USPSA Area representation

[Joe4d]

A thought was presented in another thread I thought was worth exploring and seeing how others felt.

Some Areas have a much larger membership than others, Currently our Directors are elected based on geographical lines like the Senate, a thought that maybe this was leading to a small group being over represented and a large group under represented on the BOD.

My initial reaction is if it aint broke dont fix it, rearranging the lines every year or so will just create confusion. I also dont see how this will help grow or make the sport better so maybe our energies can be spent elsewhere. Based on voting turnout about 70 percent of the members are only involved at the local level and it doesnt really matter to them one way or another.

Another thought would be to allow people to pick the Area when they join or renew with USPSA, I know of one club in Area 7 that it would surprise me if even a single shooter lives in Area 7, It is right across the border from a large metro area in area 8, I have heard of similar situations in Western PA,

Not really taking sides just wondering what others think.

[vluc]

Joe4D, I think it works fine the way it is. I've never thought of the breakdown in terms in equality of representation. I have wondered why some states are in certain areas and not others based on where their shooters come from, but that is more an intellectual exercise than anything else.

Now if you got into dividing them up differently, you could continue to use simple state borders, you could get the number of USPSA members by state and divide that way (which means constant redrawing). You could go by number of clubs in an area (also needs redone on a regular basis). I think allowing members to pick their area would end up being an administrative nightmare, especially come election time.

I can see the one AD's comments as he has 7 states and easily 45-50 clubs. If the BOD wants to allow AD's to trade states into another area, there is no doubt a mechanism for that somewhere.

I would find it difficult to live in a large stated area and have to travel many hundreds of miles to attend an Area match. For me, A8 has a decent layout. Going to Fredricksburg from Western PA is about 5 hours, not that onerous, and vice versa for the VA members who come to Pittsburgh for our past Area matches. NJ shooters have a slightly longer haul. I think things like this need to be considered - much like having to travel from PA or NJ to NV for Nats. We have been fortunate in A8 that we have enough of those larger clubs scattered about to allow it to move within the Area. Others may not have that luxury.

So the question goes to "what are the AD's representing". States, clubs or individual shooters? Or do they represent the states though the Section Coordinators, creating a more manageable chain of command? The number of shooters is determined by the number of clubs you can shoot at, which is driven by state and local laws. Sections are driven by locale, and sometimes we see entire states being Sections due to the either the number of clubs they have or their Section bylaws.

Edited September 12, 2010 by vluc

[Joe4d]

I'd have to be convinced there was a serious problem before I would support any change, Id never really thought about it before though.

[vluc]

I'd have to be convinced there was a serious problem before I would support any change, Id never really thought about it before though.

Likewise.

[Charles Bond]

I can not help but notice that the posters to date are those who reside in an area that has half of the membership of the area immediately to the south. And frankly I do not blame you for desiring to have one AD per 1500 members when Area 6 has one AD per 3000 members. But if you look to the north you are going to find there is an area with about 800 members. And the state of NC alone has over 700 members but I would not advocate giving them their own area.

It has been more than 15 years since the BOD of USPSA adjusted the area boundaries. The areas were initially set up to make the areas as equal as possible in terms of membership.

Of course the same result could be achieved without changing any area boundaries by giving the ADs proportional voting. Would anyone desire for 3 directors to be able to pass something or block something? Doesn't sound quite fair to me either but based on the out of proportion representation we have now, it is a distinction without a difference.

[bgary]

It has been more than 15 years since the BOD of USPSA adjusted the area boundaries.

Once again, perhaps your argument would be more effective if you were to check your facts before posting.

[vluc]

Charles, I would tell you to then request that your area be sub-divided into 2 areas and a new Area 9 be created. You should have addressed this when you were first in office. Does the new Area 6 director share your view?

I guess we are all equal but some are more equal than others.

[Charles Bond]

Charles, I would tell you to then request that your area be sub-divided into 2 areas and a new Area 9 be created. You should have addressed this when you were first in office. Does the new Area 6 director share your view?

I guess we are all equal but some are more equal than others.

This entire matter has been brought to the attention of the BOD twice over the last 9 years. The problem once was that we had an AD who lived in NJ and NJ would have been moved into the adjoining area creating a vacancy. The other time the situation was such that we had already had candidates qualify for existing areas as defined by boundaries and changing them after the qualification and before the election would not have seemed fair.

As to what Linda's view on this situation might be, you would have to ask Linda.

Subdividing Area 6 into two areas so as to create a 9th area is not the answer since it would do nothing to balance the membership of the other areas, it would create the expense of funding another area, and it would create the potential for a tie vote on the BOD since the President also casts a vote.

Jakers is correct that there was a slight change a few years back when we moved CO into a new area. That however was not done in any attempt to balance anything but rather simply becasue CO requested that they be moved.

[Joe4d]

Another thought, lets say all the areas are redrawn and membership is equal,,, Area A has a super duper director and some hotshot section leaders and members and puts out an all out attack to get new ranges new matches and signs up a bunch of new members only to have a big chunk of those members redrawn into an Area B with a Area director and members that did nothing.

[vluc]

Another thought, lets say all the areas are redrawn and membership is equal,,, Area A has a super duper director and some hotshot section leaders and members and puts out an all out attack to get new ranges new matches and signs up a bunch of new members only to have a big chunk of those members redrawn into an Area B with a Area director and members that did nothing.

LOL! No good deed goes unpunished!

[Charles Bond]

Another thought, lets say all the areas are redrawn and membership is equal,,, Area A has a super duper director and some hotshot section leaders and members and puts out an all out attack to get new ranges new matches and signs up a bunch of new members only to have a big chunk of those members redrawn into an Area B with a Area director and members that did nothing.

That is a rather interesting thought but look at it from the position of a USPSA AD. Let us say the AD does as you illustrate. If areas are not redrawn to reflect it all he has done is create more clubs and more members and morse sections that he has to service. And of course since USPSA allocates funds equally among the areas, that means he now has less money per shooter to spend within his area.

On the other hand, if resources are allocated equally among areas he has approximately the same amount of funds to spend per shooter as his neighboring director and his reward is that the geographic size of his area shrinks so it is easier for him to get to the section and club matches.

[vluc]

Charles, what would those allocated funds be used for?

[wgnoyes]

Area Directors have an annual budget that they can use to promote USPSA and SC among their sections and clubs. For instance, a club in the Georgia Section this year requested assistance from our Area Director to put on a Level 1 RO School, and they got it. You could also fund a booth at a gun show to promote the sport, produce a periodic Area Newsletter, set up an Area Forum..., use your imagination for things that would help the sport.

[Charles Bond]

Thanks Bill. Of course there are also scholarships for junior camp, match director workshops, etc. Every benefit USPSA has ever offered has been allocated equally to the areas.

[pskys2]

If you do it strictly by area membership, you'd probably reduce the activity in the west. It takes a lot of area to drum up shooters out here and makes for a real effort for the AD's to make the rounds of their Sections, let alone the clubs.

[Charles Bond]

If you do it strictly by area membership, you'd probably reduce the activity in the west. It takes a lot of area to drum up shooters out here and makes for a real effort for the AD's to make the rounds of their Sections, let alone the clubs.

If memory serves your area would stay pretty much the same as it is now. The members are clustered in the far west and in the southeast. Kansas and the part of the US north of Texas has not had their numbers cnange.

[pskys2]

If you do it strictly by area membership, you'd probably reduce the activity in the west. It takes a lot of area to drum up shooters out here and makes for a real effort for the AD's to make the rounds of their Sections, let alone the clubs.

If memory serves your area would stay pretty much the same as it is now. The members are clustered in the far west and in the southeast. Kansas and the part of the US north of Texas has not had their numbers cnange.

From what I'm getting here, I was trying to say if you keep the number of areas constant and equalize them out by members you'd have to expand say Area 3, 7, and proabably some others, and/or shrink other Areas. Or expand the number of Areas and keep the numbers at what 2ooo members each. Which would mean increasing 3, 7, 8 and decreasing 2 and 6.

A case could be made either way and each would have benefits and downsides. Doesn't matter to me much, and probably not to most members, just adding .02 fwiw.

[Charles Bond]

If you do it strictly by area membership, you'd probably reduce the activity in the west. It takes a lot of area to drum up shooters out here and makes for a real effort for the AD's to make the rounds of their Sections, let alone the clubs.

If memory serves your area would stay pretty much the same as it is now. The members are clustered in the far west and in the southeast. Kansas and the part of the US north of Texas has not had their numbers cnange.

From what I'm getting here, I was trying to say if you keep the number of areas constant and equalize them out by members you'd have to expand say Area 3, 7, and proabably some others, and/or shrink other Areas. Or expand the number of Areas and keep the numbers at what 2ooo members each. Which would mean increasing 3, 7, 8 and decreasing 2 and 6.

A case could be made either way and each would have benefits and downsides. Doesn't matter to me much, and probably not to most members, just adding .02 fwiw.

And your observation is certainly true of any form of representation for any organization whether it is USPSA or the Congress.

On the one hand if we have areas that are growing and can grow further, is it better to focus efforts there or is it better to try in the states where we are not doing well. Of course one can make a case as to whether it is possible to ever do well in states like those in the NE where it is urban, hard to find ranges, and lawmakers throw up obstacles to gun ownership. While that is not going to apply to a state like Kansas where some of the situation is just based on less population per square mile, we have to make a decision based on something.

If the areas are not going to be drawn based on membership, I would invite someone to share with the BOD what it should be based on. Saying leave it as it is really does not address that since that is really saying "because we have always done it that way" which is not an objectively grounded reason to do anything. On the other hand as you observe we might have some areas which are already rather large grow larger still meaning that if one lives in Montana, shooters are going to be driving a long way to the range just like they do when they go to the grocery store.

[pskys2]

Like so many things in life.

One can have the room for a Range, I actually have a range 300 yards from the house, and fewer participants.

Or there is a huge pool to draw from and very little room, or more obstacles, to shoot.

Some places do hit the nexus of the two and like Rio Salado have a good range and a huge turnout (seems like I've seen over 100 in their club match results), our best here in Kansas is Millcreek and on a good weekend it pulls in maybe 50+ competitors.

Here in Area 3, we've been very fortunate to have good, active AD's. I feel for them as it's a huge area to cover.

Just to add a bit to the mix, what would be the effects of upgrading/changing the SC's role in things?

Could that be a way of making things more active or pro-active?

Or could it be a can of worms best left alone?

[Charles Bond]

The role of SCs is to look after the clubs and run a section match and beyond that their role is self defined. The BOD has tasked SCs with being responsible for growing clubs and membership but there is no way to enforce this role on what is a volunteer. We have SCs who do great things. We have SCs who do next to nothing. But the strongest thing we have is that they and the ADs are elected in a democratic process which means they serve at the will of the membership. In essence, the more they do and serve USPSA the more likely they are to be re-elected.

To have USPSA say SCs will do this and will do that is the worse kind of top down management. I would not be in favor of that. I am very much in favor of rewarding SCs and other volunteers who do their job well and I think other ADs are also in favor of that idea. The devil is very much in the details and you might find a wide variation in what form that reward ought to take.

I am yet to appreciate what anyone sees as a "can of worms" that might be opened by redrawing area lines to reflect membership. I do see that the can is very much already open by virtue of the fact that we are way past due in taking action on this and every year we delay further erodes the democratic process of elections that makes USPSA "different" from every other shooting sport. IDPA and Cowboy and many others are run by folks that are not elected by the membership. If each member does not have an equal voice, or as nearly as equal as not dividing states among areas will allow, the representation you get with USPSA elections really only pretends to be democratic.

As for your area, a member in Rhode Island has almost three times the say so in the running of USPSA as does a member in Kansas. If you are comfortable with that, that is purely a matter of personal choice.

[vluc]

Charles, you go off with raw numbers of people in a section which does not equate to active members. Joe/Jane Six Pack who shoots and scoots, does not help anywhere, does not know who his/her AD or SC is and does not vote - what say do they have in anything? They are voting by their actions - they don't really give a bubbly ^%$&*.

I don't understand this focus on numbers of members and how much your vote should count, especially now with only 3.5 months left in a term. These are arguments better made when you are coming in, not going out. Not a rip on you, Charles, just trying to understand the commentary. If this has been a focus of yours throughout all the years you have been AD, I've not noticed it mentioned in BOD meeting minutes.

If you feel you should have more resources from USPSA because of whatever logic you want to use - well, heck, I think all areas should be getting more resources from the mother ship. Maybe they find it easier to divide by 8....

[Nik Habicht]

Honestly I've never thought of USPSA as a democracy, more like a representative republic, where the ADs should represent the will of the members in their area and the best interests of the organization. That said, perhaps one of the compromises might be made in allocation of resources -- where areas receive resources according to their need. An area with 50 clubs might need more RO classes than an area with 25 clubs -- or the reverse might hold, if the 25 club area has a massive growth spurt....

While it's true that "because we've always done it that way" isn't a good reason to impede change, neither is "Oh-oh, there's an imbalance" a mandate for change. How do you think USPSA would be better off if we re-drew the areas?

[Charles Bond]

Whether it is a representative republic or a democracy, USPSA needs to reflect the values and desires of its membership. I really fail to understand how that can happen if a group one third the size of another group has an equal voice. Our members do not see this as fair. Failuring to correct it makes USPSA seem more like the UN where the smallest country has a vote equal to the largest.

This is simply a house keeping measure that should have been addressed over 10 years ago and I have set out in previous posts how the BOD attempted and failed to do this twice before and I understand the concern of the members of PA, you just do not want to move from one area into another. But the interests of PA do not outweigh the interests of the entire organization.

Want to consider other methods of how to do it? If it is done by active members, PA moves to Area 7 and maybe FL gets to be an area in and of itself. If the areas are redrawn by overall membership, PA moves to Area 7. Reallocate by overall mission count, PA moves to Area 7 and California gets its own area. And draw the lines by overall geographic size, PA moves to Area 7.

The only way you could do it and not have PA move to Area 7 is to just elect all the directors at large from the membership like the NRA does and do away with the idea of areas all together. Doing so would result in CA being the address of all of the USPSA directors.

There is of course an easy fix. If the members in PA each recruited one member to join USPSA, that would go a long way in correcting the imbalance. But let us not pretend that it is "fair" or "acceptable" to allow Area 8 to have the same power as another area only half its size and allow two other areas with membership numbers twice that of Area 8 to have an equal say in the operation of the organization. We have states with memberships that exceed the membership of a single area. No matter how you approach that you just can not say that the governance of USPSA is "representative" as long as that condition continues.

[Nik Habicht]

So after you send PA to A7, what are you planning on doing with VA, MD, and NJ? Cause you just made A8 smaller.....

Or are you planning to cede the Carolinas?

[vluc]

So after you send PA to A7, what are you planning on doing with VA, MD, and NJ? Cause you just made A8 smaller.....

Or are you planning to cede the Carolinas?

Too late for that now....