IMPBA Members .... PLEASE

[ACLazer]

I keep seeing, hearing of everyone complaining about this and that, New Rules, Nitro Classes and the New Gas Rules and so far we have a Vote Turnout of under 10 Percent

Please Vote, it's easy and most District Directors will even accept Votes via Email.

The IMPBA is only good as it's Members make it.

We have till the end of the Month of January to Vote.

PLEASE VOTE

Thanks

Dom

 

[Rules]

I keep seeing, hearing of everyone complaining about this and that, New Rules, Nitro Classes and the New Gas Rules and so far we have a Vote Turnout of under 10 Percent

Please Vote, it's easy and most District Directors will even accept Votes via Email.

The IMPBA is only good as it's Members make it.

We have till the end of the Month to Vote.

PLEASE VOTE

Thanks

Dom

No-No, the final date is January 31, 2006!

Keep sending those ballots in!

John Equi

IMPBA Office

 

[ACLazer]

Thanks John, I corrected my error

 

[Precision Boats]

I here you and understand. But think about it with the published roostertail the voting was low. What do you think it will be with out any mail out roostertails??

If something does not happen ,I see the IMPBA as only a memory real soon. I see it and here it ever week. The boat hobby continues to die because of gas prices and rising material prices to build this hobbies low volume of parts. $.02 " IE a new outboard 3.5 pipe I saw on here $100.00 for it".

Tim

 

[Brian Schymik]

Tim, I guess I have to disagree with some of what you said.

The hobby does have competition from other things, but the IMPBA has not lost members overall in the last 2 years.

As for the voting...since we have gone electronic and the directors accept email votes, last issue produced the most votes in my district that I have ever had. I am sure other districts are the same.

So smile and be an optimist

Brian

 

[Precision Boats]

Brian,

I understand about the last 2 years. I think 2006 will be something different. I have seen alot of changes in the hobby in the last quarter of this year so has alot of my contacts. I guess time will tell, I can only hope that it will get better. Reallism is more like it......

Tim

 

[Mark Poole ModVP]

Bottom line...we have to get new people in and find a way to get them in without breaking the bank. My boss bought his eight year old son an entry level electric boat for Christmas. 20 inch hull, mass produced in Taiwan and still, over $200 with batteries. I tried to talk them into a longer hull but that was all they were going to spend, they felt that was enough. People who don't have to budget are buying big ticket items like candy and paying big bucks for them. Unfortunately, RC boats do not fall into that category. I beliieve the majority of our hobby items are priced out of their best target market. You know when gas boats hit the market they were supposed to be the affordable road into RC boats. Priced them lately? My 2 cents.

 

[ACLazer]

Thanks guys, PLEASE get your Votes in as soon as possible

Have a Safe and Happy New Year

Dom

 

[piper_chuck]

Now that I've finally taken the time to decipher all the choices, I have some suggestions for the future.

First, it was a bit challenging to decide how to email my votes for the gas rules. I finally decided to describe each of my choices. I hope Glenn can decipher the way I described them. A good thing to do in the future would be to clearly label all choices so a person can email a simple thing like:

Item 1: choice A

Item 2: choice B

etc...

Second, stop including 3 choice votes. For example, the new class and consitutional votes both have 3 choices, Yes, Yes with modifications, or No. If each of the 3 choices gets around 1/3 of the votes it's not at all clear what will be done. The result is confusion, arguments, and frustration. Instead of including 3 choice votes, it should be broken into two seperate votes, as follows:

Vote 1: Yes or No.

Vote 2: If adopted, option A or option B.

This would eliminate the possible 1/3 split, but would still allow those who voted No to weigh in on which choice they like if the change is approved.

 

[Russ Williamson]

The boat hobby continues to die because of gas prices and rising material prices to build this hobbies low volume of parts.

Tim

All indicators in the market for the last 2 years; showing the boat market increasing very much with no let up in sight. In fact, analysis is for the boat market to be ever increasing in size by 20 - 30% in the next 18 months. This is realistic.

Rw

 

[piper_chuck]

The boat hobby continues to die because of gas prices and rising material prices to build this hobbies low volume of parts.

Tim

All indicators in the market for the last 2 years; showing the boat market increasing very much with no let up in sight. In fact, analysis is for the boat market to be ever increasing in size by 20 - 30% in the next 18 months. This is realistic.

Rw

So, rather than taking a fatalistic approach of inevitable death, we who participate in organized racing should be figuring out what we can do to get a larger number of those boat buyers to be joining our ranks, right?

 

[Mark Bullard]

Chuck,

Russ and his group and many other manufactures are placing IMPBA's and NAMBA's logo on the decal sheets with the internet addresses on the logo for people to use on their new boats. Also there is a application for both organizations in the boxes the boats come in. We should see huge growths in both organizations in the near future. As for voting, I have had one of the best voter turn out in many months on these last issues. I have one club that has voted on everything at a club meeting and sent me all of their ballots in one package. This was a great thing that John Ber and the Acadiana MBC did. Great job guys. I am going to suggest that my other clubs do the same thing. If they all do this it will be a huge turn out.

Mark Bullard

 

[Joe_Knesek]

I'm my opinion the e-mail voting can be greatly improved in the following manner:

1. Only require the member to send 1 email for all votes. When we had paper based ballets we only mailed them to 1 address. Or...
   
2. Create a secure ink within the IMPBA website to record and compile the votes. Require membership authentication and then provide a template for them to complete the voting process. The application could then compile and report the results real time. This would improve the accuracy & efficiency of the voting process.
   

I know some of you are thinking this sound expensive and hard to implement but I assure you it's not. I am working on a project now that requires the same process and would be happy to help develop something like this for our organization as well.

 

[BOBBYH]

Mark,

This is great that you had a club do this! Club members and presidents on here need to take note and try to get their clubs to start voting like this. Great idea!

Good job to John and his club!

-Bobby

I have one club that has voted on everything at a club meeting and sent me all of their ballots in one package. This was a great thing that John Ber and the Acadiana MBC did. Great job guys. I am going to suggest that my other clubs do the same thing. If they all do this it will be a huge turn out.

Mark Bullard

 

[piper_chuck]

Mark, I agree that adding IMBPA and NAMBA forms in boats is helpful, but that alone isn't going to convince people to get involved in racing. One thing that will help is a strong focus on inexpensive, easy to run, but still fun, classes. There have been some efforts to get these in place, and hopefully these efforts will continue.

 

[Precision Boats]

All indicators in the market for the last 2 years; showing the boat market increasing very much with no let up in sight. In fact, analysis is for the boat market to be ever increasing in size by 20 - 30% in the next 18 months. This is realistic.

Rw

Mark P.

I agree with what you said 100%

Mark B.

I also agree with you that it is easier to vote online with less hassel....my point here is that "Out of Sight, Out of Mind!" I reguarlly read the IMPBA Roostertail from cover to cover when they where still being mailed out. I have yet to download one online!!!! Why you may ask? I forget to think about them. It was easier when they showed up at the mail box.

Russ W.

Your indicators might be showing a increase in the boating market, but lets keep in mind where your market is.......LOW END THIRD WORLD COUNTRY TOYS........not the high performance racing products, which is where you will find that most of the IMPBA members fall into. The last two personal races that we attended in Jackson TN was nothing more then a good size club race with only a hand full of out of town racers. I didn't see any kind of 30% increase there!! We could of ran 10 heat racing rounds!!! In the racing spectrum of the hobby there are no analysis that can predict what 18 months out will look like, let alone 4 weeks!!! I run my own bussiness (not the hobby bussiness) everyday and there is only one guarantee, NOTHING IS GUARATEED!!!!!!

Dom,

I'm sorry for saying anything on your post and getting it off course!!! But it's like everytime I post on

International Haters, there are 10 people in the wood pile waiting with their sticks and stones to chunk them at me!!! Back to Guest Member again..........

Sin,

Tim

 

[Russ Williamson]

All indicators in the market for the last 2 years; showing the boat market increasing very much with no let up in sight. In fact, analysis is for the boat market to be ever increasing in size by 20 - 30% in the next 18 months. This is realistic.

Rw

Mark P.

I agree with what you said 100%

Mark B.

I also agree with you that it is easier to vote online with less hassel....my point here is that "Out of Sight, Out of Mind!" I reguarlly read the IMPBA Roostertail from cover to cover when they where still being mailed out. I have yet to download one online!!!! Why you may ask? I forget to think about them. It was easier when they showed up at the mail box.

Russ W.

Your indicators might be showing a increase in the boating market, but lets keep in mind where your market is.......LOW END THIRD WORLD COUNTRY TOYS........not the high performance racing products, which is where you will find that most of the IMPBA members fall into. The last two personal races that we attended in Jackson TN was nothing more then a good size club race with only a hand full of out of town racers. I didn't see any kind of 30% increase there!! We could of ran 10 heat racing rounds!!! In the racing spectrum of the hobby there are no analysis that can predict what 18 months out will look like, let alone 4 weeks!!! I run my own bussiness (not the hobby bussiness) everyday and there is only one guarantee, NOTHING IS GUARATEED!!!!!!

Dom,

I'm sorry for saying anything on your post and getting it off course!!! But it's like everytime I post on

International Haters, there are 10 people in the wood pile waiting with their sticks and stones to chunk them at me!!! Back to Guest Member again..........

Sin,

Tim

Ok Tim.....that's a good one "Low End Third World Country Toys". Amazing results with those type of toys Smile Tim, we love you man, you're awesome

 

[Greg Sheckler]

I'm my opinion the e-mail voting can be greatly improved in the following manner:

1.  
    
   
2. Only require the member to send 1 email for all votes. When we had paper based ballets we only mailed them to 1 address. Or...
    
   
3. Create a secure ink within the IMPBA website to record and compile the votes. Require membership authentication and then provide a template for them to complete the voting process. The application could then compile and report the results real time. This would improve the accuracy & efficiency of the voting process.
    
   

I know some of you are thinking this sound expensive and hard to implement but I assure you it's not. I am working on a project now that requires the same process and would be happy to help develop something like this for our organization as well.

Joe, I agree. Copying and pasting the individual ballots and emailing them to their various destinations wasn't as "user friendly" as I had hoped. I looked into some online voting services, but they were pretty pricey. If you could write an app that would allow secure voting from the IMPBA site, that would be truly awesome!

Greg

 

[ACLazer]

Secure On Line Voting would be great.

I think that Bill and John are moving in the right direction and maybe in the near future we can see some type of a Secure Voting System through the IMPBA.

Please VOTE