Yesterday I wrote: Mark Gaskill, the USHPA Vice President, sent
out an enthusiastic email message to USHPA members on February 3rd. You'll find
it here (and
in its original form
here).

Continuing our review of Mark's claim of recent USHPA BOD accomplishments:

2) sound organizational/financial management

Sound organizational and financial management started quite a few
years ago, not just lately. If you look
here you'll notice
that sound financial management started when Jayne dePanfilis came in as the
Executive Director (she wasn't originally given that title) in 2001. She was
hired somewhat reluctantly by the Executive Committee. I'm quite certain that
the management of the organization and financials has continued to improve even
after her departure and with our new Executive Director.

I'd argue that the Competition Workgroup was not well managed and it is only now
after almost two years of misdirected effort that there is a chance to clean up
the mess that they have created with their proposals for changes in the
competition system. The results of the Fall USHPA BOD meeting were positive but
tentative. At the moment, under the pre-existing Competition Committee
leadership it looks a lot less positive.

3) great chapter support

The Chapter Support Committee was revived at the
Spring 2008
BOD meeting.
Not much
happened at first. Not much happened
next.
Then at the
Fall
2009 BOD meeting, the committee had a new chair. Now much has been done, but
lots of items were proposed and lots of things were being looked into.

So far, not great chapter support, but good ideas for maybe getting into great
chapter support.

4) insightful strategic plan

Hmmm?! That strategic plan has been around since the fall of 2005.
Not something the BOD has done lately. Since Fall 2005, I've written plenty
about the strategic plan and what an insipid and vapid plan it is and how
destructive parts of have been in misdirecting some of the organization's
efforts.

A review of the BOD minutes from 2008 and 2009 indicates that the goals of the
Strategic Plan are not being met (or even approached) and that many aspects of
the plan have conveniently been dropped (this is a good thing). Those vague
parts of the plan that relate to competition continued up until the Fall BOD to
be destructive, but at that meeting new hope was generated that reason would
prevail. We'll see if that lasts until the next BOD meeting.

5) and assertive efforts to develop and maintain important
relationships with organizations such as the FAA, CIVL, the Foundation for Free
Flight...

Assertive?

We continue to use FAA exemptions for tandems. We continue to ask the FAA to
allow licensed Sport Pilots to tow, and the FAA continues to ignore that
request.

We continue to send a representative (Dennis Pagen) to the CIVL meetings, where
he continues to head up the hang gliding subcommittee.

The Foundation for Free Flight continues to get substantial amounts of money
from the USHPA.

Mark wrote:

The USHPA Board of Directors has been busy as of late. I’m proud
to report that the general membership is now experiencing the benefits of these
efforts.

Well, are we?

The new http://ushpa.org is a great site, but I
don't know if we are benefiting from it just yet. I hope that we will in the
future. We have been benefiting for almost a decade from being put on a sound
fiscal path by Jayne dePanfilis as Executive Director. We may in the future
benefit from great chapter support, but it's not there yet. The strategic plan
has been a mess and in at least one area has caused ongoing harm. It's great to
see that the USHPA continues to work with the FAA to keep at bay possible
greater damage to the sports (than was already done by the requirement for a
private pilot's license for towing on a Dragonfly or trike).