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Two questions.
1)How did Bruce second the previous minutes when he not recorded as either present or absent?
2)What happened to the sending out of the electric rules? Have not seen that.
I have also a query on moving 'open' class records to the appropriate class. How do you determine what that class was? That should always be determined and checked at the time of the run. To do it retrospectively can mean things can be recorded wrongly or lies told! Especially as running as 'open' the max battery capacity allowed is greater, so for example a Q mono may do a time in it's class but as open mono it can carry more battery capacity, run a faster time but does not qualify for the class! This make it unreasonable to remove the records, they should stand as they are but close it to any further attempts, or leave it status quo. Or are you going to just wipe out the efforts?

15 more! This was my expressed concern going back 10+ years, nothing has changed.

I would be interested if someone could work out the ratio of 'current members per class' or should it be 'classes per current members'.

Perhaps so you can understand. One of the complaints for a number of years has been, "there are too many classes". As best as possible this has been rationalised to give a good spread and options of classes for people to build to.
I am not opposed to more FE, quite the opposite, it is just the reality is that;
1)There has been a long standing negative attitude towards electrics, I know as I have copped a fair bit of crap.
2)Making more classes at this time dilutes down the little there is.
I get the theory that more more classes may attract a bigger membership, but the reality is that that is not the answer to that problem.
Why should members be made to feel like they are wrong to ask these questions? Why do you feel "cold" because the actions of the committee are questioned? It is all part of living in a free country is it not? The bigger problems are a lack of transparency and communication.
What could be hard to understand regarding more electric classes, is why not one person on the committee has talked to the one person that has been running electrics and doing their best to promote them for several years. I know that the majority of the committee know little about FE, and some could care less, that I have heard from their own mouths. So can you answer me that question?

After letting this thread run for a while to see where it was heading its time for my 2 cents worth.
Post #1 Mr Electric.

Question 1 It is a typo error but really is that such a big deal that needs raising on this forum.

Question 2 The rule changes have not been sent as there was a typo in the rules above that needed correcting and that was done in the June meeting then once the minutes are approved in the july meeting and the secretary gets time they will be sent out however as you are already commenting on these and any of our membership who view the minutes already have an idea of what is proposed.

As to how I determine what the class was well that is quite easy. I've been the records officer longer than you have been a member of our association and whenever anyone claims a record they or the regatta organiser sends me the data required on the record claim form and I have records of all of them. If some one has lied with their application then they are cheating on them selves as well as us but I reckon I will get things pretty close. in say that are you telling me you ran more than 6000Mah batteries when you set the open electric mono and hydro records. You can e-mail me your answer if you wish.

Post #3 Peter. 15 new classes are what is needed to align us with the rest of the world.

Go Back to when we joined the association. It was very young and those that had got together to form our organisation aligned our racing with NAVIGA and the UK as some had been following what was going on in the UK and had been liaising with boaters over there thus decided to follow them as a starting point for our organisation. All mono racing was anticlockwise and hydro clockwise on the triangle!!!!!

In the early 80's we started getting the American influence with oval being introduced scale hydro etc and from then on us, Aussie and most of the world have been led by what develops in the States. In those early days it was nitro that prevailed with a splattering of gas thrown in. then we saw the gas revolution develop over there and we all followed with the same or similar classes that they run.

All our racing is now American based with anticlockwise racing history as we know.

in the mid 90's the electric revolution began as technology with batteries, speed controllers and motors really took off and from 2000 to 2004 speeds for example rocketed from 80mph to 140mph in the top end hydro battery class and now its 180mph.

We have had a few dabble in electrics through the years and a few names spring to mind like Murray bold, Bruce Watt, Wayne McNaught, Grant Binns and the late Ken Rose to name a few, and they had to work with NiCad Batteries. Since the development of lipo batteries Mr Electric has been the main proponent in electric and his contribution does not go un recognised.

As he pointed out above there has been a "long standing negative attitude towards electrics, I know as I have copped a lot of crap"

The way I see this is they are either plain ignorant of electrics, or genuinely just not interested in electrics or he has just plain rubbed people up the wrong way to get this reaction.

We have 3 facets to our sport. Circuit racing, SAW (straight away)racing, and 2 lap oval time trials. So when rule or classes are introduced or changed you have to consider all 3 aspects. Some of our members are only interested in circuit racing, some only interested in SAW racing and others interested in 2 lap oval and then you have those interested in a combination of the 3 or all 3. ( I fall into the latter).

All kits and hulls available in the market are based on what goes on in the USA, they are readily available and people are buying them.

I firmly believe this will be the last major lot of class rules that will ever need to be introduced into our hobby unless some wizard comes up with some new form of R/C boat racing.

The rules I have seen introduced since I went to Australia ( other than the 2 lap oval that I had already proposed before I left), have been circuit racing orientated only and the electric rules are too restrictive especially for the speed and 2 lap guys wanting to do that.

And I give you an example down in my club. I have a young guy that does not have a lot of money to play with and has a 7.2v buggy. Took him out to my shed and showed him my boats and took a liking to my Zippkits rigger I raced in Australia and asked if he could get one. I showed him the Zippkits web site and he spied their mini sprint rigger that comes with all the hardware for $109 US and for another 18 buck could get a motor for it from Zippkits. He worked out he can use his 7.2 buggy battery and speed controller in that as well. So there is now one of them on the way here.

Currently he has to run in open electric hydro because it is a rigger where the record is currently 143kmh. Imagine the thrill the kid will get if he can nail a speed record in N2 hydro and even 2 lap oval as well with that boat. There is every chance we can hook him into our sport as well and then, as funds allow he can go onto bigger and faster things in our sport as well.

At present there is nothing for him to achieve that will foster and encourage him to hang in with us. I bet there is other kids out there like him.

Our membership has dropped dramatically since 2012 and some of the reasons why as I see it.

Some are sick of the crap that gets put on this forum most negative or bitching about something that some one or the committee has or hasn't done. There is rarely any positive stuff.

to make my point there are a couple of groups of boater that were member's down south of me that boat regularly together and will not come back to us till they see and improvement to like it was back in 2012.

The rule changes made since 2012 have not had the desired effect they were supposed to do and in Gas hydro you now literally need a separate boat for each class.

R/C buggy racing has also hurt us from dragging the young into our sport. Drones and drone racing will be the next phenomenon we will have to compete with for the young ones. They can get home from school and run a buggy or drone in the back yard where as you need a lake or pond and some way of retrieving a boat if it conks out. The NZMPBA is not alone here either. it was quite noticeable at the NAMBA nationals in the US in 2015 that most were 50plus the youngest competitor was in his mid 20s and he was there was his father was a racer from way back. no young kids racing.

Attracting new members starts at club level as carl pointed out. This web site is a platform from which they can find out a bit about the hobby and where to go to get involved. When they look at some of the posts on the forum and see the bitching and personal attacks and negativity what do you think their reaction is going to be.

I am getting to the point where if people are not going to start posting positive stuff and leave the negative bitching stuff behind then they will be blocked from participating on this forum.

The committee meeting minutes are published on this web site purely so members can see what is being discussed at committee meetings. As carl mentioned above it is good to question the committee from time to time but that must be done through the proper channels either by letter or e-mail direct to the secretary where by it gets discussed and dealt with by the committee then the result is either sent to you by mail if the committee feels this is warranted or you read the outcome in the minutes when posted on the forum.

There is an old saying "you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.

If you're not happy with the way things are going in our organisation and not prepared to go with the majority then get out of the sport and let us, that want to enjoy what the NZMPBA is offering enjoy it without all the negativity

Regards Nitro

NZMPBA President.