Quote Originally Posted by goshawkr View Post
I dont think the electoral college analagy applies here very well. Although my understanding is the the board appointed president was a check against hostile control by anti-falconry sorts coming from outside. If so, that seems silly to me because there is no check against a majority of the board being made up of anti-falconry sorts.

What has happened in the not so distant past is for crony control occur, because the board knew which good ole boy should be appointed despite what the peasant membership might think of the chap. That has not been a problem recently, thankfully. But I have been told that it was so bad in the 80s (a bit before my time in NAFA) that it nearly caused the collapse of NAFA, and likely set up the events that lead to the schism that eventually lead to the creation of the AFC.
Geoff,
That was the logic I had while wearing my no direct say in who is at the helm hat. It was a heated argument. Not sure which of my personalities won.

There was a time when I first joined NAFA when I really didn't think that anyone running the show was interested in what an apprentice with a redtail was doing
or any other dirt hawker for that matter. The picture I was painting in my head was cigar chomping good old boys with big long wings driving large new SUV's with
leather seats and wearing custom Gokey boots. (Yes, I do have a good imagination but I don't think I was far off)

I do not however feel that the formation of AFC had a lot to do with that since AFC doesn't do much except get involved in politics. As a disclaimer, I also joined
AFC and was a member for a number of years.

NAFA is not perfect however I had a lot of reservations about the way AFC goes about things. I am not saying that I disagree with all of their ideas but they
are simply way too confrontational. I am not above becoming confrontational but from the day I joined I got the impression that being confrontational was
Plan A with them and I believe you should exhaust other means before going that route.

I joined AFC because I felt that supporting another organization that was supposed to be supporting falconry was a good idea. I left because I felt that
AFC was actually pursuing a political philosophy within the microcosm of falconry regulations and that doing so while purporting to be about falconry
was misleading.