SW Montana Newb

[DHClark76]

John, I appreciate your question regarding the difference between business meetings and other type meetings and whether or not those meetings are limited to the membership. But since I've received three different invitations between this forum and one other, and because I'm interested in observing and possibility joining, I hope you are wrong. Particularly since this type of joint event seems like an ideal forum for prospective members to get a broad view of how the MFA operates at both a business and social level. Also because, personally, I'd be hesitant to join any group, from Rotary to the local theater group, to the MFA, unless I had a chance to get a sense of how they handled business officially and how they socialized informally.

So, in conclusion... I'm certainly not offended at all by your question... but for the sake of my own curiosity and interests, I also hope that no one is offended if I show up and it turns out that the three invitations I received were not "official".

[Montucky]

Falconry Associations represent a very unique minority sportsman group that is very vulnerable to misinterpretation , so these clubs have been historically careful about what is shared to non-members to help protect the sport. Joining these clubs even at an associate level, is also a signal to the community that you are serious about moving forward and helps attract a sponsor. Unlike many other civic orgs that have a lot of overlap with each other in their mission, there really is no alternative orgs in falconry circles. So each state club is the defacto leader in protecting legal falconry in that state, joining the state-level club is an important step. Just some background....

[DHClark76]

Thank you for the insight John. I didn't intend to be critical and I hope it didn't come off that way. I can certainly understand and appreciate that there are certain elements of the Association's business that are best kept at the membership level. In the end, my only real concern would be, I wouldn't want people to get the impression that I was attempting to crash their activity or force my way in...because that's definitely not a way to ingratiate one's self to those whose approval and acceptance you hope to gain. But also, it seems irresponsible to say "hey, I really wanna be a part of this association" without having a reasonably broad even if only basic understanding of what "this association" entails.

So... the plan right now is that I'm gonna come bearing a couple of items for the raffle, as was suggested by two of the inviters. And we'll be there with the understanding that we are only prospective members and our participation may be limited to reflect that. Frankly, at this point, if all we're able to do is to briefly introduce ourselves to folks and hopefully secure an invitation to another future event, I think we'll be happy with that.