MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ROCKETRY January, 1995 Meetings held in Phoenix, Arizona FRIDAY January 13 - Board members attending the Phoenix meetings: Bob Alway Trip Barber Mark Bundick Vern Estes George Gassaway Ed LaCroix J. Pat Miller Bob Sanford (Unable to attend, Jack Kane) Others present for portions of the meetings: Steve Lubliner, Sport Services Committee Chairman. Barry Satterthwaite & Dave Lewicki, both members of the local SSS section. Board meeting begins at 3:07 PM Vern Estes moves to approve the previous minutes (July 1994) Pat Miller seconds. Approved unanimously NAR POLICY COLLECTION - Many policies have been adopted throughout the years for a wide range of topics. No single source for following or reviewing these policies exist, other than human memory or attempting to spot review specific old documents. George Gassaway assigned to collect policies to the extent possible (combing through the secretary archives), with assistance from Pat Miller who has a partial collection of policies already. REVIEW OF GROUNDRULES for board meetings, as established at the previous (Houston) meeting. One minor change to one groundrule for board member conduct, where "excuse self from votes where business stake in outcome" was changed to "excuse self when conflict of interest is involved". 3:14 PM - BOARD ENTERS EXECUTIVE SESSION. Covered a legal opinion by counsel regarding manufacturer employee participation on the Board when such manufacturers are in a legally adversarial relationship with the NAR, and the status of the Aerotech-Estes lawsuit. Ed LaCroix and Vern Estes were in attendance at the beginning of the session, but where appropriate in the discussion were absent other portions the executive session, including being absent during all discussion of the Aerotech-Estes lawsuit. No actionable items resulted from the executive session. 4:40 PM exit executive session. With Vern Estes and Ed LaCroix back in attendance, the board unanimously expressed it had faith in Ed LaCroix's ability to "do the right thing" as regards his position as an NAR trustee in light of his new position at Aerotech. FINANCIAL REVIEW - The Board reviewed a complete financial statement package provided by Stu McNabb, Comptroller. The NAR's financial situation has improved tremendously due to aggressive expense control and the dues increase. Some key financial statistics (rounded ) include: Total Assets: $66,000 Total Membership Equity: $7,500 Income Thru 10/31/94 - $158,000 Expenses thru 10/31/94 - $153,000 Adjusted Budget Analysis (dues income vs. major membership service expenses) net income thru 10/31/94 - $13,000 or about 15% As regards a disputed $2,300 debt owed on a printing job which was incorrectly produced and for which the NAR had refused to pay: Trip Barber moved that: "The Comptroller (Stu McNabb) be directed to strike the disputed $2,300 printing debt from the books.": Seconded by Vern Estes Passed unanimously A set of questions arose regarding many details provided by Stu. As a result the board directed Stu to close out several fund balances at HQ, including leftover NARAM funds and the World Championships balances. These amounts ill be swept into the general fund. Meeting ends at 5:45 PM for dinner Meeting resumes at 7:53 PM Still reviewing finances: Speakerphone call made to comptroller Stu McNabb, lasting approximately 30 minutes. Stu proposed rearranging the account structure in order to reduce bank charges, get more timely bank statements from committees and consolidate funds to earn more interest. As a result, Trip Barber moves: "There be established an NAR committee Checking account, in control of [the comptroller] . [Account] statements to go to [the comptroller], checkbooks to be issued to committees at direction of the NAR board. Amount each committee can write against that account to be established by the board." Seconded by Bob Alway Approved unanimously Vern Estes moves to amend previous motion: "Strike portions specifically mentioning Stuart McNabb and replace with 'comptroller' ". Seconded by Bob Alway Approved unanimously As a result, Stu will set up a new bank account in Arkansas accessible by committee chairmen. They will a checkpad for their committee and make deposit via mail. Stu will begin work with a couple of committees to insure the process works, and report back to us at NARAM. Stu also presented a proposed 1995 budget. The budget discussion and final approval of amounts to allocate was held over until Sunday. Pat Miller provided membership statistics. Total NAR membership has declined about 100 in 1994. Based on analysis of rates of change, we believe the membership to be in "recession", i.e. further declines may be forthcoming. An alternate explanation given the small decline is that the membership is simply jumping around a fixed level of about 4,000. Pat suggested improvements to the kit stuffer program, including a new one involving Quest. SPORT ROCKETRY CONTRACT - The board reviewed the proposed contract with SHARCO Communications for Sport Rocketry magazine production and distribution. The contract allows for a 5 year term, termination based on non-performance or bankruptcy, NAR input and control of content, and specialized NAR insertions. Some board members had questions regarding a few detail items in the contract, which would require more working out with SHARCO before a contract could be signed. Given the desire to lock up the details and finally get a contract signed, the board chose to delegate authority to NAR president Mark Bundick to work out the details and sign the contract on the NAR's (and board's) behalf: Pat Miller moves: "[NAR president] Mark Bundick be allowed to take these items as presented by board here during this meeting, and be delegated to incorporate those in the contract at his [Mark's] discretion, based on discussion with the board. And furthermore, having completed that exercise, delegated to sign on behalf of the NAR, the final negotiated contract." Seconded by Trip Barber Passed unanimously ALTERNATIVE NEWSLETTER - Discussion of producing an alternate newsletter, as yet to be named, edited by Mark Johnson. Content to focus on NAR news, NAR business, launch schedules, and so forth. The newsletter will be no smaller than 4 pages and produced every other month, planned to arrive in-between issues of Sport Rocketry. Trip Barber moves: "Authorize expenditure of $1600 per issue for a publication of to be sent to NAR members, at least 4 pages in length, 6 times a year, in the 6 months in which Sport Rocketry is not published." Seconded by Bob Alway & Vern Estes Passed unanimously MEETING ENDS 10:21 PM Friday night SATURDAY Jan 14 - MEETING BEGINS at 9:17 AM SPORT ROCKET CAUCUS/NFPA/JMAC Review - Pat Miller presented a comprehensive 14 page report on the recent San Diego NFPA meeting and his plans for the upcoming Joint Manufacturer Association Council (JMAC) meeting in Huntsville, AL in April. Many of the items in this discussion concerned BATF impact on the hobby. Clarification/reminder that at NAR launches, a BATF user's permit will be required for flying HPR motors that fall into the category which requires such a permit for purchase and use. Without further indications from BATF about how they intend to proceed, much remains up in the air. Pat Miller also outlined his plans for the JMAC meeting; much of that meeting will be a working session between members of NAR Standards and Testing and manufacturers to review issues that came out of 1127 discussion, including burn time measurement and average thrust calculations. S&T also will review their new proposed decertification policy. A discussion regarding allowing manufacturers to use methods other than a 1% sample test on large size, low production run HPR motors was referred to counsel for review prior to further Board discussion. The board reviewed a proposed methodology for new technology introduction into the hobby (such as for hybrid motors). Pat Miller offered a three-step and six step process whereby consumers can obtain new technology while the NFPA codification process continues (listed as follows): 1 - The manufacturer presents the new technology to the consumer organization. The organization's S&T [testing, certification] operation works with the manufacturer(s) to establish certification standards. 2 - The consumer organization formally tests and certifies the new technology in accordance to these standards. 3 - The manufacturer complies with all local, state, and federal regulations When 1, 2, and 3 above are completed, the product can be released for sale to the general consumers prior to codification by NFPA. To introduce the technology to the NFPA codes, the consumer organization and manufacturer(s) would then come before the Sport Rocket Caucus to review the certification standards and the inclusion of the new technology into one of the two sports (i.e. model rocketry and high power rocketry. A an outline for such a process is listed below: 1 - All manufacturers be invited to a special session of the Sport Rocket Caucus, work with the caucus members to demonstrate new technology and give them hands-on experience. 2 - In the first or a follow-up session, all manufacturers work with caucus to identify the safety elements of the new technology. 3 - Redundant safety elements need to be culled and the other elements clustered. For each of the clusters define a test or series of tests to quantify the results. 4 - Tests for each of the elements is integrated into a single test plan, and a team appointed to conduct the tests at the behest of the manufacturers and caucus 5 - Results of the tests formally prepared in a final report and reviewed by the manufacturers and caucus. These to be used for establishing proposed code wording for the appropriate NFPA documents 6 - The caucus moves the proposed wording forward to the NFPA committee process to change the appropriate documents. In consideration of the above outline, Trip Barber moves: "Adopt as NAR policy that we use the 3-step followed by 6-step procedures presented by Pat Miller in his NFPA report, as the basis for handling the introduction of new technology into the hobby. And that we direct the NAR president to do a liaison with Tripoli, to encourage Tripoli to take the same position, and that we direct Pat Miller to work with the manufacturers to achieve consensus in the sport rocket caucus , to accept these same procedures as the basis for introducing new technology. " Robert Alway seconds Motion passes, 6 for, none against, 1 abstention (Ed LaCroix) Some discussion regarding establishment of "official" NAR positions within NFPA was deferred until the next meeting. Pat Miller and S&T members coordinated NAR responses for this latest session, but more formal procedures will probably be needed in the future. Discussed need in the future to brief new Board members about actions which preceded their election. Short break taken at 11:42 AM Meeting resumes at 12:01 PM, Ed LaCroix not in attendance until 12:21 PM REGULATORY ITEMS UPDATE - A large number of member and manufacturer requests for clarification or action on regulatory items were reviewed. Unfortunately, most are out of the NAR's hands. Exempting metallic cased model rocket sized reloads from CPSC regs would involve tens of thousands of dollars of testing, and the NAR simply does not have the resources to pursue this. The California front brought two good pieces of news. The Fire Marshall's office legalized G motors, and LARS members Martin Bowitz and Fred Schecter were successful in reopening Mile Square Park to model rocket flying. The Board directed the President to prepare a summary of how NAR members can come into compliance with the existing BATF regulations and to send it to all HPR qualified NAR members and to publish it in either the alternate newsletter or Sport Rocketry. Pat will continue to monitor BATF activity, and prepare for the JMAC meeting. The NARAM committee will work to insure NAR members can obtain HPR motors at the upcoming National Sport Launch and NARAM. NAR HEADQUARTERS operations - Marie Stumpe submitted a long list of items needing Board attention including a backlog of Pink Book requests, insurance processing questions, discount coupon production, and suggestions for HQ operational standards. As part of an overall review of HQ, Stu McNabb will visit HQ in February to begin work at replacing the current HQ computer system to reduce Marie's manual workload. (The Board approved an expenditure for Stu's travel to do this review later). Preference is for a commercial software product instead of a custom package programmed around a database program. Marie was also awarded a 3.5% increase for cost of living adjustments. Due to problems with insurance running out at the end of the calendar year, while NAR membership is not based on end of year, many members are not aware their insurance has run out. HQ will work out a plan to notify members that their insurance has expired and they need to renew the insurance even though their NAR membership may not expire for months. Meeting ends at 1:01 PM for lunch (in-room Pizza break) Meeting resumes at 1:21 HYBRIDS - Videotape presentations and speakerphone conversations with Hypertek and Aerotech, who are both developing hybrid rocket motors. Hypertek video and phone call first, with Ed LaCroix not present. Aerotech video and call with Ed LaCroix present. Both parties expressed their cooperation with one another in developing certification standards for hybrids. Several safety- related aspects discussed. Hypertek offered the NAR to allow some experienced members to "beta test" their product prior to full certification. After the call the board members gave some consideration to this, however concerns arose regarding individuals doing the work that is supposed to be within the authority of S&T. Perhaps S&T could "deputize" some members to do such beta testing? Given considerations arising from the above discussion, Trip Barber moves: "Except as the board may otherwise direct, the safety testing of new products be under the control of the Standards and Testing [S&T] committee and be done in accordance with plans developed by the Standards and Testing committee." Seconded by Pat Miller Passed unanimously Hypertek beta-test offer to be taken up by NAR S&T. Same opportunity to be extended to Aerotech if they should desire to do so. SPORT SERVICES COMMITTEE - Committee chairman Steve Lubliner attended the meeting to present his work on the new NAR High Power certification program. After reviewing Steve's work, the Board held off any action until after the TRA board finishes its review of changes in the HPR certification program. The intent is to move toward standards inter-operability between the two organizations in an effort to make sure consistent HPR qualification standards are available to all consumers. Sport Services is free to make changes in the forms and processing to simplify the process administratively for NAR members. Some changes to accommodate 1127 changes will be required; the new 1127 minimum standards include US citizenship, 18 year old minimum and lack of any felony convictions. Members would be required to sign an affidavit to attest these standards. As part of the new NAR HQ system, HPR certification lists will again be provided to manufacturers and dealers. The list will be produced quarterly. Other certifications, for Launch Control Officer (LCO), Range Safety Officer (RSO) and Check-In officer (CIO) are under development by Buzz McDermott. Plans call for development of a test pool of questions, review materials and tests similar in construction to "ham" radio testing. Trip Barber moves: "Abolish the current fees charged for processing within our current system for High Power certification." Seconded by Bob Alway Passed unanimously Ed LaCroix moves: "The NAR board approve the granting of a coupon to NARTS, to be distributed to those NAR members who have paid their way into the NAR certification program." Seconded by Pat Miller Miller proposes an amendment to above motion: "President be authorized to give something to the member of no more than a $5 value, which is equivalent to what was spent by that member to pay for one of the certification levels." LaCroix accepts the amendment. Amended motion passed: 6 for, 1 against (Vern Estes) In offering the coupon, the President was directed to include a cover letter outlining compliance requirements for the BATF regulations. There was some discussion of the current "K" power limit for flying at NAR launches. Ed LaCroix moves: "Board direct the chairman of Sport Services to conduct a survey of the certified NAR High Power fliers to ascertain their specific views on the ceiling of total impulse as it applies to the NAR High Power program." Seconded by Vern Estes An amendment was added and accepted by Ed LaCroix, to require review and approval of the survey by the President Passed: 6 for, 1 against (Bob Alway) NARTREK was found to be nearly non-functional. Steve Lubliner will reassess the program and work on repairs for it. Meeting ends at 5:42 PM for dinner Meeting resumes at 8:01 PM Saturday night PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE - Presentation by committee chairman Bob Sanford. Due to space considerations, Model Retailer eliminated his listing for the NAR (along with all other non-profit organizations as well). Bob will try again next year. Bob will also be working on developing a national strategy for NAR promotion in publications. A strategy will be presented at NARAM. This effort might also include purchase of selected mailing list information if we want to penetrate hobby shop markets better. Bob petitioned for $100 to affiliate the NAR with RCHTA; the Board later approved this item as part of our budget allocations. The Hobby Channel distributes video to hobby stores for a fee. If organizations will provide video, HC handles the distribution. Bob sought $1, 000 for this video production; the Board seeded the effort $250 to get the production started while we formalize the deal with Hobby Channel. A longstanding effort to develop a professional trade show booth received more attention. Ed LaCroix volunteered to get booth manufacturer info from his files to Bob. A possible joint effort with Sport Rocketry will also be explored. How the NAR could improve its presence at the show was also discussed; we may consider sending NAR HQ Manager Marie Stumpe down to man the booth in an effort to get away from volunteer staffing problems. CONTESTS & RECORDS - Virtually all the C&R discussion centered on the delay in Pink Book production. HQ is out of books, has 300 backorder and a number of sections complained in the section survey that missing books were hampering their contest flying. The Board spent considerable effort trying to better assess the likelihood of an "on time" completion by the Contest Board's mid February date. After considering several options, the Board directed the president to contact C&R and assess the status, then tap into alternate resources if that would help speed the production. A contest flyer survey generated about 20 % returns by the meeting date. The final results need some statistical analysis done before any conclusions can be drawn. Ed LaCroix, who assisted in the survey construction, thought that would be done for distribution by mid February. Minor items underway include a forms revision, being worked on by Kevin Funk, continued points standings publication (recent updates were hampered by a hard disk crash), and some referrals from members regarding rules changes. Finally, improved contest coverage in Sport Rocketry will be discussed with NAR Editor Tom Beach. INSURANCE REVIEW - At the President's request, and based on member inputs prior to the meeting, the Board reviewed the NAR's insurance program. Problems result from membership and insurance coverage terminating at different times. John Viggiano suggested creating a "alignment renewal option" where members be offered an opportunity to synch up their membership and insurance. Members would pay additional amounts at insurance renewal to extend their membership. This would make HQ processing somewhat lumpy, our current software doesn't handle this, and we'd have to do a better job of cash management. We'll examining this option during the HQ processing system rewrite. Ed Tindell asked the Board to investigate methods that would allow individual members a chance to insure a site. Our current policy doesn't allow for this, and a rewrite would be required before any action could be taken. It is highly unlikely SFA would allow this. The Board asked the president to create a task force to pursue some additional insurance investigation. In particular, directors and officers coverage (D&O) was discussed. Various Board and NAR members have contacts which will be forwarded to Mark Bundick who will recruit the task force members and get the ball rolling. Meeting ends 11:02 PM Saturday night SUNDAY January 15 - MEETING BEGINS at 8:55 AM SECTION ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE - The Board first gave a big "thank you" and "atta boy" to Steve Decker, Section Activities Committee (SAC) Chairman. Steve's been hard at work since NARAM, and injected lots of energy into a formerly dead committee. A review of the process for section charter renewal notices led to the establishment of a November 1 deadline for mailing them to sections. Some discussion of the fairness of the $40 section charter fee, where sections who get insured have $30 applied to insurance, and those who do not get insured are charged $30 extra for something they do not receive. Trip Barber moves: "For those sections which do not require or need section insurance, to reduce the charter fee from $40 to $10. [to not charge those uninsured sections an extra $30 that is used for those sections which do get insurance]." Ed LaCroix seconds Pat Miller adds an amendment: "Require that whatever the price [for non-insured sections] is set, that the fee we charge the sections is no less than $1 more than it actually costs to serve that section." LaCroix seconds Miller adds further: "In addition, we direct the SAC chairman to assess what the cost of uninsured sections is administratively to the organization and report back to the board at its [NARAM] meeting." The amended motion above passed unanimously. >From suggestions posed by members and passed on to Steve Decker, discussion of the need for having a "senior advisor" in addition to a president if the president is of legal age. The old senior advisor position was created long ago when many sections comprised of a much younger membership than often seen today, at a time when a section president might be relatively young, thus a senior advisor made more sense than now. Trip Barber moves: "[Revise the NAR section requirements so that ] the NAR section senior advisor need not be elected or appointed so long as the section president is a senior member of the NAR." seconded by Bob Alway Pat Miller offers an amendment: "This individual then [also] serves the role of senior advisor in a sense that this person is the one who will be receiving all of the appropriate material from Headquarters." Amendment accepted Amended motion passed unanimously The Board agreed with a SAC policy on duplication of section name acronyms (to politely ask new sections that duplicate current section names to alter them. I.E. "MARS"). The Section Survey results pointed to a need for increased communications with sections and members. The Board asked SAC to continue its quarterly newsletter production and asked Steve to make sure the word got out on our alternate month newsletter. Mark Bundick proposed meeting with Section advisors for dinner at NARAM. At this informal session, he and other Board members could discuss in detail section needs, concerns and ideas and generate some interchange where new sections would benefit from older officers experience. A national network of "section consultants" could result which would make it easier for SAC and new sections to provide good assistance to fledgling clubs. Members who wrote in advance of the meeting regarding section issues will be invited to attend and join the group as well. Mark will coordinate such a meeting with Steve and the NARAM 37 folks thru Trip. SAC's plan to update the Section Manual, a project which no previous Committee Chairman, including the current NAR President, has been able to finish, was enthusiastically supported by the Board. Trip Barber, Trustee Liaison to SAC will assist in preparing materials covering regulatory issues. The Board asked Trip and Steve to make sure we got the resources SAC needed to do this job and to holler if they didn't think they had them. A proposal to create a "Section of the Year" award was floated, such an award to be based on more than the current competition points system. The Board asked Steve to review ideas, and make a specific proposal by NARAM for such an award with the clear understanding that it is to be in addition to, not as a replacement for, the current Section Championship. The Board also reviewed comments by Steve regarding a "targeted mailing" done to clusters of adult NAR members across the country where there are NOT any sections currently operating. While Steve had some concerns about the effectiveness of this program, the Board suggested it be continued until a better handle on results could be obtained. Jon Rains is to be thanked for for finding software that would make this task simpler. EDUCATION COMMITTEE - Due to Gary Howard's move from Texas to Colorado, no action could be taken on any Education committee items. To be followed up in time for NARAM meeting. MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE - Jon Rains delivered some preliminary thoughts to the Board regarding the proposed "associate membership" class. This would be a low cost membership that would not deliver a magazine or the NAR newsletter to such members, but would provide a one time packet of materials that could be easily used by school, club and scout groups. We envision a price of $5- 10 for the packet, and selling such memberships principally in a group setting, and not necessarily via the kit stuffer program. Considerable discussion went into the merits of providing a simple kit. Pricing and delivery of such kits would be the principal barriers to doing the kit. Also needing development by Jon are the NAR message in the packets, how to best support the group leader needing the memberships, additional materials in the packet and how to allow such members to upgrade to full NAR memberships if they want to pay the extra money. The Board also asked Jon to consider reconstructing our statistical membership tracking, and to work with Pat Miller on an experimental program to modify our kit stuffers. This program will probably be done thru Quest Aerospace to start with. Meeting ends for a short break at 10:52 AM, Meeting resumes at 11:15 AM BUDGET - After reviewing all committee reports and requests, the 1995 budget was worked on. All items were put up on a blackboard for review, with some changes made as needed to achieve the desired budget total. Pat Miller moves : "The newsletter budget [as shown on the blackboard at that time] be reduced to $8,000 and the remainder of the budget be approved as listed" seconded by Trip Barber And amendment was made and accepted that should the $1000 allocated for the Quest kit stuffer not be required (i.e. Quest do it for free), that the $100 go to the newsletter. Amended motion passed unanimously The budget as approved is listed below: Alternate Newsletter $ 8,000 Marie COLA (HQ Services) 400 NARAM Awards 500 McNabb Trip 500 Pink Book 2,000 NARAM range equipment 750 SAC (Section Activities Comm.) 500 Quest Kit Stuffer 1,000 RCHTA Membership 100 Video 250 ===================================== Total Allocations $14,000 Buffer $3,301 Buffer Percentage 19.1% Meeting takes a short break at 12:22 PM Meeting resumes at 12:32 PM STANDARD & TESTING COMMITTEE (S&T) - The Board reviewed a 5 page report including many member submitted items. George Gassaway suggested that proposed safety code changes for radio controlled rocket gliders (RCRG's) needed input from experienced RC flyers, there being a lack of R/C experience within S&T itself. Mark Bundick was asked to follow up on standards for thrust curve turnaround to manufacturers, and notification of canceled test sessions, to improve communications. Vern Estes provided additional background on thrust stand upgrades and HPR test stand construction. Pat Miller suggested some work be done on reformatting the Safety Code for simplified used by general consumers. NARAM COMMITTEE - NARAM activities were only briefly reviewed due to no actionable items being on committee chairman Trip Barber's report, save for an allocation to support special NARAM awards like the Galloway (approved as part of the budget allocation motion). Both NARAM and NSL planning are going well, and members should enjoy excellent events in both locations. PRESIDENT'S REPORT - The president presented a 6 page report on his work that included 7 items he classified as "major" and 6 as "minor". Mark reported a workload that average between 100 and 120 e-mail message per week, numerous faxes and a quadrupled phone bill since July. For the next 6 months, pending Sport Rocket contract completion, he will be focusing on HQ automation and process improvements, NARAM sessions with both Committee chairs and Section Advisors, continued membership communication improvements, and volunteer recruitment. Mark also warned the Board about new professional commitments that might sap his time in the fall. INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS - Deferred to NARAM due to lack of time. Some informal discussions occurred at dinner Saturday evening between Mark Bundick, Trip Barber, Pat Miller, Vern Estes, and George Gassaway. January meeting concluded at 1:35 PM Sunday. The next meeting of the NAR board will be just prior to the start of NARAM-37, in Geneseo, New York. Respectfully submitted, George Gassaway, NAR Secretary _________________________________________________________________ Copyright c 1995 by the National Association of Rocketry. All rights reserved. These minutes may be copied for use and dissemination among NAR members, including quotations, publication in section newsletters, or uploads to electronic bulletin boards, if printed or posted with this copyright notice. Distribution in any other form by other parties, including commercial publications is not allowed without the written permission of the National Association of Rocketry. Official copies of these minutes are maintained by the NAR Secretary and available from NAR Technical Services (NARTS).