March 07 National Board Meeting Live Web Stream

[Major_Chuck]

Fifty year members get membership with no annual dues. However it has to be fifty years of CONTINOUS membership. Take a break in membership and the fity years you were a dues paying member don't count. So many members take a break after burning out on projects or duty assignments and let membership drop. So if you were a member for firty years and dropped out for two years and come back for another ten years, only those ten years count towards the fifty. National Board says they will lose to much money by dropping the word continous from the regulation.

That sounds like a cop-out on NHQ's part.

Seriously, how many people actually make it to 50 years' total service?

To be honest, how many people want to put up with the BS for 50 years?  I know several that are at 55 plus years.

[fyrfitrmedic]

Fifty year members get membership with no annual dues. However it has to be fifty years of CONTINOUS membership. Take a break in membership and the fity years you were a dues paying member don't count. So many members take a break after burning out on projects or duty assignments and let membership drop. So if you were a member for firty years and dropped out for two years and come back for another ten years, only those ten years count towards the fifty. National Board says they will lose to much money by dropping the word continous from the regulation.

That sounds like a cop-out on NHQ's part.

Seriously, how many people actually make it to 50 years' total service?

To be honest, how many people want to put up with the BS for 50 years?  I know several that are at 55 plus years.

I know a few myself. How much of a drain can they -really- put on NHQ?

Hell, they can't even be bothered to send out more than one copy of Volunteer per family, and I've had a different address than other family/CAP members for a while.

[A.Member]

Hell, they can't even be bothered to send out more than one copy of Volunteer per family, and I've had a different address than other family/CAP members for a while.

A bit off-topic...

That makes me chuckle a bit.  At a time when many other publications are moving to electronic formats, what do we do?  Create a nice glossy magazine for distribution to all members. 

Don't get me wrong, generally speaking it is done nicely and I do prefer hardcopy...but c'mon.   We somehow survived 65 years without it.  Maybe it'd be better to just keep the downloadable version on the website (although I'm sure far fewer would make the effort to read it).  We always seem to talk about needing money, yet, we come up with this?  I don't know what it costs to publish Volunteer but if we've got enough money for this, perhaps National has enough money to pay for all our patches for the uniform changes they want to implement?

[RiverAux]

The Volunteer was possibly the best thing (other than the lives saved) that CAP probably did in all of 2006.  There is usually at least one or two articles each issue that really make me feel good about being in CAP.  Never got that feeling from the boring old CAP News. 

[A.Member]

The Volunteer was possibly the best thing (other than the lives saved) that CAP probably did in all of 2006.  There is usually at least one or two articles each issue that really make me feel good about being in CAP.  Never got that feeling from the boring old CAP News. 

I agree.  Volunteer is done very nicely.  That wasn't really my point.

[DrJbdm]

I think they could have come up with a better name for it then Volunteer. that just sounds too cheesy. But I agree, it's a very well put together magazine. beats the old CAP news hands down.

[Major_Chuck]

Kind of way off topic but I'll toss my opinion of the Volunteer out here anyways.

Great publication.  Informative but focused too heavily on Cadets and the Cadet Program.  Lacks some balance but that is my two cents.