Rob Boudrie

One of my jobs on the board is chairman of the audit committee. I would like to receive the following information from a few people who did not receive ballots: Member number Full name & address Any info about recent change of address I will only use 6 selected at random. My intention is to contact the CPA firm and request confirmation that ballots were sent to these individuals. While I have absolute confidence in Dave Thomas and the USPSA office staff, proper audit procedure is to do a verification of a sample of the data directly with the firm conducting the election. If I get more than 6, I will verify only 6, and will select them from different states if possible - my goal is a small statistical sampling to confirm that ballots were actually sent for members of that sample, not conduct an exhaustive third party examination of every inquiry. Please PM me with this info so I have it in one place.

Can you really sue an out of state company in a "local to you" small claims court?

The answer may actually be yes The membership process does not prune people once they stop shooting matches. Life members remain members, even if they don't shoot matches. Ditto for 3 and 5 year members whose personal situation does not leave time for matches. I've seen people leave for a decade to have kids, and them come to the range with the kids 10+ years down the road (sure doesn't do much to make one feel young). As I mentioned on another thread, my estimate is that our vote participation is probably more like 67% of active members (defining "active" as "shot a classifier since 1/1/06"), however, that is only an estimate based on published election results figures and the classification database.

I would not expect reliable extraction due to the different extractor and breechface dimensions.

I have submitted a suggestion to the bylaws committee for a change that would allow, but not require, the use of an independent firm that specializes in elections but is not a"CPA firm" to run our election. My proposal also would allow, but not require, the use of internet and/or telephone voting - but would continue to require first class mail as the method of notification and as one of the voting methods. As a final change, it would remove the requirement of USPSA Logo and 18pt red type on the envelope, since many of these election firms use their own envelopes. I will be discussing this proposal with board members prior to the November meeting. If you don't see the motion in the minutes it means that either (a) the other board members convinced me it was a bad idea or (b ) I was convinced it wouldn't move forward. BOD meetings are short on time, and I won't be spending meeting time on this unless there is a reasonable chance of acceptance. What I would consider the ideal procedure would be an election process similar to proxy voting in a large publicly held corporation : Ballots send by first class mail Replacement ballots available Votes accepted by phone, internet or first class mail Complete auditable independence of the election process I'm not proposing that the bylaws be changed to require this, since I do not have a detailed cost estimate. I do remember looking into this a few years ago - the salesman was calling me every few days to work his pitch. I sent him details on our current costs with an explaination of "very interested if you can do it for a comparable cost; any proposal costing significantly more would be DOA." It was more effective than telling him I was on a do not call list . BUT...... There are many compromises, and the election process is no exception. First class mail is highly reliable and ballots not delivered due to USPS error are rare. More likely reasons are address problems, etc. If it would cost USPSA $1000 extra to run an election with all of these added features, I'd support it. If it would cost USPSA $100,000 extra, I would conclude the current procedure is the appropriate compromise between features and price. Without knowing the actual price, I am not able to even speculate if this sort of voting procedure would be cost effective for USPSA. Some things I will not suggest and am not willing to support: Internet only voting USPSA staff or volunteers processing votes Any vote counting done on the USPSA web server

USPSA HQ has no access to who voted, or even if a particular individual voted, and requesting that information from the CPA firm would (a) involve a lot of manual effort and ( violate the election procedures that dictate that USPSA receives the results, but not details of votes, or even who voted.

I use them for non-gun purchases, but I refuse to get a "paypal verified" account since that requires giving them access to reach into my checking account - not gonna happen. I'm much rather be disputing an unauthorized charge than trying to get money that is already gone put back.

Read the GearPay terms of service *very* carefully before using that alternative.

Shoot a bear with either of those and you're in deep kimchee if the bruin notices.

In 45ACP.

Have you ever personally tried to line up the committments necessary for a major match? If you did, you would understand that this requirement is about as realistic as saying "Section or Area matches should be scheduled only for weekends without rain or excessive heat."

Good luck. All you have to do is either get the feds to take the case (unliklely for this amount), or to get the appropriate inter-agency cooperation. Once you get past that point, the government is going to need to prove that the recipient was the fraudster, and not simply the address from which a criminal would steal the package when it was dropped off. In the end, the most probably outcome is that your tough talk will not result in any convictions - but I wish you well in your effort to be the exception. This kind of situation is why I refuse to accept "debit cards" or ATM cards that also are usable as a debit card. Even if the charge is accepted as fradulent, there is the possibility of numerous bounced checks; extra hassle; Chex Systems blacklisting; and dealing with third party bad check charges.

Nice people with great style. I know of another store run by a major manufacturer where the terms of employment are "carry a gun, lose your job". As explained to me, the only reason Dillon counter staff carry is to give the guys in back time to get the class III stuff ready. A "Pro RKBA" stance is not always a given in our industry (just ask about the policy for employees possession of weapons on corporate facilities for any of the major players in the firearms industry if you doubt this), however, Dillon is a notable exception.

I'm not in the loop enough to have any more info on that than you, and I have made a decision that I will not bother Dave Thomas asking "when", as it will not help speed things along. There have been no reports to the board on the status of the count (at least not that I have received and I tend to get that stuff), so I ssume this means there is nothing to report yet. If the 15th arrives and I haven't heard, I will be in touch with Dave asking for a status report and time schedule. Experience tells me that Dave moves quickly once he gets the results from the CPA firm.

USPSA extended the voting deadling by one month and, as I understand it, concurrently extended the reporting time by a corresponding amount. The CPA firm is not in violation of any contract, arrangement or verbal understanding.

I'd suggest you try some Precision Delta "Long Major" 180gr 40 S&W ammo. This is loaded to the "longer than SAAMI" length that SxI and Para prefers, and the bullet is a flat tip round nose rather than the truncated cone shape more prevalent in 40 S&W. The ammo is available with both recycled and new brass, and they offer 250 round sample packs as well as complete cases. www.precisiondelta.com

I could add bulk download code, but there's not enough data to make it interesting (yet). Here is all the data clubs have entered: +----------+----------+-----------+ | club_num | latitude | longitude | +----------+----------+-----------+ | AL15 | 31.27 | -85.763 | | AZR02 | 33.4851 | -111.622 | | AZR03 | 33.4851 | -111.622 | | AZR04 | 33.4851 | -111.622 | | AZR05 | 33.4851 | -111.622 | | IPSC44 | 47.7072 | 116.676 | | MID05 | 40.8404 | -74.9166 | | MID18 | 40.994 | -74.2993 | | MS06 | 32.1749 | -90.2399 | | NW07 | 45.12 | 110.6 | | OH12 | 41.631 | -80.9531 | +----------+----------+-----------+ If you want me to bulk add coordinates, I'll need them in this coordinate system (whatever you call it) and in a format with club_number (using the USPSA club code), latitude and longitiude. I'll also add a flag to the club info record to indicate if the coordinates were supplied by the club or a third party.

The USPSA club profile allows clubs to specify their own GPS coordinates. If you have this in a format with the club number + coordinates, I can blast it all into the club database since not that many clubs have actually bothered to update this info. Rob

Old style 686 cylinders are married to the star and must be replaced as a unit. If the perimeter of the ejector is circular and you don't have a flat portion on the shaft, you've got the old style. New style cylinders are not married to the star and are characterized by a rectangular star perimeter (you'd never notice this unless you are looking for it) and a flat spot on the shaft, in which case the cylinder and star can be replaced independently. At least that's what I was told at a factory tour 11+ years ago.

What? A supplier actually shipped ammo by USPS?

This is an interesting case in credibility - no matter how strong your credibility in a field is, if you make up one thing such as "World Champion Combat Shooter", all your other claims have to shine through a fog of suspicion as you have undermined your ability to be taken at your word.

It's tough enough to get the stats crew to enter Major and Minor for everyone, must less do this. The real problem with chrono is having a process "Tight" enouigh that match officials feel comfortable marking someone down as "did not make minor" if there is no record of them being at the chrono, rather than reacting with "Must have lost that one, just leave it the way the competitor registred."

I'd probably recognize John if I met him.

Intersting stuff about Archangel on www.guidestar.org. The only detail about John Anderson is that he is an unpaid director of this 501©(3) org that previously did business under the name "Foreign Threat Assessment Center". Not sure what a "World Combat Pistol Champion" is since there is no reference to the specific world championship(s) he won.

There are provisional multigun rules posted on the USPSA web site.