<DIV>Gordon,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Well spoken. My sentiments exactly.</DIV>
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<DIV>This thread has proven something that I have always said, "If you want to find out what everyone is thinking, but nobody is talking, just suggest something that will totally p***** them off." (Sorry, Ed!)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I can see both sides of this argument. I'm not going to join it. I've been out of the fray for a long time and I am sure everyone that has spoken about it knows a lot more about the subject than I do.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I may or may not applaud the results, but I do applaud any effort to fairly rank judges for the purpose of selecting a judge to send to the world champs. However, we need to stay focused on how to attract new pilots into the fray. I think effort spent in this area is many times more important than the effort put into how we pick one judge to go the world championship once every two years. I would even say that it is more important than how we pick the team of flyers that go.</DIV>
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<DIV>It really bothers me when I go to a contest and there are no Novice (or whatever the entry-level name du-jour) pilots competing. Its really bad when there are no Sportsman (or whatever the next-level name du-jour). The different classes are a "pipeline" of potential world class flyers AND judges. This is much more important to the future of the hobby than any selection process for judges or pilots, IMHO.</DIV>
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<DIV>BTW, I'm not complaining about the change of names for the classes. Those are just the names that I remember. The names have been changed many times before, and I am sure they will be changed again. I remember when there was a Pre-Novice class!! The name did not bother me at all when I flew in it.</DIV>
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<DIV>Bob Richards</DIV>
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<DIV><BR><BR><B><I>Gordon Anderson <GAA@owt.com></I></B> wrote:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">I would like to make an observation. I'm not taking any sides in this issue but<BR>it seems to me we often lose site of the fact that we fly toy airplanes and we<BR>are supposedly doing this for fun. We talk a lot about how hard it is to keep<BR>pattern fliers and to get new pilots involved, issues like this are the things<BR>that will drive me away. This list, in my opinion, should present the best<BR>possible face of the NSRCA. Heated exchanges like this one (world judge<BR>selection thread) only hurt the organization.<BR>Just my 2 cents worth as a relatively new pattern guy....<BR><BR>--Gordon Anderson, D8 VP<BR><BR>=================================================<BR>To access the email archives for this list, go to<BR>http://lists.f3a.us/pipermail/nsrca-discussion/<BR>To be removed from this list, go to http://www.nsrca.org/discussionA.htm<BR>and follow the
instructions.<BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE>