Thanks to Dave Wills for commenting on my coverage of the fallout
from the chapter requirements SOP

It is always great to receive a thoughtful and considerate
response to a critique of the actions of the USHPA BOD and committee from a
chairmen of the very committee that was critiqued. If more committee chairmen
would avail themselves of this opportunity, it would be one way that we could
very much improve communication between the USHPA BOD and the membership. Of
course, I also include the great response from Rich Hass, the USHPA President,
as linked to earlier in the Oz Report (see
here).

Just to be clear, in case you didn't read it in the Oz Report forum
here, the USHPA (Rich, the EC, the BOD) has suspended implementation of the
new SOP.

Dave's response highlights a continuing problem with communication between the
membership and the USHPA BOD (and officers). What members mean when they want
better communication with the USHPA, is that they want the USHPA BOD members to
listen to them before they make changes, not after the fact. Now in this case
Rich responded very quickly when the problem was pointed out by David Beerman
(and later others who responded to David's alarm), and this is both great and
new. This greatly improves the membership's view of the competence of the BOD.

But in the past the USHPA BOD (and EC) has stood fast when the critiques came in
and it often took extreme efforts on the part of the membership to get the USHPA
BOD back on the right course. The voting down of the proposal for a new national
team code of conduct is an example of this. This example is confined to the
USHPA Competition Committee, not the whole BOD or EC.

It is unclear from Dave's response above who should take responsibility for the
new provisions of the Chapters SOP, but I get the idea that Dave is taking
responsibility and not putting it on the shoulders of Dean Funk, the chairmen of
the Chapter Support Committee.

I have read all the proposed changes to the SOPs that were brought to the Fall
USHPA meeting. Only this proposal raised significant issues. It is clear to me
that Dave should have taken a deep breath and sent this out to the chapters
before he went ahead with it. Perhaps if he had seen an easy way to do that
(David Beerman harvested the chapter email addresses from the USHPA web site),
he might have availed himself of that opportunity.

Perhaps Dave should have also had an involved discussion with Dean Funk before
he proceeded. Maybe Dean should have taken the steps of contacting a sample of
chapter officers.  It is unclear from Dave's response above just how much
he was communicating with Dean, if at all.

Thanks again to Dave for be willing to write to me and for the respect that he
has shown for the only hang gliding press.