Lisa Tate, you have been the USHPA President for going on four years, an unpaid/volunteer position. Now, I see that you have written an editorial in the March issue of the USHPA magazine regarding leadership. I'd like to respond to the issues that you raise and engage you in a conversation:

You write:

According to a 2004 study by the Hay Group, trust and confidence in top leadership was the single most reliable predictor of member satisfaction in an organization. Effective communication by leadership in the following three critical areas was the key to winning organization trust and confidence.

1. Helping members understand the organization's overall strategy and nation-wide goals.

2. Helping members understand how they can contribute to achieving key strategic objectives.

3. Sharing information with members on both now the organization is doing and how specific programs are doing relative to the organization's strategic objectives.

I would certainly agree with this. I would also state that receiving help and input from the membership would help evolve the plan so that its objectives could be met. Often a plan is a first stab at the problem and that it needs to change over time when confronted with reality.

Effective communication and the development of trust requires, in my humble opinion, transparency on the part of leadership. The membership needs to be able to see who is doing what when and where and how that relates to the plan.

Effective communication is timely and complete. It doesn't wait for six months (think USHPA BOD minutes). It may not be the whole story from day one, but it is the story early enough to be relevant. Early communication invites the membership to participate in the decisions before they are cast in concrete.

As you state the USHPA BOD launched the strategic plan in 2005 with very specific (numerical) goals. Relative to the numbers in 2005, can the USHPA show us exactly how we have done year to year since the plan was launched? (I, of course, have written about this, and as you are well aware, the numbers don't look very favorable.)

I would love to see the USHPA actually carry out effective communication as you have defined it above. Perhaps you can tell us when this is going to come about.

You write:

USHPA believes there are many benefits of competitions and events.

I assume that this is supposed to be somehow related to the first key area in the strategic plan, "Develop and Execute Strong Internal Marketing." Could you explain how competition (I'll ignore events for the time being as I'm not sure what you mean by events), relates to Internal Marketing?

You start your editorial with the grand statements and the big picture but it turns out to be only about the Competition Work Group's proposal. I don't get the point of being so grand when you really are just going to complain about a specific issue with a rather tenuous connection to that picture.

You write:

For several years, the sole focus of USHPA-sanctioned competition in the U.S. has been to create a team of five pilots, for both hang gliding and paragliding, to represent the U.S. at the World Championships.

I believe that you know quite well that this statement is false. Before you were elected to be the USHPA President by the BOD, I was the USHPA Competition Committee Chairman and I made sure that this was not the case. You can find the focus that I placed on competitions by my actions (I'll be happy to provide examples) and by my words in the USHPA Competition Rulebook:

Under Purpose of sanctioning:

"In addition, the role of the Competition Committee is to encourage the growth of the sport of hang gliding by sanctioning competitions that encourage pilots from all locations and with a wide range of skill levels to participate. The CC shall endeavor to build a system of sanctioned meets that allow regional pilots to gain NTSS points and thereby encourage them to participate in national level competitions."

Under Purpose of the NTSS:

"In addition, the purpose of this ranking is to encourage U.S. hang glider and paraglider pilots to participate in competitions and earn NTSS points through their participation."

I have written quite extensively about this and have sent you emails pointing to these articles, so I am quite certain that you have been made aware of this issue. I would appreciate a retraction of your false statement above.

You write:

In 1986 the focus of competitions changed to focus entirely on the U.S. Team selection, and the number of sanctioned events fell from 30 to 40 to as few as 5 or 6 and participation in sanctioned competitions fell to less than 2% of our membership.

I was not involved in competition in 1986. I was at the site of the US National at Chelan Butte, but only to fly my Pacific Airwave Vision 20 down to the junkyard LZ, as I had only been flying for two years. It was later that I got excited about and drawn into competition by the Chelan Cross Country Classic, and the Regional and National level competitions available to me and to anyone who wanted to participate.

I especially appreciated the opportunity to go to the 1989 Manufacturer's League Meet at Pine Mountain, Oregon put on by your former husband without having any competition experience and with having flown only one cross country flight longer than 25 miles. This was a great learning experience for me and certainly one of the highlights of my "competition career," (as I placed 25th out of 75 and beat every single pilot from the Cloud Base Country Club).

But, I believe that your statement above has been refuted by someone who was around during the 80's and watched what was going on. Mike Meier from Wills Wing has written extensively on this issue here in the Oz Report.

He wrote:

In January of 1986, before the new system had even taken effect, I wrote in a letter to Liz Sharp, "I suspect that the new points system is about to be blamed for a precipitous decline in participation in competition at the regional level. This is unfortunate, I think, since the new system has yet to take effect, and since there already has been a steady decline in such participation for the last seven years; a decline that amounts to, over that period, about 80 percent."

While it is not clear from your statement above that you are assigning cause to the effect, it is clear that at least one well respected observer disagrees greatly with your statement about when the events occurred and therefore what can be blamed for them. If the NTSS system can't be blamed for the decline in participation in hang gliding competition, then perhaps we have to think carefully about whether redoing the NTSS system will in fact revive it. I would argue that it is unlikely.

You write:

In 2008 the board formed The Competition Work Group to help develop a new competition system that will serve all the potential benefits to our entire membership, while still maintaining a strong U.S. Team. … Top pilots, along with meet directors, organizers, and marketers were invited to provide input.

You know quite well that this second statement is false or, at the very least, disingenuous. The Competition Work Group did not invite participation from these groups (I never got my email), and the only top competition hang glider pilot invited to join the Work Group quickly dropped out (can you name a top competition paraglider pilot from the US National team on the Work Group?). As you are well aware the USHPA Competition Rulebook states that:

"1. 4. Amendments

Amendments to these rules shall derive from the USHPA Competition Committee (CC). The Competition Rulebook shall be amended once annually, if necessary, at the scheduled fall meeting of the USHPA Board of Directors. Recommendations and comments from USHPA Directors, meet organizers, meet directors, ranked competition pilots and others shall be used to determine whether or not amendments are necessary."

That is, it is the USHPA Competition Committee that shall make amendments to the Competition Rulebook (not an ad hoc Work Group). That the rules changes should come about from recommendations made up front by directors, meet organizers, meet directors, ranked competition pilots and others, not by a semi-secret Work Group that meets without input. That is, the changes asked for need to come from these groups to start the process. What has occurred is that the semi-secret Work Group has made a plan, which at least one member of the Work Group has characterized as a "done deal," and only then are these stakeholders invited to make comments about an already completed document and plan.

Not only that, but the USHPA Competition Rulebook states (as above) that the changes shall only be made at the Fall BOD meeting, but you, the Work Group, and the EC have already pushed through some of the changes and apparently plan to implement them immediately. While the EC and the BOD are apparently free to make up any rule at any time and change their documented standard operating procedures (and rulebooks) after the fact, one has to wonder why that rule was put in place to begin with.

I'll tell you why. In the interest of fairness. The competition committee felt that it was basically unfair to change the rules in the middle of the game. Apparently the EC and the Competition Work Group doesn't mind doing just that.

You write:

The USHPA board reviewed the plan at the fall 2008 meeting. The board endorsed the direction of the work group and supported a limited implementation for the 2009 season, with full implementation to start in 2010.

First, I find the wording of the statements above to be very careful, perhaps too careful. I was not at the fall BOD meeting, so I can only listen to what those who were there tell me (as we don't yet have the official minutes of the meeting). They say that they did not in fact endorse the 2009 implementation, and that the vote was only to encourage the Work Group to continue with its efforts.

What does it mean when you "endorse the direction of the work group?" I suggest that it could mean anything, from full approval to all that they laid out (I doubt that many, if a majority, of the BOD read the report as it was put to the BOD late and without consideration in the Competition Committee meeting, which is the standard procedure to keep things from being jammed through the BOD), to a general approval of them to continue working on the issue. Your statement above sure does not help us understand exactly what the BOD was approving.

I sure don't believe that the BOD was approving 2009 implementation and 2010 full implementation of a proposal that they hadn't read and that wasn't even a final proposal. How were they supposed to approve the implementation of a draft proposal? They wouldn't even know its final contents?

You write:

Unfortunately, a great deal of false and misleading information has been generated through various channels about the new plan.

Lisa, I thought you were from Idaho. In Idaho we talk straight. Pretty much the only "channel" that was generating anything about the new plan was the Oz Report. It was about the only "channel" where there was anyone interested enough in this issue to say anything. You are certainly right about "a great deal" as anyone who wishes to go back to the many many articles that I have written on this issue (^F, "Competition") will see. Whether my statements are false or misleading or both, well we'll see. You have made a broad charge without backing it up with evidence, and we know what that leads to.

So, can you back up your statement here with actual examples (or all the cases)? Show me the statements that I have made (they are all on line and easily available with minimal effort) and present your evidence that my statements are in fact false and misleading. Let's see your proof.

You end your editorial with:

Looking forward.

I would suggest that you are in fact looking back. Way back to 1985, when I was just learning to be a hang glider pilot and sure didn't know what the USHGA was. You appear to me to be holding an old grudge. A grudge against the USHGA. The grudge dates from the incidents (which I am only barely aware of now) that involve your former husband and the meets that he was running in Idaho.

That now is your chance to get back at the USHPA for what happened back then. This is sure what it felt like when you first approached me about changing the competition system (I had already read many of your thoughts in the preceding years) as chairman of the competition committee.

So are you really looking forward or are you using the Competition Work Group to settle an old score?

I am interested in real leadership at the USHPA. I am interested in trust and transparency. The USHPA could do a lot to increase the membership's trust in the leadership, but always seems to do just the opposite.  Is there something in the water?

I invite you to continue this written conversation, perhaps on some web site/forum that is perceived as neutral. A little transparency couldn't hurt.