Contact your NAFA director before Thursday 21 July 16
This Thursday (July 21) the NAFA board will be considering a proposal by directors Chavez and Thomas (also supported by Joe Kosakowski) to give free on line (paper free) associate memberships to apprentices.
I think it is vital to the future of NAFA and falconry that we bring new apprentices into the fold and offer them the chance to see what NAFA is all about. There are too many of them (and frankly 1 is too many) who only hear the opinion of their sponsor that NAFA is an old-boy club so don't get involved because it is a waste of your money. If we wish to have a voice in political issues (eagle take, peregrine take, etc) going forward our numbers need to grow.
Doing so would cost NAFA very little since the paper free delivery incurs no actual expenses. The only thing we lose is the potential dues from apprentices who may have joined and paid. If they are going to embrace falconry on a continuing basis we will start collecting dues after 2 years anyway.
I would also encourage you to press your directors to go one step further. I think we need to offer reduced price (and possibly free) memberships to full time students. I think we all agree that encouraging people to take advantage of whatever educational opportunities might be available but doing so costs a boat load of money. My daughter just graduated last year so I am well aware of what it costs. Let's help them out and let them at least continue to read HC even if they don't have time to fly a bird while they are in school.
I know there will be those who said "I paid my own NAFA membership when I was an apprentice or while I was in school". Great. Good for you. So did I. The point is that we want to bring and keep as many falconers in NAFA as possible. This is not a test of how much they can handle. If they want to do that they can walk 20 miles to school and back in 4 feet of snow with rags wrapped around their feet up hill both ways.
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