discussion : national airboat/hovercraft/buggy organization

[goldhunter_2]

discussion : National airboat/hovercraft/buggy organization

Ok I have been wanting to talk about this for some time but didn't want it out in the other forums so lets give it a try and see what comments come out about it.


I see lots an lots of the smaller airboat clubs, buggy clubs, hovercraft clubs witch basically we are all fighting the same battles so to speak to keep the use of the same areas and are toys. I see vast opportunities with resources like southern airboat reaching the WWW and Airboat Magazine being international now. We have seen recently SA help get LA airboat groups together so why not have a national origination :?:

I know the small clubs have done alot and paved the road so to speak but now they are past there ability to handle the larger picture (in my mind) as they query over who gets what etc... :crybaby:

there are enough intelligent people scattered in these groups that could make more of a difference if we as a community could banned together some how. and this may have already been tried or asked before and I just don't know , but why not a National origination :?: simple set up for membership fees and Representatives for each clubs around the nation based on there size (basically like are government) each club could elect there members to represent them and it could be set up as a virtual meeting (private like this forum) so everyone nationwide could be be actively involved (SA has proven that could happen) A national group like this would carry much more weight when taking on upcoming laws or other issues . Just think about it for a minute , right now we have SA members in Alaska , Canada, all over the Continental US even down in south America as individuals or small groups are words go in one ear and out the other of the politicians lets face it that way we don't influence enough votes or publicity to bother them so why should they listen nine times out of ten.
I will use Duck Unlimited as a example by there shear size and being spread out all over they carry more influence then say some thing like Georgia Waterfowl assoc. thus it makes them more effective


This may be just day dreaming but honestly I am surprised it is not already in place.




I am just thinking and wondering out loud and wanted to hear f some of you have thought the same or not

 

[deepsea diver]

Well that's a good question. It may possibly help with getting access to land or maintaining what we have. The power of the NRA or other national org is great. We are such a small group, and we seem to have very little influence. Each group may have there own agenda. National Airboat organization would only be interested in AB concerns , but then again it would be smaller.

 

[goldhunter_2]

yes we are a small group in general , but there are many small groups with there own agendas if we could unite them some how in one national group and add the hovercraft and Buggy's small group we would have a large united group. any way that is what I thought :? and honestly thought there would have been more discussion on the subject maybe of something already in progress but does not appear so.
And yes the NRA would be another good example of how a larger national group has more influence .

 

[I Roll]

We could also consider some reciprocal memberships in organizations that face issues similar to ours. For example the Aircraft Owners & Pilots Assn (AOPA) has fought sound issues for years. They could probably point us in the right direction when it came to the who, what, where and how even if they didn’t take up our cause. There also are several good groups that fight for access to land for recreation. Maybe these aren’t good examples but the concept might be another way to lever the limited resources we have (in our membership numbers and our financial resources).

 

[Ruagatr]

I think this is long overdue. I would support this with time, money and energy.

Charles

 

[MavDog]

I agree with Goldhunter. As I rekindle my love affair with airboating, no longer a kid who just cares about slappin it together to go kill somethin', I find myself thirsty for knowledge in all aspects of this "hobby". which, you all know beter than I , it's much more than that. Yet, the more i search, the less i find and what i do find is, right off the bat, I started looking for a club or association but after only a few short weeks of being a member of S.A. i feel like i first have to choose sides first.

Truth be told, I am a little turned off by all the "political" quibling I read. Second of all, the things that go hand and hand with EVERY OTHER major hobby, you find endless thick in depth magazines and articles. acc.'s clothes, etc.
Airboating magazine is the only mag i have come across, and that one i found at loughman. go figure. forget about anywhere mainstream. Please don't misread me. I loved the magazine and have absolutely wore it out front to back, couldnt tell you how many times. The ads in the back were few, the full page ads nonexistent. again, not saying i want to wade thru pages of ads but you can really get the small time, backshelf feeling about airboating, like it's a "dirty" habit.

I may have been a bit extreme but you get my point.
Now, from what I see as a pattern in all the threads i have went thru and trust me it's alot. (i never took my computer with me during the day until i found s.a.) the different groups disagree on how to handle certain issues, both with the same basic intent mind you, so they argue back and forth with each other, accomplishing nothing other than hard feelings. when we should all be united with one powerful organization and argue with who really needs arguing with! At least then, it would stay in one house, yeah, you still argue behind closed doors, but when company stops in, you are one united front.

I see a huge market for airboating. it may be a region specific thing and been around for a long time but the industry on a whole is still in it's infancy. if the power's that be have their way,it will be gone.
that's a newbie's opinion. take it for what it's worth. I am here, I plan to be here for a long time to come. I wanna help this fine organization in anyway i can to bring a/bing out of the shadows and make sure it's fun to be had for our kids and theirs

 

[Hawk]

From: Laurie Hauke - Editor for Airboating Magazine

We would support this effort at the magazine. We can provide complimentary hosting of a 5 page website with guestbook and forum and I have quite a few registered URL's we can consider using.

Since we started the magazine, we have seen the need to reach out to all airboaters and to other groups who share common interest and similar threats due to increased regulations and access restrictions. Back in April, 2007, we started working with hovercraft groups, attended their annual Hoverally event in Ohio and have included them in our club listings, included their events and been working with their vendor base to expand the focus of the magazine to include Hovercrafters as well.

We offered up our assistance to the FAA back in March - offering them pages in each issue to help communicate the issues; have asked repeatedly for them to share information so we can share with our national (now international) subscriber base. We have not received the support we would have expected. We will continue to support the FAA, but do feel that their focus is somewhat limited and a National organization would be in the industry's best interest.

For this to work, a national level lobbyist would be needed. There are individuals out there who have a wealth of knowledge and experience who should be welcomed into this type of effort and all past and regional issues would need to be set aside for something like this to work AND be effective.

If this gets serious, with the right people involved, we can bring more to the table.

 

[plumcrazy]

might as well add seadoos, atvs and snowmobiles, were are all under attack, the nat .motorize .. recreation .vehical. alliance NMRVA , just have the dues go srictly to fight the issues as they arrive, and for lobbyist and attorneys

 

[MikeP]

That would be good for all those groups. All of these groups seem to get hit with the same things too
-Noise
-Destruction of wildlife and natural resources

Only problem I see with it though is too many different agendas trying to get addressed.

 

[Eric Kimmel]

Absolutly combined all of the sportsmens clubs big and small have a wealth of resources and knowledge. I am not good at organizing but when I pick a task i try and follow through on it some of my tasks have taken me 6 years and am still working on them and could have used fome help from folks with knowledge of differnet aspectsof getting things done.
A natinal organization might be able to develope an information and resource pool of who is good at what and who has knowledge on how to handle different issues. The clubs that make up the large organization still need to maintain their independence to take care of their local issues but can contribute to larger national issues as a whole with the big organization and visa versa the big club can provide information or resources to help the local issues as well, this could be done on everything from rules and regulations and who we need to get elected where that wil help our culture.
Not sure if my ramblings made sense but 50 organizations coordinateding with each other could have an impact.
I think
Eric

 

[Whitebear]

I like the concept, BUT:

Heres what I see is the problem with every national organization. Be it the NRA or any other one.

Our country is close to evenly split on nearly all issues. To win on a single issue requires massive efforts and dollars. This is due to a LACK of foresight and planning. Instead of warring, what is needed is a think tank to find a way to change the thinking of the majority of people around to whatever "our" line of thought is. We dont need to concentrate on todays issues, we need to be thinking 5-10-30-50 and 100 years ahead. Need to look at things with the thought of what are we leaving to our progeny. Not how can we band together to have more running this or next year. This is THINK-TANK stuff and I simply do not see many sportsmen inclined to get involved with this approach or at this level. Without it we will always have to fight the same battles over and over again in perpetuity. We must court the kids who will be graduating in a couple years or so and get them to thinking the way we think. Get their heads away from "Growth is the future" and around to seeing that growth is the antithesis of saving the wild uncontrolled expanses so our children will have a place to recreate without controls or regulations. Instead of groth, focus on standard of living not more people each with less. We must get them focused on 0 population growth so we can have a stable population base not a constantly increasing, eat everything in sight and live in cartons with no space for anything but housing and industry.

Thats my take on it anyway.

Scotty

 

[BUBBA-HAYS]

yes i believe it would be a good idea, but unrealistic, we are not smart enough to stick together. the airboaters dont want buggies, the still hunters want the airboats to get to there stands, but not to hunt off of. if we could agree to get every thing we could as a hole. and stick together that would be great but. l think it would be like the roman empire, so big it would destroy itself from the inside bickering and petty battles over small issues instead of working as one. jmo

 

[Eric Kimmel]

Yes there is some infighting among user groups an example right now in the cypress the NPS has helped caused some animosity between user groups.
We have only 2000 ORV stickers for the Preserve now even though many of us that grew up in the preserve have to face a decision because we have come close to the 2000 orv permit mark.

We have already lost most of the old time airboaters due to designated trails , curfews, closures and extremly limeted access so within the last 6 -8 years instead of a road full of maybe a 100 airboat trailers we average maybe a dozen on a weekend, the buggies the same thing

supposdedlywe still have a about a 1000 registered buggies.
Now we never have had anywhere close to 2000 buggies or airboaters or atcs in the preserve ever inone week or a day the number of permits available for folks should not be a concern the NPS could sell 4000 permits and we still would never reach 2000 users on any given day or week.
But the NPS is sticking to this number causeing conflict between user groups concered that theywill be left out.
so now because there is no where else for the sportriders on orvs these guys have have started taking up the permits. but in order to stop this influx of newelyemerging groups those of us who use atvs for over thirtyyears may have to give up our permits to ensure the older more traditional airboats and buggies can keep getting permits. we may have to ban our old two wheel drive hondas in order to ensure permits are available for the more traditional cypress vehicle.
There are options to address this but I can't seem to push the NPS to accept this but if instead of the user groups fighting for their piece of the pie we can work together.
One idea would be to instead of allowing only 1 permit for each vehicle for example I use an airboat, and honda and a buggy, I can't ride them all at once why not give a person a permit to be used on any ispected vehicle hus freeing up permits for others. Our family has 7 off road vehicles two airboat one running one not and 5 atcs but there are only 4 family members let us just buy 4 permits 1 for each family member that can be used on all 7 vehicles freeing up three
premits for others. anyother ideas on freeing up permits would help but this is something a larger group could push fro the NPS doen't want to hear from me on this but if you had a larger group pushing ideas to the NPS we might have better success
this was just a quick short version of the whole problem will write a detailed version when I had time we need a solution to get all the user groups towork together instead of allowing the NPS to cause us to waste time infighting for scraps
send ideas if you know a little about this
eric


some of the reluts I heard about being caused by this permit cap is causing
The buggy guys many of them want to ban atc in order to keep from surpassing the 2000 mark which may force a lottery and more oldtimers losing access
The airboaters if everything we have been working on go through and we get some of our access back will need permits again the new orv rider groups are taking up their permits
so now the NPS has managed to get the some infighting started going on the user groups fighting for a limeted amount of permits.
Not sure how to get this job done
excuse this screwed up ramblings of ideas I just came in to get out of the suneworking ona boat trailer
eric

 

[BUBBA-HAYS]

thats my point they keep us against each other and use the smaller goups as pawns agaist each other. but what people dont relize is that when its all over none of us will have anything. damn hiking trails and kyaks. :evil:

i like to dog hunt so no deer hunters dont like me
i like to deer hunt off my buggy and airboat, so still hunters don't like me
i like to ride 4wheelers so that pisses off all hunters.
so pretty much everything i like to do and grew up doing is being outlawed alittle bit every year. just becouse every one doesn't do all the stuff i like they don't care if it gets outlawed or want it to either way were loosing it.
if we'd all just stick in one group as outdoorsmen we'd be able to keep alot more of the stuff we all like to do. and instead of having a bunch of unrealistic rules. we could use the land how we want and always used to. not how someone that has never done the hobbies we do thinks we should use the land.

 

[Eric Kimmel]

you are right dog hunters and stillhunter each have there preference, buggyguys have theirs airboatsers have theirs orv guys have theirs, then we have the sport riders and mudders which have screwed it up for the tradtional orv users in the Cypress but not all sport rides arecausing the problem but it was just enough ammo for the NPS to start creating a problem where there should not be a problem. bu where we can have theadvantage is that despite our different preferences we can as indivuals still write , try and elect officals that support our causes as a whole culture

I think that with all the knowledge i have seen on the Sa Forum and the little contact I have had with the FAA there is enoughsolidarity to get some things done to address some of our concerns. Whitebear did make an exceleant point though about trying to get things done withbjust one national organisation but united just the florida folks or a few of the folks we can address a number problems and work to solve some of the problems. . Shady Oaks for example brought in letters of support from all over florida not just the local area I don't know if it helped enough but shady oaks stayed in a spart of the name
the Osceola curfew on airboaitng brought in support from folks from all over florida not just the area I live in southflorida I don't get up tht ways at all we contrubuted what we could to the FAA to fight this and wrote letters as well.
that is just two current out of a number of other issues that has brought people together from other regions to fight for all. SA folks sent in letters to fight sportsmens loss in Picayune , and support for a political candidate that has a proven record of support for our cause this is a good start.
A national organiztion will help but getting just the individulals. the clubs and others to join up and fight on the local issues will be a help and this local cooperation has started to help.
We have major issues where all that read this froum can help and once there is a national organization they can help also
access andjust about everything we did as kids is ilegal or banned banned now, spotsmen have been written out or have been given very little copnsideration in everglades restoration, cerp, Sfwmd or ACoE projects and the NPS from their actions must have a brain trust devoted exclusivly to creating obstacles lies and deceptions in order to cause infighting among us that should be working together.
There are some major issues that need to be worked out in cerp, water managemnt districts and the Cypress and so on that will necessitate that we work together for all I am moe involved with thecypress but try to write when I get the information can in suppport of all theother areas of florida and support all of our tradtionl cultural activities,
don't give up we can get all to support each other
eric