Tiki <<fly>>
writes:

Even though I had the second highest votes last year, Mark Forbes
and Randall Shane did some bogus crap to keep me off the board and not give me
one of the designated director positions. Anyway, I’m sending this to you
because your audience are not all USHPA members, and I want to them, the free
flight community, to know that I am out to get them back. To give them an
Association of which they want be a part. Since only USHPA only broadcasts to
its members, I want to broadcast to the entirety of the free flight community,
or as many as I can.

I want to give some specifics on change. The USHPA Board is broken and need to
be taken down to their foundation and rebuilt. No more bandaids on a broken
back.

It's time to get involved. Yes I’m talking to you, members, non-members,
used-to-be-members, wanna-be members, disgruntled and disgusted members, and all
of you who are in love with free flight, but maybe who are not-so-much pleased
with the direction. And wouldn’t more transparency be great (rhetorical). 

First: the “Diversity Matrix” has to go and that coming from the most diverse
person in our organization. “Diversity Matrix”, such buzz words, nonetheless it
fails miserably in giving our organization the leadership it desperately needs. 

I say this because USHPA is a small non-profit, it doesn’t have issues with
diversity like corporate America. So introducing a Diversity Matrix falls
woefully short of choosing the best USHPA Board of Directors. I had the second
highest number of votes in the nation yet I still got cut because of the
Diversity Matrix. Honestly, I’m not bitter at all. Oddly, even if I had gotten
the highest votes I would have still been cut – I was tossed out last year by
the “diversity matrix” - which is ironic since I am the epitome of diversity yet
not diverse enough to sit on the Board last year - I know I can make a
difference. Makes you wonder, if the Diversity Matrix is in fact trying to get
"The Best" Board for USHPA or is it just whomever fits into the new suit USHPA.
The stifling of your member voice and your vote is palpable. Your voice and
your vote doesn’t count, because it’s highjacked by the Diversity Matrix.  It
takes away the power of each USHPA member and hands it over to this obtuse
diversity equation that no one quite understands.

The Diversity Matrix is not capable of determining the “best” Board for USHPA,
because it falls woefully short of determining the criteria to select a proper
Board that would address our needs and doesn’t put our best foot forward. I
want the decision put back in the hands of the members, let your vote count.
“The Diversity Matrix” discounts all the truly important factors that make up a
successful Board of Directors for the USHPA. Our USHPA Board needs:

- Directors who have experience and knowledge of the day-to-day grinds of
building up the sport and bringing in new members, old members and retaining
current members;

- Directors who are on the front line, and in touch with the needs of pilots,
instructors and schools;

- Directors who have “skin-in-the-game” - when this is your livelihood you work
infinitely harder to build and grow our sports;

- Directors who can elevate safety without creating burdensome rules for
schools, instructors and members.

Try to stuff that into the “Diversity Matrix” – impossible because “Diversity”
has nothing whatsoever to do with building the best Board for USHPA.

The membership was sold this placebo in the form of “Diversity Matrix” and it
stinks – read that “Harvard Review” study they sited when selling you this bill
of goods, it mainly touts “cultural diversity” – plain and simple, so if that
were the case I should win hands down over everybody – a black, middle-age woman
should be a slam dunk.

Let’s not fall into this buzz word trap thinking anything that says “diversity”
must be good in all cases. In this case it DOES NOT WORK and NEEDS TO BE
DISMANTLED immediately. Empower and trust the membership to build a successful
Board that reflects their choices, your votes.

Second: “Term Limits” it’s good we vote directors in or out every two years and
it’s on an alternating basis, which means with 8 directors - 4 are on the
chopping block each year. That’s a good thing. What isn’t necessarily good is
the 10 year times-up clause. Again, quit taking the power away from the
membership, and trust that they know what’s best. We are a small non-profit.  It
is vitally important that once you get a successful no nonsense good working
Board that we trust, we hold to it for as long as the individuals are willing to
serve or, and this the great part, we as members can vote them off the island as
we determine necessary. It important that we value longevity, experience and
history. So I would get rid of the current 10-year rule and trust the
membership power of self-correcting will keep a good and balanced Board once it
is in place. But this will also mean that you, as a member, will need to stay
involved, which would be a win-win in my book.

Third, I would propose that the salary of our Executive Director position be
intrinsically linked to the growth of our membership. Incentivize the position
so that our ED also has “skin-in-the-game” and is motivated to grow the sports.
If we grow the membership, great the ED is rewarded, if our numbers are on the
decline, well perhaps a re-evaluation is in order. Additionally we would come
up with a detailed written description that outlines the specific duties and
responsibilities of our Executive Director position.

Perhaps many of the duties could be farmed out to our membership. We have a
vast untapped resource of knowledge and experience within our own community i
have seen it and worked with it. Farming out tasks to the membership (whether
paid or unpaid) would bring members more involved with USHPA, and establish a
better sense of community. What a boon and benefit this would be to USHPA, the
membership and the flying community as a whole.

And Fourth: I was never against the idea of a smaller Board, I was however
against handing over a broken committee system to a smaller Board. I beat the
drum to fix the committees first, but that didn’t happen and we are still left
with the same committee issues. We have to quit walking that lipsticked pig
around the deck of Titanic. OOOh perhaps that was too harsh. But speaking of
lipsticked pig, how about that instructor insurance, yep there’s a lot to
address there, so don’t get me started. Yeah, too late, I know.

In any event, these are just a few things I want to change if I can get your
vote.

Granted I know there were many folks on that Board who were pleased I was not in
the room banging the pots and pans around the kitchen this past year, but I
guarantee you, if you vote for me I will be cooking up a storm. And please don’t
take that as a threat - it’s necessary change.

Look, I don’t like battling with my fellow Board members, but they know I can be
like a dog with a bone when it comes to certain issues. And yes, I rarely back
down and sometimes I’m the most vocal person in the room. I'll throw my own
self under the bus and say sometimes I use a slug hammer when a scalpel might be
better. But honestly I do listen to my fellow Board members, I do try to work
with everyone in the room and we do have some great people on in the room right
now. But I'm not there to make friends, I threw my hat in there to make a
difference for the free flight community – the whole community. I do battle for
the members, non-members, used-to-be-members, wanna-be members, disgruntled and
disgusted members, and again all of you who are like me and are in love with
free flight and maybe, just maybe, sometimes are not so much in love with the
direction.

I'm there to represent you and to listen to all of you. So, if any of what I
said resonates with you - I hope you'll get onboard.

Additional information from Tiki can be found here:
https://www.ushpa.org//member/candidate-statements and
https://www.facebook.com/groups/818952661513536/permalink/4379201072155326