Poll -- Young Eagles Background Security Checks

[Mark van Wyk]

...snip ...Any EAA member can participate in your poll, regardless of participation in YE activities because any EAA policy impacts all members equally past, present and future and therefore all members can voice their views. Those that have not fallen off a building yet don't need the experience to know that it will hurt.

Now we all know that anyone can check off this poll and you wouldn't know if they were YE volunteers or not. But I would appreciate if you would voluntarily and formally revise the preamble by deleting the above quoted exclusion.

I invite, encourage and urge ALL members to take part in the poll and voice your opinion(even though the thread on the subject is well voiced and clearly states how the vast majority feels).

I will overlook some of your more inflammatory remarks because you are absolutely correct that any EAA member can take the poll. What was I thinking? I don't set the rules about who can or cannot take the poll. If there is any way, I will remove the remarks about asking only YE volunteers to participate. It was wrong of me to be exclusionary. I will see if I can still edit the remarks.

[Mark van Wyk]

As of this moment (01/26/16, 1:30 p.m. PST), with 42 respondents, the poll indicates that 17 percent will not comply with ANY sort of youth protection training or background check. I think we can pretty much write them off. IMHO, any volunteer who works with kids but refuses to acknowledge reality and understand that some sort of program like this is needed ought not work with kids, at least not under the auspices of Experimental Aircraft Association.

Also IMHO, any parent who knowingly lets their kid fly with a person who was part of EAA Young Eagles but quit because he/she refused to submit to Experimental Aircraft Association youth protection training and background check is nuts.

The challenge for EAA is to fix the program so:

1. EAA modifies the background check to get a better web site and get rid of the SSN requirement. That will immediately bring back 12 percent into the fold, for a total of 29 percent willing to comply.
2. EAA modifies the entire program to make it more workable so that a large portion of the 55 percent who refuse to comply with the program in its current form will agree to it and comply.

Number 2 will be harder to do, because it will be difficult to please everyone. IMHO, if we can get the numbers up to about 50 percent or 75 percent willing to comply, the program can survive. Newcomers to the program will join with full knowledge and agreement to the training and background check requirements.

[cub builder]

the poll indicates that 17 percent will not comply with ANY sort of youth protection training or background check.

Line #4 asks strictly about background checks, not about training. Under no circumstances would I submit to background checks. But I would take a common sense training course. Not the idiotic nonsense currently being dictated to the volunteers.

Look, many of us already have high level job related security clearances that go well beyond the scope of what the EAA would get with the background check they are demanding. I would be happy to show my credentials to our YE coordinator for an event. But under no circumstances do I give my personal information to the EAA to hand off to some other party to store until such time as it gets lost. It's simply not going to happen. And quite frankly using job related credentials isn't a solution and is not nearly inclusive enough of the current volunteers to be workable.

Had your poll asked about training instead of only background checks, I would have answered along with the majority of people in line #3. I suspect the others that answered affirmative to line #4 are likely of a like mind. I suspect had you asked about a drastically revised training and no background check, that's where you would find all of those from lines 3 and 4 which currently adds up to 70% of those answering your poll.

So rather than trying to plan on how to circumvent or break up the majority, who all seem to disagree with your view, how about thinking about how this program can be modified to be inclusive. That is what the folks at EAA HQ are going to have to do if they want to see volunteers and a YE program in the future.

-Cub Builder

[Mark van Wyk]

The number of characters allowed in the poll questions are limited so I couldn't word everything perfectly.

... Under no circumstances would I submit to background checks...

Then you are by definition out of the program, as of 05/01/16.
AFAIK, the background checks part is not an option or a item on the table eligible to be eliminated. Nor, in my opinion, should it be. I would object strongly if EAA dropped background checks requirement altogether.
If EAA can do a decent job on the background checks without requiring SSN, then that would be great and would satisfy a lot of people.
Another major objection to the whole thing are the stringent rules laid out in the "Youth Protection Policy" document. The rules to some seem overboard and unworkable. Again, if those rules could be modified to satisfy SOME more people (they won't be able to satisfy everyone), then again, more people could come into the fold. If the numbers get high enough, those that want to quit can quit and not kill YE altogether.

[cub builder]

Then you are by definition out of the program, as of 05/01/16.

And if that's the way the EAA wants to go, then that's the way it will be.

Fortunately for the rest of us, you neither speak for, nor represent the EAA. Otherwise some 83% of us that disagree with you would have already got the boot.

-Cub Builder

[ssmdive]

And if that's the way the EAA wants to go, then that's the way it will be. Fortunately for the rest of us, you neither speak for, nor represent the EAA. Otherwise some 83% of us that disagree with you would have already got the boot. -Cub Builder

+1 . He seems to think he is the EAA more than any other individual member. He also seems to not be interested in any dialog unless you conform to HIS rules about how it should work. Discussing anything with him is like "pissing up a rope". Going to expend a ton of energy, not accomplish anything, and get messy in the process. The EAA made a stupid rule. They will either adapt or the YE program will die. Sounds to me that there are enough smart people willing to continue something without the heavy hand of the EAA hanging over them. Maybe this is EXACTLY what should happen. The YE program should die if the EAA wants to run against how the people who actually do the heavy lifting want it to be run. Then a new program from another group will be born from the ashes. I suggest calling it "Young Phoenix". This is a very good example of the term "Creative Destruction" in action. I for one would not be an EAA member if I didn't HAVE to be to be an IAC member. The magazine is worthless more about IFR flying and buying cool stuff, more AOPA than experimental. And they don't seem to be interested in anything but putting on a really big airshow every year..... With members doing the heavy lifting for free, or paying to get in.

[AcroGimp]

So, 15% percent say it is OK, the other 85% say it needs to be changed in some way all the way to 18% saying no way no how - with the majority (53%) saying 'drastic' change is needed.

Anecdotal I know given currently small sample size but not favorable to the proposed policy and more widely problematic given the comments on this and other forums.

Sure hope HQ is listening, their silence is deafening.

'Gimp

[TedK]

There needs to be alternatives to one size fits all background checks. Many of us (and our families) who have federal government background checks are now under siege because of the OPM data breach. Am I to believe that EAA will do a better job of protecting my Personally Identified Information that the Feds? (It is easy to guffaw about that, but in all serious, EAA isn't going to do better than the Feds)

Further, the list of disqualifying actions is too broad and the time horizon is too long. Doesn't anyone believe in redemption and reformation? Some of the best people who have worked for me had made serious mistakes, but had owned up to it, learned, and became model citizens. We need to encourage an environment that supports that concept. I have made serious mistakes and because of enlightened leaders who didn't believe in one strike, have permitted me to learn from my errors, and rise to and realize my potential.

Perhaps there should be levels of trust, as there is in the govt security clearance process...depending on how deeply you have been investigatedand their knowledge of your actions, the govt grants three levels of clearance. Perhaps you shouldn't be permitted unchaperoned access to a young minor unless you have that highest level of trust. OTOH, for those with a lesser degree of trust, they can be around YEs but not permitted unchaperoned access.

This is is all about intelligently managing risk. Let's avoid a one size tiny knothole to drag everyone through.

Ted

[TomBush]

So Mark, is this you?


I got this information using only your name and a whopping 5 minutes of time on Google and the FAA public website. Even plugged your name into the national sex offender database in that time and am happy to report you're not on it .

Anyway, you seem to be a good and decent man. Heck, mine and your politics even seem to align. That said, I can't see why you have become a de-facto spokesperson for EAA when it comes to this abomination of a a policy. It's almost as if EAA knew there was going to be significant resistance to its implementation, and thus selected a few people to help roll it out.

PS: Even though it probably pisses you off, my posting of links to some of your personal info was not done for that purpose; rather it was done to underscore just how much information is already out there, and how easily obtainable it is. If EAA wants to background-check their members, they can do what I just did without even telling them - or spending any money on a third party.

Good day, Sir!

[TedK]

Tom-

your point is made, but although you can legally do some things, they may not be appropriate. I would urge you to redact the private information such as address, etc. if you insist on keeping the above post.

ted