2026 Nationals meeting topic

[RandallCox]

Greetings, all. 

I was in attendance at the general meeting on Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026.  One of the topics raised by the President, John Noack, is the lack of participation in members voting. Not reaching a specific number for a quorum makes it difficult to get changes passed and moving the organization forward. 

One idea of his was to lower the threshold of required votes to "pass" a ballot measure. 

I think this is not the best way to achieve the goal.  Lowering the number required places the organization at peril to a small, but motivated group, to hijack the aims and purpose of IPMS/USA. 

One way to get a higher level of participation is to allow the President of each chartered club to gather the proxy of each of their members.  This would keep the opportunity for less than noble efforts to a minimum.  

 

Randall Cox, 8068

[dmorrissette]

Hi Randall:

Interesting idea but since most club members are not IPMS members, they are not allowed to vote so sorting that out would probably be an issue. Participation in issues/votes/running for office or even bidding on the Nationals has always been an issue

 

Dave

[ghodges]

This is indeed as they say a "sticky wicket"! I'm approaching my 50th year as an IPMSUSA member and getting members to VOTE has ALWAYS been a problem. Part of it stems from our members being willing to let others do the work for them in their clubs and thus they don't view themselves as needing to be more active or interactive locally and especially nationally. And then, even if they do intend to vote, it often just slips by the wayside until it's too late to do so.

However, I do think it's a problem that WE can more easily solve than ever before.

1) I know (according to the business meeting at the NATS) that IPMSUSA is about to "revamp" its website. I HOPE THAT INCLUDES A MORE OBVIOUS AND EASIER WAY FOR MEMBERS TO LOG ON AND IN! The current system, while it certainly works, just isn't that easy to find and not "intuitive" enough. Also, if you're a Chapter Contact like myself you have to be sure you're not signing in as "the club" instead of yourself. Making it easier to sign on/in is the first step to making it easier to casting a vote on line, where it's now done for the most part.

2) IPMSUSA STILL NEEDS TO INCLUDE PRE-POSTAGE PAID PAPER BALLOT POST CARDS for the members. This IS an added expense, but if you put it in the FRONT of the Journal (not bury it in the middle) with a large add page immediately behind it that says "TEAR OUT AND VOTE NOW" (and make the card RED!) as well as that page also saying "throwing this card away WASTES IPMSUSA's money which might cause a dues increase- SO VOTE!!!"; more members are more likely to vote than in the past. The members will not be able to open that Journal without having to page past it. If they still tear it out and throw it away...... then that's on them.  IPMSUSA needs to remember that as a graying Society, we have many members who just will not want to go on line, log in, and vote electronically. If you want THE MOST VOTES, we MUST include a way for those members to do so easily.

3) Continue to use the Wild Apricot system to mail voting reminders to the CCs which can be forwarded to the club members. Do it once a month early on and every couple of weeks the last couple of months.

4) HAVE AN IPMSUSA VOTING MONTH! We now have LAPTOPS that can be taken to our club meetings. IPMSUSA should promote that each club have someone bring in a laptop to one of the club meetings THAT month and the club use part of their meeting time letting the local IPMSUSA members log in on it and VOTE! This may catch a few more votes and who knows, might even perk the interest of some non-members (who are being excluded) in wanting to join so they CAN participate.

There may be more ideas that will help, but those are the first off the top of my head. 

It will STILL be like pulling teeth..... Most of our members didn't join to be a part of running anything or to be "political"; they just want to be a part of hanging around other modelers with the same interests and/or they wanted the Journal. We can certainly appeal to their "sense of duty", but then again that's never been a real vote prompter in the past so it'll take more than that going forward. I think some of my suggestions put it more "in their face" and hopefully lessen the chances of simply overlooking and forgetting to vote.

Lastly, I AM NOT FOR LOWERING OR CHANGING THE CURRENT VOTING QUORUM REQUIREMENTS. As pointed out above, it puts IPMSUSA at greater risk of a very small minority hijacking the Society for its own uses. I would remind everyone that we JUST barely avoided that only a couple years ago and we do not want to set the table for any others in the future by making their efforts easier to accomplish!

 

Gil 

#10803