding things like boat maintenance.

I have to repair my mast step pretty soon and it just wasn't that easy to search the forum and find really good info -- finally found the link to Fred's stuff. Same with sorting out the basic info on how to sail the laser right

Look at the calender online. There is a nice google map with pins placed where regattas are located (that are already in the calender). You can see from there what's around.
 
I like the fact that there is both available. I think you should have several copies of the printed version around to hand out to interested newbies, and averyone who has achieved a little bit should look online to attend other events to test themselves and learn more to bring back to thier local fleet.

Our fleet is brand new(less than 1 year). We are growing tremendously(about 75 members and about 50 Lasers). We are hosting the No-coasts in September( check the Schedule online). Hope many of you can come to Park City Utah.

Fred, I agree with your point, I find it has become the case in all aspects of modern life. Poeple have become so dependant on their damn blackberries and e-mail that the concept of actually talking with someone seems too personal. I applaud you for your efforts and look forward to meeting you in person someday.

I bet Sherry and Tracy will work to include more events in the printed version in the future. Give them a call by phone!

Barometer Soup
Park City Sailing Association
 
I'll throw my spanner in to upset people. Sorry in advance.

From an Australian Association perspective, one of the association key functions is to promote and support association events, where you need to be an association member to participate. If clubs or individuals are going to run events which membership of the association is not compulsory, I don't see the need for the association to promote the event. What benefit is there for the association to promote an event to their members, when the event doesn't attract new members to the association?
 
I'll throw my spanner in to upset people. Sorry in advance.

From an Australian Association perspective, one of the association key functions is to promote and support association events, where you need to be an association member to participate. If clubs or individuals are going to run events which membership of the association is not compulsory, I don't see the need for the association to promote the event. What benefit is there for the association to promote an event to their members, when the event doesn't attract new members to the association?

This doens't upset me at all, and it makes perfect sense. NA-ILCA is quite generous to be promoting events of non-members. Why join the class when there is a whole level of Laser sailing you can do and still get the benefit of having your event publicized? And with the high cost of genuine Laser parts, and the easy availability of cheaper substitute parts, we already have a NA-ILCS. That is Non-Association--Imitation Laser Class Sailors. This easy availability is a new situation as we all become more accustomed to using the internet.

I think that the NA-ILCA should demand membership for the use of its services. Yes, it will set a clear delineation of members and non-members, real Laser sailing and imitation sailing. Let's stop helping the imitators, concede that there will be a place for them, but not at our party.
 
Drifting off from Fred's question(s) a bit, but I disagree with the posts above for the following reasons:

1. It's usually a Yacht Club or Association that hosts an event, not an individual, and we should ALL be thankful that they are gracious enough to open their facilities to allow us to come play. So, I don't see how NA - ILCA could tell the difference or should even spend the resources trying to tell the diff. to determine if they should "promote" or publicize the event.

2. As a member, I want to sail with as many friends/competitors as possible at a regatta, regardless of their membership status. I understand the need to make major events "member only" when the class is laying out substantial money and resources, but at local events when there are no or minimal class resources/money involved, we should be all inclusive.

3. I believe membership grows when there are more regattas and people sailing in those regattas, when membership is NOT mandatory and I believe the opposite would also be true. Remember the stink raised when US Sailing floated the mandatory membership idea ? The concept that there should be two groups, "our party" and "those not invited to our party" rubs me the wrong way.
 
3. I believe membership grows when there are more regattas and people sailing in those regattas, when membership is NOT mandatory and I believe the opposite would also be true. Remember the stink raised when US Sailing floated the mandatory membership idea ? The concept that there should be two groups, "our party" and "those not invited to our party" rubs me the wrong way.

Exactly what I was thinking about.
 
I'll throw my spanner in to upset people. Sorry in advance.
... What benefit is there for the association to promote an event to their members, when the event doesn't attract new members to the association?...

Upside down thinking.

Folks take up laser sailing, then laser racing, then decide they like it and are going to keep doing it, then they join the class association.

Why throw up an impediment in the way of step 2?

Why make it harder for sailors just getting into the sport, and the ones most in need of information, to find out about the less-formal events that they're most suited for?
 
As HUGE supporter of Class Associations ...I believe it is ALWAYS correct to strongly suggest folks pay their dues.

But...

If the Class Association wants the dues to come freely and willingly there should always be some sort of promise and performance.

Example:

If the Class wants to come collect money at a well known annual event, the sailors should be told..

"Certainly we need to get your dues. That way we can send you reminders next year to come back to this event again!! We can send you newsletters for that entire year until you come back here and pay your dues again next year. Other regatta hosts can use our database with your address in it to invite you to all sorts of other events. Association dues is not for purchase of a license to play. Association dues is your way of paying for someone to keep track of where you are...so we can all invite you out to play!! The membership expires exactly one year from the day you pay it because it is YOUR PERSONAL MEMBERSHIP and we want you to make it an annual habit not only to pay your dues and support the efforts of the association but we want you to come back here to this event next year."

In fact, that is EXACTLY what I told the kids at CORK when they whined about having to pay dues for the last regatta they would be sailing for the summer. Every year I signed up a couple hundred people for our Association at CORK and every year I set those memberships to expire the day before registration for the next CORK.

If I had worked for a bunch of officers who demanded I set all memberships to expire January first I would not have stolen the kids money at CORK or collected full dues from anyone after January first.

I digress...

Others seem to think there is some sort of reason memberships should expire december 31 and that their desire for uniformity trumps the desire to recognize people as individuals. Just because I think the policy is a bunch of crap is no reason to further hijack this thread so...

Back on topic...

I have a very personal need to be able to justify collecting dues at a regatta I host. I need to be able to tell my friends why I am taking their funds and sending those funds to some remote location.

If the Association's guarantee does not include inviting those sailors to lots of nearby events over the next twelve months...What purpose does the association serve??

Note: I am not claiming therre is no function of the association. I am simply asking...
In the absence of my favorite Quid Pro Quo... "Pay dues here and we will personally invite you backhere and to all the other events that happen before and including this event next year"

Can you name a function or service the association performs that justifies its demand of "Pay us or you can't sail here."??

If so...Please do.
 
Upside down thinking.

Folks take up laser sailing, then laser racing, then decide they like it and are going to keep doing it, then they join the class association.

Why throw up an impediment in the way of step 2?

Why make it harder for sailors just getting into the sport, and the ones most in need of information, to find out about the less-formal events that they're most suited for?

There is no hinderance to non members participating in events where membership is not mandatory. The way they are going to find out what events are on is by word of mouth or by what ever advertising the event organisers decide to do. They certainly aren't going to know about the event from the class newsletter as they don't receive it.

Notifying association members of an event is literatally advertising that event. If I want to advertise in something in a newspaper, magazine, journal or newsletter, then I'd either expect to pay for it or alternatively make sure that organisation running the media source at least gains revenue from it, in this case membership fees. Space cost money! Why should the association spend money on an event where the event organisers aren't going to make sure that everyone is a member of the association or at least strongly encourage non-members to join?
 
As an aside, the membership for the NSW and I assume all other Australian districts is due at the start of the season, but individuals may join later in the season. Membership only lasts until the start of the next season, so some individuals membership may only be a few months if they joined very late in the season.
 
As an aside, the membership for the NSW and I assume all other Australian districts is due at the start of the season, but individuals may join later in the season. Membership only lasts until the start of the next season, so some individuals membership may only be a few months if they joined very late in the season.


Why do you do that?? Can you explain how sailing is made better by having memberships all expire annually on one arbitrary date??

I can't.

From the beginning of the Laser Class Association until 2002, North America had a policy where a PERSON'S dues was good for one year from the date THE PERSON paid. For those of us who managed the class, it was much simpler to process a few memberships every week ( sometimes as many as 500) as opposed to processing 3000 memberships all at once in January and the rest as they trickled in through the year. ( The class membership once exceeded 7000. Had we continued the 14% annual growth rate the class maintined while I was secretary we would have passed that 7000 number sometime during 2007. )
The people paying the dues had individual expiration dates stamped on their individual cards and after about 1990 the entire dating process was handled by a computer anyway so the only thing individually dated memberships did was make it better:
a. Membership processing was easier to administrate.
b. Individual dates allowed each person to enjoy a full year for the full payment.

Even if it were true that there were some sort of efficiency in doing one annual mass mailing, that efficiency is lost by the "right" we offer our sailors to pay up anytime.

( What processing a membership entails:
renewal:
Check the address, sail number, email address, phone number and ages and sex to make certain the information from the previous year is accurate. Publish a membership card. Insert that card, a transome sticker and a bumper sticker or two into an envelope. Put postage on theh envelope. Mail it. Deposit the payment in the bank. If a newsletter was missed because the payment was late, include the missed newsletter and keep teh old renewal date, or give a new renewal date and don't biother sending a newsletter. I always sent the newsletter and kept the old date.
New member: same as above except include a welcome to the class page, and a copy of the most recent newsletter.)

Let me explain something here: When the incredibly inexperienced new class management team decided in 2003 to change to an annual January expiration for 100% of our memberships, I, as a person who had spent three entire years of my life and Allan Broadribb who had spent fifteen years of his life, running the Association office objected and did our very best to explain that we, with decades more experience in class management than the sum total of those who wanted to change the policy, thought the change was a very bad idea. The experienced guys were ignored and the change was made.
This and a myriad of other things the new managmennt considered were "better ways of doing things" led to a loss of 50% of the membership and

Has any one of you considered what things would be like at a Laser regatta had we continued the 14% growth rate or..

Replaced the horrible obnoxious long haired bearded loudmouth with somebody who was BETTER at doing the job and IMPROVED the growth rate of our game??

Can you imagine how things might be different if 4000 more sailors were paid members right now? What if only 800 more were signed up last year??

Can you imagine how things might be different had Vanguard's sales continued to grow as they did between 1999 and 2002? (under 500 in 1999 and over 1100 in 2002?)

North America had 10 berths for the Cancun worlds and 23 including Mexico for the Hyannis 2002 worlds. What if we still ahd that many berths this year...or more by whatever factor continued 14% annual growth would have produced??


Why not make it your challenge to help, our North American game start catching up and outstripping the 14% growth rate so someone other than the fat old hairy loudmouth and the officers who supported him can claim to be the best Laser Class managers ever??

That might take some real focus and hard work!!!


But I digress...


Once again.

This thread is about philosophy...

Why do we have an association? What do we wish to accomplish? What do we expect the association to do? What must the members do? What happens if the members fail in doing what we want? What happens if the paid staff fails to do what we want? Should we selfishly pick up other's slack because their lack of performance might hurt our game?

How do you balance these issues?

The Association is a tool we established to sell more boats and make the game work better. How would you use the tool to accomplish those goals today??

Is the original goal no longer relevent?

Should the Assopciation change from one with a beacon and welcome mat to a locked door with a secret combination?

Should a membership application need recommendations, sponsorship and approval followed by a probationary period and more approval??

What do you want?

and of course...How will you volunteer to help??

Please give examples.
 
Remember that the combined Australian Laser Association is a fraction of the North American Laser Association, however each district directly manages its own membership. So off the top of my head the largest district has around 350 members.

Having the membership fall at the same time allows us to chase all the membership fees at the same time of year. Some clubs collect the association membership fees, when they are collecting their membership/race fees for the new season, alternatively individuals can pay directly to the district association, many of whom pay at the association event early in the new season. In our situation it is easier to manage than memberships falling due throughout the year.
 
I imagine he means it would be nice for a non-racer who is interested in racing to be able to race a couple of times (to test the waters, so to speak) without having to pay money to an association.

If you have to pay to play before you do any playing, less people will be interested in trying the game.
 

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