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Arizona
Joined Jan 2006
177 Posts
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2006 Final IMAC Presidential Update From Wally Pitts
As this is my last Presidential Update, I would like to take a look back at
where IMAC was two years ago, the advances made during that time as well as a look ahead. One of the ongoing challenges IMAC faces in my view is the constant turnover of Regional Directors and National Officers. We have been fortunate over the last two years to have a relatively stable Board with relatively few personnel changes. This has allowed us to get to know each other, and work together well. Much of the Boards work is "behind the scenes" with its efforts being made public only through rules changes, committee structuring and other day to day administration duties. I'm sure that most IMAC members would be surprised to find out that the Board meets on a regular basis through teleconferences to discuss the business of IMAC. If one takes the time to review my past Presidential updates you can see the results of the Board's work highlighted. My thanks to the Board members for the way they conducted themselves over the last two years promoting IMAC at both the Local and National level. When I look back I see many positive changes in IMAC during this decade. My personal involvement started with my first IMAC contest in Mesquite Texas in the spring of 2000. While I was a former full scale Unlimited aerobatic flier, I started in Sportsman and was glad I did as precision radio control aerobatics is a distinct discipline from any other type of flying and requires one to start at an appropriate level and build from there. Frankly, we still see to many modelers start at levels too high, get frustrated and quit, when all they needed to do up front was start at a lower level and build from there. Fortunately, most new folks get into our sport because of others at their field already involved in IMAC so the initial transition is a positive one. All of us currently involved in IMAC should look upon ourselves as promoters of the hobby and try to get new folks involved. This is particularly important as the Basic and Sportsman classes remain our bread and butter, comprise the majority of our competitors and, in most cases provide the financial justification for allowing host clubs the financial break even points to put on IMAC events. As I look back to the beginning of my term and the changes since, the first thing that comes to mind is finances. When I stared my term as your President, our membership numbers were down and our bank account was depleted down to a few thousand dollars. Now to be fair, the bank account did have a big drain due to the start up of the National Judging school (for those not around at the time, IMAC flew two instructors from each region to Dayton Ohio for a weekend certification course taught by Fred Johnson) none the less, the finances were not where they needed to be. We all worked hard on both the national and local levels to recruit more members, sold web advertising and Roy Barrow ran two hugely successful AMA National contests all which combined to significantly grow the popularity of IMAC to where it is today. One of the benefits of this growth has been to increase the stability of our finances. I am proud to report that under the stewardship of the Board and our Treasurer Phil Vance, our bank account today is in the $30,000.00 range. This gives the incoming Board not only financial peace of mind but the ability to undertake the projects necessary to keep IMAC growing on the world stage. Also, due to the stability of our finances we have been able to offer the financial programs to the local regions such as increased regional financial support, matching funds for regional awards and education, and increased funding for local judges schools. These financial programs have enhanced the benefits of IMAC membership as well as directly supporting the regions day to day activities. For me personally, one of the most historic changes during the last few years is the creation, within the AMA, of the Scale Aerobatics Contest Board. While some may say, so what?, I can tell you from experience that the creation of this Board within the AMA signaled for the first time that IMAC had arrived as its own entity in the eyes of the Executive Board at the AMA. Prior to this point all of our rules proposals went to the Aerobatics Contest Board which, as many of you know, is comprised of Pattern fliers. While these were very experienced gentleman, our two aerobatic disciplines shared little, other than the "conquest of lines and symmetry." This problem simmered just beneath the surface until, after a NATS a few years back, a "Rogue" Urgent Rules Making Proposal was sent to the AMA by a member of the Pattern community's leadership concerning sound. This gent basically proposed the Pattern sound rules which would, if it had passed, had the net effect of grounding most of the IMAC planes flying at that time. Initially this rules change proposal had a good chance of passing with the strong blessing of some of the members of the AMA Executive Board. IMAC formed a Sound Task Force during this time, I was made chairman, and through the hard work of the Task Force, in particular George Hicks who did most of the engineering studies for us with regards to sound theory and propagation as well as the "lobbying" done by my self, George, and IMAC President Tom Wheeler, we were able to find some enlightened members of the Aerobatics Contest Board (others would not even return my calls letters or emails) as well as a genuinely interested, engaged and forward thinking AMA Technical Director in Steve Kaluf, the URP failed. All of us involved in the leadership of IMAC knew at that exact moment that the creation of a Scale Aerobatic Contest Board separate from the Pattern Board was an absolute necessity if IMAC was to grow, prosper and continue to fly the size of planes we do. That we were able to get our own Board approved by the AMA was to me the most significant accomplishment of the decade to date, and one that I am the most proud of. Again in this case, Steve Kaluf was instrumental in his efforts on our behalf as was a majority of the AMA Executive Board. Superior lobbying efforts in this case go to Roy Barrow for many hours of behind the scenes efforts on IMAC's behalf. Having our own Contest Board gives the scale aerobatic community another level of oversight to our rulebook. This Scale Aerobatic Contest Board (unlike the Pattern Board) is comprised of folks who are active and involved in the scale aerobatic community, they know the rules well and are intimately familiar with how changes will affect the IMAC community. The existence of this Board also gives IMAC members another voice in rules changes as the Scale Aerobatic Contest Board members serve at the pleasure of their respective regional AMA Vice President. Therefore, they represent the best interests of the scale aerobatic community in their regions when voting on rules proposals. During the next rules cycle I hope individual IMAC members will take the opportunity to contact their Board representatives both at the IMAC and AMA levels with their thoughts concerning changes. Each individual IMAC member does have the opportunity to have a direct voice in the direction of IMAC, but only if you choose to exercise it. The system works; illustrated this rules cycle by the IMAC Board voting for a deletion of the so called "Pilot/Panel" rule, but during the AMA rules period the Scale Aerobatics Contest Board voted against the change. This of course can be viewed a couple of different ways, but the system worked, members voices were heard at the regional level by the Contest Board members and the measure failed. For the record as I have been asked, I voted for deletion of the Pilot/Panel rule at both the IMAC Board level as well as the AMA Scale Aerobatic Contest Board level. Committees We all know how much the excellent work of the Sequence Committee has enhanced our IMAC contests. We now have a level of standardization and continuity between the classes that heretofore never existed. Andy Kane came up with the original idea for a National Unknown Program and the Sequence Committee ran with it. The original core of the committee was Andy along with Chairman Wayne Matthews, Tom Wheeler, Mike Stoner, Kurt Koelling, Barry Wegman, Larry Lutton, and Doug Cronkite. We all owe these gentlemen our gratitude. The second year of the committee saw some personnel changes along with Duane Cox taking over the Chairmanship. Now as we head into the third season Duane has resigned - my thanks to Duane for all he did to keep the committee running, on schedule and up to date - Wayne has reassumed the Chairmanship duties and we now have the second "generation" if you will of sequence writers coming online with the committee to help shoulder the load. IMAC provides software support, but the individual members provide the drive and desire for excellence. One of the most experienced yet underused committee remains the IMAC Rules and Standards Committee. IMAC provides a vehicle for individuals to submit questions to this group for final determinations on any rules or judging disputes, yet they are little used. I see much debate on the various on line forums where questions arise concerning rules and judging criteria, yet I know that even when the debate rages on folks do not take advantage of the Rules and Standards Committee, I hope as we go forward this will change and we see material from the Rules and Standards Committee posted on the website. As a reminder, this committee acts as the "Supreme Court" for all disputes that may arise concerning the rules or the Flying and Judging guide. As such, their determinations are considered final. If you have a dispute or a question concerning the rules submit them through the website or to your Regional Director, we will then get the issue in front of the Rules Committee for consideration and we will post their rulings on the IMAC website. I hope folks will take advantage of this committee going forward rather than debating issues for days and weeks on line or at the field. My thanks to Bill Malvey (Chairman), Peter Goldsmith, Anna Wood, and Will Berninger, Brian Howard, and Mike McConville for their continued service on this committee. Standardization We have undertaken a number of initiatives to create a consistent contest experience. Things such as the newly approved and updated AMA rules, the "new and improved" Flying and Judging Guide (available for download on the IMAC website), the National Unknown Program, Known patterns created by the Sequence Committee and the Official IMAC Contest Standards Guide have all contributed to a more consistent IMAC contest experience no matter what region one flies in. IMAC President's Award This is an award of significance, not often given out, recognizing superior volunteerism to IMAC. The award, by design, is given to folks who give much of their time to IMAC and ask nothing in return. It recognizes the volunteer spirit, one that in many cases goes on behind the scenes and out of the public eye. The first award was given a few years back at the NATS to John Schroder from the South East Region. This year IMAC recognized Anna Wood who received her award at the Tucson Shootout. She is a member of the IMAC Rules and Standards Committee, has been the bedrock of the leadership structure of the Southwest Region, volunteering countless hours to IMAC in that area, and is our new webmaster. I can tell you that without Anna's long hours spent at a computer, we would not have been able to complete the "white glove" inspection of our rule book during the AMA rules cycle change period. We found many minor errors that required numerous housekeeping changes to update the rulebook to the one we have today. Anna and Roy Barrow worked well together on this project and they have my thanks. Anna is a valued asset to IMAC and my hope is that she continues in IMAC's leadership for years to come. Thank You Anna for all you do! Membership Meeting With the change over in webmasters, this meeting has been put off until after the first of the year. There will be two issues to vote on. One, a bylaws change, housekeeping in nature, to reflect the name change of the IMAC Standards Guide. Two, a change in the term of office for members of the Board from two years to one. The Board voted in favor of forwarding this change on to the membership. I am not in favor of the President's term being changed to one year, and recommend that the incoming Board separate out the terms and consider the Presidents term individually from the other Board positions. Looking Forward The two major challenges I see going forward are: Education/Judging and the International growth of scale aerobatic flying. On the Education/Judging front, the two most consistent complaints I hear are related to contest judging and non-standard IMAC weekend events. Now that we have an IMAC Contest Standards Guide in effect our hope is that CD's will all follow the guidelines spelled out in the guide and that all of you have a more consistent contest experience in 2007. That being said, judging remains the number one complaint I receive. There are two facts I feel all of us need to fully grasp. One - a working knowledge of the Flying and Judging Guide should be gained by of all IMAC competitors, additionally a solid knowledge of this same guide and its application is required of all Intermediate and above flyers. Two, we ALL have to judge, so the more familiar you are with the Judging Guide the better you will be. Every IMAC competitor should arrive at a contest capable of judging at least one class above the one they compete in. Upper class competitors should be willing to judge every class below them. The problem with judging and judges has been around before I flew my first IMAC contest and will most likely be around for some time to come. The only way for this problem is to be solved is for each of us who competes to study the Flying & Judging Guide and to willingly judge when asked by a CD and do it to the best of our ability. Contestant judging is a fact of life in IMAC and one of the reasons why we don't give out Unknowns the day they are to be flown as it creates unfair advantages. My hope is that each of you make as a New Year's resolution to gain a better knowledge of the Flying & Judging Guide and seek out answers to your questions. As previously mentioned, IMAC has a large group of knowledgeable folks to help in this regard. Now if the members take up this challenge what can IMAC do? In my view we need a top to bottom examination of the way we currently train judges and see if we are getting the most bang for the buck invested. IMAC has money to spend, and has invested much to date on education, we need to see if there are better ways of doing it. I challenge the incoming IMAC Board to create a committee specifically to study the technologies available to increase membership knowledge of our rules and our judging criteria. Once this committee reports back to the Board, my hope is that the Board will act upon the recommendations given to IMAC's education process. The second major challenge facing IMAC is the growth of scale aerobatics worldwide and IMAC's place in it. We have successfully kicked off the IMAC International Affiliate Program and have our first nation member. There will be more countries coming on line in the future as the word spreads of our program. In fact, we've already had a number of inquiries from other countries expressing interest in our program. One of the reasons Pattern has gained so much prominence (besides the fact that for so many years it was the only game in town) was the existence of the FAI World Championships and the USA's participation in the event. As the popularity of scale aerobatics continues to grow worldwide, there is increasing interest of constructing a set of FAI rules to govern it. There have been some initial proposals from abroad and the process is quite complicated as I am sure you can imagine. The U.S FAI committee must be a major player in this process else we get a set of rules quite onerous to the way we currently fly. I see this as an upcoming challenge with the same seriousness as I saw the attack on sound by the rouge URP previously discussed. And Finally On a personal note, and in some ways most importantly, my sincere and thanks to Roy Barrow. Without Roy many of the things I've discussed in this update would not have come to fruition. His total rewrite of our website as well as the continued hosting of the site, free of charge, saved IMAC more money than I care to imagine. To say his efforts on this regard were "priceless" would not be an understatement. The two NATS he managed put IMAC back on positive footing with the AMA and set the standard by which all future NATS will be judged. I could go on and on but suffice to say that Roy was involved in just about everything "IMAC" in the last few years. Roy truly was my "Right Hand Man" during the last few years and took on every task he was asked to do without reservation, no matter how much time the project required. Roy, you have my personal thanks and respect for the contributions you have made to IMAC. It is an honor and a privilege to call you my friend. Finally before I sign off I would be remiss if I did not mention two gentlemen. First is Fred Johnson. Fred retires from active IMAC service in a few days as well. From SE RD to IMAC VP, Fred has dedicated his efforts to the education process of our Rules, and Flying and Judging Guide. He has been a solid force on the Board and has served the IMAC community well. Thanks Fred! Also I must say "thanks" to Tom Wheeler for getting me into this political process to begin with! Tom led IMAC through some pretty lean times, survived much political turmoil and still is actively involved today. Tom left his "stamp" on IMAC more than most realize and we are a better organization today because of his efforts. Thank you Tom for inviting me along for the ride, I've enjoyed "most" all of it! Well that's it, Daniel, you have the CONN... Captain's off the Bridge. |
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