In his response to my message yesterday Al Pike raises a couple of points
1. Oversight and control of the NOF. There is a National Office Board of
Directors comprised if members from AAOP, ABC, AOPA, and NCOPE. In all my
tenure there has been a continual process of jockeying for position
between AAOP, AOPA, and the NOF to decide who is going to do what.
Despite up front agreements there always seems to be someone dissatisfied
with the arrangements agreed to. A vast amount of time and effort is
wasted negotiating and renegotiating agreements. The result is that less
is done and not in a timely fashion.
In addition there is the fact that the NOF is a little like the old
adage; “Everybody’s money is nobodies money”. All the NO board members
are preoccupied during the year with the affairs of their own
organization. They meet twice a year at the annual meetings in a blizzard
of board meetings to review the NO’s performance. In the past as long as
nobody was making any waves it was a pretty perfunctory affair with weak
oversight being exercised. Individual board members on the other boards
who were not have been members of the N O board may have been
dissatisfied but the people responsible were insulated from that and it
was pretty much business as usual. As I have said, collectively the
organizations have been plagued with duplication of effort, diffusion of
responsibility, and a lack of accountability.
2. Use of the internet. Al is right about the internet being a worthwhile
tool for communication. But not all members participate in this medium
and those that do are not necessarily representative of all the members.
We should not lose sight of this basic fact. A technological elite should
not presume to preempt the right of others in the organizations. Yes, use
the medium and participate, but lets keep perspective as well.
C. Pritham
