Soar Oshkosh 2006

Hi Terry:

Having been a close observer and persistant critic of the SSA during
the dog days of the computer system disaster and all that it signified,

I would disagree that nothing has changed:

1. SSA's finances are now handled competently and, importantly, with
considerable transparency.
2. The website, by virtue of an all volunteer effort, has improved
dramatically.
3. Cindy Brickner's efforts to maintain and even increase our access
to airspace in the Owens by opening and maintaining communications

with the authorities have yielded spectacular results as did her
work on
radio frequency misuse. Her efforts are usually low key,
persistent and,
as a result, effective. I'd be surprised if she wasn't involved
in the Phoenix
matter (and more surprised if her involvement was anything but
beneficial).
4. The Hobbs operation, while still not all it could be, has improved
greatly
since a visit I made some years ago when I walked through the
front door
and was completely ignored, even when I wandered behind the
counter.
5. My guess is that the resistance to the OSH effort had to do with
where the
money would come from, not its desirability.

Are there still problems? Sure! Big ones!

1. An organization with a shrinking membership needs to publicise and
recruit as if
it's life depended on it.
2. Hobbs is not an ideal home for a national organization if for no
other reason than
its limited access for members and volunteers. Isolation tends to
create a bunker
mentality in the staff as well.
3. Equipment requirements are not, IMHO, our biggest regulatory
threat; that honour
goes to TSA's orgy of TFR's, etc..
4. Do-nothing directors can be voted out; failing that, bylaws could
be written setting
out a director's duties and penalties for failure to perform them.
(Really bad ones
could be encouraged to run for Congress.)

Many of these problems are being addressed; some wait to be addressed.

Some may never be addressed. Never-the-less, real changes have taken
place,
on balance for the better.

Raphael Warshaw
1LK