Executive VP's Report - 2003/03
Doug Holland — AMA Executive VP
- 3517 Fernwood Dr., Raleigh, NC 27612
- Home: (919) 787-5163
- Office: (919) 787-7454
It is the early part of December and the elections are over. I appreciate the vote of all of you who supported me. If you supported either of the other two candidates, I would appreciate your working with me now to make AMA an even greater organization. It is the best model aviation association in the world now, but nearly everything can be improved.
Instead of giving you a financial statement this month, I am going to answer some questions that were asked of me during the campaign. I appreciate the opportunity to answer those questions and encourage you to continue asking about anything that concerns you.
The answers may be interesting to you and you may help us by providing points of discussion we have not considered. We will certainly change our position if we find there is a better way.
One question was, “How much money do the members of the Executive Council make as salary for serving in that position?” The answer is “none.” We are voluntary workers and not employees of AMA. Even if you do not always agree, it is our responsibility to represent you and try to arrive at decisions that are best for AMA as a whole.
I am sometimes asked why it seems some men stay on the council a long time. Some men have served for many years on the Council. It is difficult to get people to run for Vice President. Often an incumbent will run again because there is no one else to take the job even though he would rather turn the position over to someone else. There is, however, a substantial rotation in the Council. I have been on the Council for seven years. During that time, there have been five new members other than myself. New members bring in new ideas and we are all constantly looking for support and input from you, the membership.
We often hear the comment that we do not communicate with our membership. This is something we constantly work at, and we encourage you to write, email, or telephone any Council member, the Executive Director, or the president with any question you have about AMA. We also write articles in Model Aviation magazine. The president has a column in the front, the Executive Director in the back, and Council members are in one section called “AMA News.” If you read that carefully, you will have a much better understanding of what goes on in the operations of AMA.
The magazine is like a club newsletter and it is meant to inform you about what is happening in AMA. It cannot be informative if it is not read. I do not mean to be sarcastic, but reading is a very important part of our communication plan.
Often, people who have not verified information they hear criticize the AMA Executive Council and staff. I recently received a telephone call regarding such an issue. After explaining the situation to him, his comment was, “That’s all I wanted to know. Thank you very much.” He went on to discuss other matters with me, but he did not discuss that issue anymore.
Once you get the right answer, there is no need to continue beating the old information to death. One of the situations that is so true in life is that everyone has a right to his opinion, but no one has a right to be wrong in his facts.
Another situation that exists is that people read something in the minutes, disagree with it, and immediately get on the Internet and start their own personal soapbox. It would be considerably better for everyone if that person would call someone on the Executive Council whom he trusts and let that person explain why such action was taken. In the event the person continues to disagree, he has a right to say so anywhere he wants as long as he does not say anything negative about another person. When discussing the issue, it would be better if the person would include the logic of the council along with their rebuttal as to why they do not agree. I realize that is idealistic, but it would be much better if the situation was discussed in private before it becomes a public “whipping boy.”
That’s all for now. As usual A-B-C, Always Be Courteous. Until later ...
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
