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  • Concerning AOF Election

    To All Present, Past, and Future Members of AOF

    As you can see from Hydroracer, an election will take place in AOF that is vital to the life of AOF.

    Please take this election seriously. I was the Executive Director of AOF for many years and I am sure that during that time I probably made a lot of you sick with my promotion of the Federation. I just couldn’t help myself, because being involved with the inner workings of AOF, I could see so many advantages. I just wanted to shout it to the world. I finally came to realize that AOF was just one of the great organizations for boat racing out there. We have the giant, APBA, the innovative NBRA, the grounded blue collar AOF, and many many wildcat or “independent” (more than you might think) boat racing organizations out there. AOF is just best at what it is, not what the others are.

    I retired as AOF Executive Director a few years ago, and have tried to stay out of politics. This election has brought me back, if for nothing else, but to give my opinions.

    First, my kudos to all who have been involved in the government of AOF. It is a thankless volunteer job. I know each of the officers and have great respect and admiration for them. Some have given it there all. In my opinion, some have not.

    The day-to-day activities of the organization are to be run by the President and Executive Director, and run according to the AOF mission statement. For whatever reason, I do not believe that the business of AOF has been conducted to the best of it’s potential. Without going into detail, I know for a fact that there hasn’t been a legal election for 3 years. There hasn’t been enough communication. Some members have been treated so badly by the present Executive Director, that they even stopped payment on all funds to AOF after an Eastern Championship. Points were not accepted for some races. Records that were set in AOF had to be fought for. I mean, letter after letter sent to try to get a record accepted by the national office, and yet today, the records are not acknowledged on the AOF website.

    There has been such shoddy record keeping (in my opinion anyway), that I have heard from people who say they got a membership card and they hadn’t joined for 3 years. Others have told me that they joined, and either their check was never cashed, or that they never received a card.

    Literally no one received a ballot for voting by October 1 as the rulebook states any of the last 3 years. And to top it off, how do we get in contact with the AOF national office. Where is it? As far as I know, it has been changed 3 times, at least. OK, the Executive Director moved. How hard is it to send out a notice of a new address? Or, how hard would it have been to set up a PO Box or something with all mail transferred to that? No one should have to track down the office of AOF. The President informed me that if there was a problem, why wasn’t he informed? How do you find his number. Oh, yeah, I know, it’s on the quarterly newsletter---NOT.
    Several of those who did call him, including me, did not get a return call. And believe me, if there is a fan of the AOF President, it is me. I love him. He is a great guy. Sometimes great guys don’t make great presidents.

    With no legal elections, there has also not been a legal national meeting for the last 3 years. How did anything get done with no legal meeting? What is a legal meeting? A legal meeting is one in which all members were informed when and where it is being held. There are AOF Directors who have not had a vote for 3 years. Does the present Administration or Executive Director ever read the rulebook? Before a nationals or national meeting can be approved, ALL of the Racing Commission has to have a vote to approve it. Hey, no one ever disapproves of it, because no one else wants to do it, but those are our rules.
    What about this year, I hear from Hydroracer that AOF is having a nationals in Moses Lake and a national meeting in Moses Lake. How come the Racing Commission did not approve them, and are they legal? Just some food for thought, and Oh, well, the points haven’t been counted correctly for the last 3 years anyway, so what does it does it really mean to be a high point, record holder, or national champion in AOF these days anyway.

    In the last few weeks I have had some conversations with several members of State Line of Spokane. This is a very active club with several AOF officers as members. They are my friends and I have lots of respect for them. However, a lot of the country, including myself, felt that there was a conspiracy by these officers to “take over” the organization. In our eyes, all we saw was that they were running the show and everyone else was being ignored. After speaking with them, I now have a whole different perspective. It seems that they were under the impression that no one else in the country cared enough to contribute. What they did not know, is that the rest of the country was getting absolutely no response from the national office, or for that matter couldn’t even FIND the national office! This was all the fault of poor or lack of communication from the AOF national office.

    Let me ask anyone in AOF to list the present AOF officers, or better yet, list the AOF Racing Commission. My guess is that 9 out of 10 cannot do that. Let me go a little bit further and ask on what page of the rulebook are the election dates. My guess is that in the last 4 years, 9 of 10 haven’t even gotten a rulebook! What, if anything, may I ask has our Executive Director been doing? Carl Staron took it upon himself to send an application to all of the Lifetime Members and Hall of Famers in AOF so that he could update his records. Guess what, he had no problem getting returned applications from them. (99% responded). Why did our national office have so much trouble with communication?

    To be a good leader in AOF one must first understand the organization, and believe in it. Leaders then have a first responsibility to AOF, not their local club, or their own agenda. Our leaders need to look at “what is best for AOF as a whole, not just what is best for their region or club. That is probably one of the most difficult aspects of being a national officer. But, it is imperative.

    The present and new officers are going to find themselves in that position a lot in the next year if AOF is to get back on track. We have finally established that there is a problem. From those that I have talked to, there is a willingness to fix the problem. Now it is time to put all personal and regional agendas aside and be NATIONAL officers thinking only what is best for AOF.
    None of us can lose sight of the fact that AOF is a national organization and all must work together to keep AOF alive.

    Remember this, where else can a club go to put on a week end race for around $500? If AOF dies, so does the non-profit standing and the insurance, the sanctions, history, etc, that goes with that incorporation.

    I am pleased that we have guys like Bobby and Carl who are stepping up to the plate in this public forum to announce their intentions. Heaven knows what would have happened if they had sent their resumes to the national office. My guess is that you wouldn’t have even heard they were running. That has been the story for the last 3 years.

    Way to go and good luck to AOF
    Connie Payn, RETIRED AOF Executive Director

  • #2
    So is there an AOF Website that is currently working? We are also effected by the lack of record keeping. Becky won the East Coast Nationals at lake Apthorpe in 2007 & 2009 for the JH class and she has not received anything from AOF HQ. Carl has tried and tried to help to no avail with the current admin. He was however able to get her Record Certificate from 2007. I would like to see her get what she earned. She is very disheartened (at 13 years old) with the AOF organization, she only continues to go to Lake Apthorpe to get as much race time as she can, support Carl and Highlands Outboard, and help get new members into the sport. She has helped get at least 5 over the past 3 years.

    We support change!!

    B. LAWS FOR PRESIDENT

    C. STARON FOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
    444-B now 4-F
    Avatar photo credit - F. Pierce Williams

    Comment


    • #3
      The link works, but I tried to get in contact with the national office through that site and any other email address that I have. They all come back.
      We need a membership list to verify members, but I am not positive we will get it. Fortunately some of the founding fathes of AOF, those who are the main directors on the incorporation papers, are attorneys. They are also working on the issue. Normally you would get a ballot by October 1. Not sure what we are going to do this year if we don't get that information. We will wait on their call.
      Connie

      Comment


      • #4
        Sometimes,what comes around,goes around. Huh! Connie Tony
        Art K

        Comment


        • #5
          Exactly

          But luckily I'm retired, and so is Tony. Carl and Bobby were just using tony's email to post sinc they don't have one.

          Comment


          • #6
            I'm Confused & Disappointed in these Recent AOF Threads

            OK. So I attended the AOF Nats in 2006 at Moses Lake and the AOF National Meeting that year, and the only person I recognized at those events from somewhere other than the Northwest racing clubs was Tony. I thought Tony did a great job at the 2006 AOF Nats. Tony laid down very strict safety rules, which we followed to the best of our ability. There were podium award ceremonies like UIM or at the USTS/APBA Depue PRO races. Where were all of these other "State Directors" from AOF? The race was fully advertised on HR! Don't these people have a computer to communicate with and read FREE advertised notifications (thanks to Lawrence, Teresa, & Mike)? I did not see squat anyplace on the Internet about the results of the next year's AOF Nationals Race.

            The first website that looked fairly professional for AOF was established about three years ago. The prior AOF website was no more than a bookmark title home page with cheap looking ad headline and sidebar banners -- in my view it had no valuable use to me (and I never saw it updated after I found it via a web link.) The only communication I saw or received was from Connie, and no one else who has entered this fray...as far as I knew, Connie was the entire AOF Executive Board before the current AOF Board was established. The rest of you can see my email address on HR and contact me at any time -- I use my nickname (actually my first name is Alan) and my given surname, not some "handle" or abstract abbreviation.

            I asked for an AOF rulebook from the AOF Office and received a PDF file of it. I asked for a copy of the event insurance policy format and coverage descriptions and got electronic copies of them right away. I received race forms and records sheets via email attachments if I requested them. I asked for help setting up a race, the AOF Executives last year bent over backwards to help me when I called them. I admit email messages have not been well managed, but the phone calls worked.

            I have never received a confirmation of AOF non-profit entity status (the only non-profit certification that usually gets you corporate donations from national companies like WalMart is with the IRS issued number.) You can be non-profit in a state of founding incorporation, but AOF will not be recognized nationally as a non-profit until it qualifies with the IRS.

            I was AOF West Coast Outboard Racing's race director for the first AOF/WCOR race sanction west of the Cascade Mountains in Washington. I had full AOF head office support. There was not one email message to me from the other states that you have mentioned in this post or any of these founding fathers. Diane Murray helped quite a bit -- if Diane can contact me from NY, where were the rest of you? There seems to be a west coast and east coast/midwest AOF culture (somewhat "mirrored" in APBA regions).

            I would love to race my PRO hydro in places like Oklahoma, Ohio, Minnesota, or Texas, but I never hear of an AOF race in any of those states. Why do I always need to travel over 2,000 miles to Florida or Louisiana to race outside the Pacific Northwest?

            Why would I vote for someone who must use someone else's email or HR account to send me a message? Why can't they just establish their own account on HR?

            The only way I saw any of this diatribe was while I was looking through HR tonight. This is 2009, not 1967. I need info via email, AOF website "blog" postings, and/or official "snail mail" from the existing AOF Office of any proposed changes to the organization & balloting process, not some wild posts on HR.

            I will not join AOF again until you other folks quit using HR like this and quit acting like bulls running through a composite boat builder's jig shop. You want more attention and change, contact the AOF website manager like I did and have him help you post your change proposals to your heart's desire. Propose real change descriptions and operations process improvements through letters to the AOF Home Office and the rest of us out here instead of spouting off a lot of titles of things to fix -- then, and only then, you will get my attention.

            If you can't propose a NATIONAL race program that draws people from both of these coastal subcultures, then you will still have poor turnout in many regions. Think about promoting a new AOF race venue with boat racing class structures like the Go-kart and Motorcycle racing circuits operate (such as Novice, Intermediate, Professional Stock/Mod, Professional GP Outboard, and Supersport [flat-bottom Ski] Boat) and you will get some attention from me. Otherwise you can have the best home office people and processes ever, and still mediocre(sp?) support from the regional and national grass roots racers.

            Al Peffley
            250ccH/F-250 PRO Hydro Driver
            Last edited by Al Peffley; 09-23-2009, 10:16 PM. Reason: typo

            Comment


            • #7
              Alan

              I am not sure what you are wanting here. AOF is a organization designed to keep the fun in and the politics out. The founding fathers are no longer invovlved with the organization, this is why you have not heard from them. like you said, this is not 1967....... that should be a clue.

              If you change what AOF is doing right now, your cost structure is going to skyrocket as well.

              You may want to talk to a few of the old AOF members and the story might become more clear as to what happened.

              To get more races in your area, someone has to get them, it is not the organization that is going to do it. All it takes is for ANY club to join AOF and then sanction their event as an AOF event. It is as simple as that. The same goes for any other organization. Some race sites require more insurance than AOF provides, some don't. Same is true for the other organizations.
              Dave Mason
              Just A Boat Racer

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Howie Nichols View Post
                So is there an AOF Website that is currently working? We are also effected by the lack of record keeping. Becky won the East Coast Nationals at lake Apthorpe in 2007 & 2009 for the JH class and she has not received anything from AOF HQ. Carl has tried and tried to help to no avail with the current admin. He was however able to get her Record Certificate from 2007. I would like to see her get what she earned. She is very disheartened (at 13 years old) with the AOF organization, she only continues to go to Lake Apthorpe to get as much race time as she can, support Carl and Highlands Outboard, and help get new members into the sport. She has helped get at least 5 over the past 3 years.

                We support change!!

                B. LAWS FOR PRESIDENT

                C. STARON FOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
                Come to think of it I won 102SH in 07 and 09 at Lake Placid and never got anything either. It is okay for an older guy like me, but not good for the kids not to get recognized.
                Last edited by DougMc; 09-24-2009, 03:09 PM.

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