Thank you for reaching out to me and asking me for my opinion. Shortly after joining NAFA in the fall of 2008 I received my first and only copy of NAFA's newsletter. To say it was a real turn-off is an understatement. It reaked of disfunction and discontent. My reaction to it was "do I really want to be associated with this organization", and decided right there and then that when the time came, I wasn't going to renew my membership. Since then, I've read all of the comments NAFEX members have made made on this forum about NAFA. The consensus seems to be that the NAFA Board is a closed minded group that has no respect for nor does it make much of an effort to communicate with the membership. The other thing that I came away from reading NAFEX Members' comments is that there are a lot of special interest groups out there with loud voices, and therefore it's very important for falconers to belong to an
organization that can represent their common interests otherwise they run the risk of
having others control the future of falconry.
With respect to what NAFA would have to do to demonstrate to me that it is a functioning and worthwhile group, a good start would be improving communications by embracing the offer I think that Chris L. made to NAFA for NAFEX's website to be NAFA's surrogate website.
With respect to what I see as the most important challenge facing falconry, without a doubt, it's the animal rights activists don't get their way.
FYI, the NAFEX members' comments about the need for falconers to belong to an organization to give them a voice has resulted in my deciding that in the near future I will either become a member of the American Falconry Conservancy or revisiting my NAFA decision.
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