Hal;I think what would be a great thing;is for the "higher"ups to have a "live"web cast question and answer session,where we could ask them direct question's,and get a "unprepaired"answer.I'm sure that won't ever happen.Like was said,your only one man,can't change the tide by yourself,but sometimes,us "members"get the impression that nobody's listening,or dare I say "CARE".
Rod made numerous town hall meeting trips to chapters all over the country and fielded hundreds of questions. Did you attend?Originally Posted by BBARTONB
Must have missed the notam.But the live web cast would be better for everyone.Rod wouldn't have to travel all over,members wouldn't have to travel,and everyone could listen in,not just the ones at the meeting.
Good to know, Hal. That's the way it should be. However, I can say for a fact that option was not offered me when I considered quitting a couple years ago. It's the only time I have ever been treated rudely by someone I assumed was an EAA employee. Probably a one-off problem.
By the way, I reconsidered, based on a letter on the old forum from a person who it seems no longer participates.
Mike E
Attendance
The local newspaper has reported that Rod says "he expects attendance would exceed 500,000 this year, but would still be lower than the roughly 541,000 who came in 2011"
You should know that the way they calculate that number uses - and I heard this in the Finance office in a conversation with Brian Wierzbinski - a practice called "creative accounting".
They consider a daily wristband to be one attendee. Somebody who buys a weekly wristband is counted as 7 people. They also have a variety of variables they change at their convenience. For example, in Camp Scholler, they claim that some people who come to Oshkosh don't actually go into the convention. This number is what I always called a "butt number" - something pulled right out of somebody's butt. They'll just make up a number and say "There was probably 20,000 people in the campgrounds that didn't go into the event."
They inflate the number by saying their security cannot make sure that all aircraft in North 40 are registered.
They claim that several campers bring a wife and children who cannot be counted, so they add on thousands of "attendees". So they "estimate" to help get the attendance number they want to report.
Trust me on this - from the top down, they don't care how many people are there. They only care how much money they are making. I spent five years running the system that reports that number - the only one they care about.
Why do I care? EAA exploits the city of Oshkosh, WI, my hometown, and they lie to government so they get favors on roadwork, airport privileges, etc.
I am EAA #715837
I should add, EAA staff is discouraged from calling this a "convention". Caught by management several times, I was reminded that it is AirVenture.
The event stopped being about the membership a long time ago. They had a Ferris wheel lol!
This thread already exists ....scroll down a bit and add your thoughts.
Sorry, I didn't see it. I will.
Very interesting...
As someone that has to deal with extremely large numbers of shipments and events surrounding those shipments in my daily job (one table I work with is about one billion rows), I'm interested, Matt, in how you'd find or define what I call "ground truth". Let me take one simple example of a person that has a weekly pass that commutes to the North 40 a couple of times in a day, a not uncommon thing. If turnstyles, like those used at ball parks and other events, are installed, then that individual will be double counted. Also, there would probably be pretty severe bottle necks at the gates.
I suppose that RF technology could be used to try to figure out the "real" one-time number that people pass through any of the gates during a given day by adding a chip to the wristbands, but I'm sure folks, even if they were assured that the ID isn't associated with a name, wouldn't be crazy about that. Not to mention the expense of doing so.
Further, from a business perspective, I don't see a real problem with counting what I'll call "wrist band days". In fact, I'm not sure how else you'd want to do it, since you have to get to a common denominator. To illustrate what I'm saying, my company could either count the number of individual rail cars that we run over our lines, or we could count something far more meaningful, the number of shipments we handle in a year.
Finally, yes, I call it a convention, too. Personally, I like the term "fly-in" better, because that's what I'd heard it called even before I became a pilot, way back when I was volunteering at a railroad museum in Union, IL. But both terms have a problem - they imply an exclusivity. A convention is typically for members and invited guests; a fly-in means that, well, you have to fly in. We, the aviation community, have to embrace everyone that's interested, members and non-members, pilots, and non-pilots, builders and non-builders, and so on. Like it or not, there are larger forces outside of our relatively small universe that are working against us, some consciously (there really are people that hate general aviation), and some that are just there (e.g. the economy). Simply put, the numbers have been going the wrong way - we need to be sure we don't inadvertently give the general public that they're not part of us.
Anxiety is nature's way of telling you that you've already goofed up.
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