McNeill's Latest "Column"

McNeill's total lack of knowledge regarding the issues facing modeling impacts ALL AMA members - not just those of us that happen to live in his district. This is probably what prompted Don Lowe, former AMA President, who has seen McNeill in action up close and personal on the Executive Committee to come out and publicly support* Tony Stillman in his challenge to unseat McNeill in this years VP race for District V. Now the question, will the EC block McNeill's attempts to manipulate the election by drafting a spoiler candidate at the last minute as he did in the last election? Have AMA members seen enough? Will they, regardless of the district they live in, support a change and campaign to send an experienced modeler to Muncie from District V? Are District V members tired of seeing their money spent on meaningless club of the month awards made to every club he happens to visit on his jaunts around the district. Had enough? THEN VOTE!

-- Red Scholefield AMA 951 Dist. V Leader Member/CD

The AMA has been with us a long time, since 1936 when rubber power and gliders were the only things around. The intervening years have seen dynamic changes in everything that we do including aero modeling. The sophistication of today's scene is miraculous, bringing with it the pleasure of participation and responsibility for dealing with its potential in this ever-changing world. In short, the leaders of the AMA must be knowledgeable, involved and equipped to deal with a very complicated aero modeling activity unimagined in 1936. We must walk a narrow path to promote burgeoning technology and yet mesh properly with the rest of society. Anything short of non-biased good judgment based on a background of involvement and experience is unacceptable.

Such a person with this involvement and experience is Tony Stillman. I have known Tony for many years and have always respected his knowledgeable cheerful acceptance of assignments to promote model aviation. His history of

involvement in conduct of championships, functioning as team manager, functioning as president of a national modeling association, election to the AMA Hall Of Fame and participation as a competitor is exemplary. We need Tony and more like him to lead the AMA in this complicated world. I enthusiastically support him for election as AMA VP for District 5.

Don Lowe former pres. AMA

snip

Wait a minute. I have been following this Jim McNeill thing, reading the posts, (Sometimes quite amusing) since I found this NG. Since I haven't had any direct contact with the individual, living just about as far away from him as you could get, and still be in the conventional USA, I reserved judgment. Did I read this right? This guy doesn't fly? Did he every fly? Does he know how to fly? Seems to me that a requirement for the job would be an understanding of the people you represent. IMHO. Bill

Did I read this right? Yup.

This guy doesn't fly? Nope.

Did he every fly? Not that I know of.

Does he know how to fly? I don't think so.

His main claim to fame is taking pictures of people at events. "I don't take pictures of planes, because I like people better than planes." - McNeill. And going to antique stores with his wife. Some of the inaccuracies in the picture captions may be accounted for by the fact that he sends his wife around to take down the names and information in her little notepad while he schmoozes votes. Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

Please don't take this wrong, but I have to ask; Are you people nuts? Why wasn't this guy voted out of office a LONG time ago? Does he have dirty blackmail pictures of the majority of the RC pilots in his area? Does he buy votes? He certainly does not keep his job based on his expertise of the hobby. The whole world wonders Bill

Bill, he manipulates elections and the EC. Red S. knows more than I do, ask him what happens. I've been in the AMA almost 25 years, and in District V for

Truly amazing.

rED,

I'm in D VI, what can we do to keep McNeill out?

Dan Thompson (AMA 32873, EAA 60974, WB4GUK, GROL) remove POST in address for email

I don't know, Dan. I'd almost move back into Dist. V just to vote against him. You know people in this Newsgroup, elsewhere on the NET, and personally who are in Dist. V, I'm sure. Talk to them - lobby the cause.

BTW, McNeil has not answered my e-Mail to him yet. 4:00PM EST, 02/24/04. Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

I'm new to this debate as well, though I already knew that this name was infamous around here. Let me make sure I understand this:

This gentleman has never been an R/C pilot? I mean, I know there are guys who fly for years, then stop, but remain active in the hobby, vocally. This isn't the case? He has never actually been active in the hobby hands on? If this is so, why WOULD he want to be intimately involved in the politics of a hobby he has never participated in? There has to be more to it than this.

Write to the EC urging a change in the nomination procedure to prevent incumbents from picking their opponents!

Not nuts, just too many don't have a clue as to what district they are even in much less who their VP is and what he is suppose to do in that role.

He has a very hard core of dedicated followers - to whom he can do no wrong. The numbers tell the story. Here are the numbers from the last election where at the last minute he set up a spoiler (from the same club as the challenger) to dilute the vote. The EC saw what was going on but were powerless to do anything about it.

District V Jim McNeill 2065 42.5% of the vote (an 80 vote plurality) Manny Sousa 804 Tony Stillman 1985 Total 4854 representing less than 25% of the membership.

Consider also that over 10,000 votes were thrown out because they were sent to Muncie rather than the auditors that were keeping tally.

He has a reported $15,000 annual expense buget (your dues) and 36 issues of Model Aviation in which to campaign.

No but he has been very active in sponsoring motions that will enable him to retaliate against his perceived enemies.

AMA EXECUTIVE COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM

Agenda Item No. 3g

State Actual Motion:

THE AUTHORITY OF A VICE PRESIDENT TO SUSPEND THE MEMBERSHIP OF AN AMA MEMBER.

1. A district Vice President shall have the power to suspend an AMA member's membership for a period of 5 days. This power shall be unequivocal. During the 5 day period the Vice President shall contact the AMA President and provide him with the details. If the AMA President disagrees with the suspension the member's membership is automatically reinstated.

Originator(s) Jim McNeill Date: September 23, 1999

This one didn't make it past the rest of the EC. But he didn't give up and got this one through at the last meeting.

Motion VII: It was moved to accept the procedures addressing complaints regarding Leader Members.

COMPLAINTS REGARDING LEADER MEMBERS - Complaints regarding a Leader Member (LM) should be made in writing to AMA Headquarters, who in turn will forward to the VP of the District where the complaint originated or where the infraction occurred.

The VP will review the written complaint and contact the complainant if additional information or clarification is required.

The VP will then contact the LM, explain the complaint and request a response in writing.

The VP will review the complaint and the LM's response and take whatever course of action is appropriate to resolve the problem, whether it is a warning or a revocation of the LM license. If there is a reprimand given, it should be in writing, and request the matter be reviewed by the Executive Council. The Executive Council could uphold the action taken by the VP, overturn it, or refuse to hear it.

Now all he has to do is get one of his stooges to write up a complaint and he can come down on any Leader Member giving him grief.

Does giving out club of the month awards to every club he visits buy votes? Does giving out free first aid kits, Roberts Rules of Order, fire extiquishers, and permanently assigning AMA frequency monitoring equipment to individuals buy votes? Apparantly some can be bought with their picture in MA.

Apparently not a requirement for the job.

Will the 20,000 members in D-V wonder enough to vote this time?

-- Red Scholefield AMA 951 Dist. V Leader Member/CD

There is some evidence that his modeling many years back was in the free flight area, particularly Pay Load events. There were also some ugly reports that he was not above rigging his entry to drop the pay load in his hand prior to launch and then reinserting it upon retrieval of the plane.

To our knowledge he has never participated in R/C in spite of accepting an appointment as Assistant Director in the IMAA under his AVP Rod Gier. He had made the statement that he has never held a transmitter in his hands. This was prior to his 42 seconds on a buddy box when we thrust one into his hands in front of a crowd at an IMAA meet here a few years back.

Even on the rare occasion when he could be cornered during his snap shot stops to discuss modeling he stated his interest was free flight but could not participate any more due to lack of free flight facilities. When asked about radio assist he just walked away rather than discuss it.

-- Red Scholefield AMA 951 Dist. V Leader Member/CD

Would $15,000 a year to spend pretty much as you please be of any incentive to a "retired" aluminum siding salesman who's wife is on a modest teachers pension?

And he has participated in "HIS" hobby - which is holding his seat on the AMA Executive Council for over a quarter century. It seems to be his whole life and he is not about to give that up without a fight.

Red S.

Please accept my sincere condolences pertaining to your situation. I really have a hard time understanding how anyone with so little experience and involvement in this hobby could even be elected, much less keep a VP position for so long. I have to tell you, when I first started reading the posts about this guy, I thought there had to be two sides to the story, and he couldn't be as bad as some of you guys make him out to be. Now I see that it all falls into place and I find out that he is actually worse. How can someone who doesn't even participate in this hobby expect to represent the people who do? The fact that he doesn't even fly would be enough to disqualify him. Are you sure that he doesn't have dirty blackmail photos? That actually makes more sense. ;>)

I guess I'm on his shit list now. So be it...I ain't never backed down from a fight.

AMA 156202 (25 year member) LM & CD for 20 of those 25 years IMAA 20615 (5 year member) Club Flight Instructor and Test Pilot, President, Secretary/Treasurer, Newsletter Editor

I'll match records with him any day Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

This guy sounds like a monumental d*****ad. Holy mackerel, if a quarter of what is alleged here is true, something reeks in District V. What happens when he is taken to task face to face?

Mike D. relatively peaceful MAAC member

You're suggesting something pretty serious there Red. What you suggest borderlines on fraud, misappropriation and a half dozen other possible charges.

Can you prove it? Or are you just campaigning?

Chuck

Perhaps now you can start thinking about the whys and wherefores of some of the Executive Council actions in the past five or six years.

With McNeill as a "yes man", any other council member can depend on positive support from McNeill if the agenda item has anything to do with restricting development of model aviation, limiting the ability of modelers to model, and so on.

Recent case in point : TAM 5. Maynard Hill's stunning achievement.

While beating the drum to limit model development, and in particular with a view toward prohibiting autonomous models, Dave Brown gladly "accepted" the position of "landing pilot" for the TAM 5 record attempt. He bellied up to the bar and got his mug in the photos.

Immediately after the successful flight, Maynard Hill allowed as how he would never have attempted the flight in the first place had Muncie enacted the ban on autonomous models earlier than they actually did.

Here's the kicker - the TAM project did not involve the US and did not involve the AMA officially. The flights departed from Canadian soil and the one successful flight terminated on Irish soil.

Yet Maynard was apparently brow-beaten into submitting the record certification paperwork through >AMA

Fred Interesting, to say the least. TAM 5 really belongs in the Smithsonian. At the rate dues are increasing, the plane restrictions may end up being a moot point.

Do they fly big planes in Europe? The first few photos I looked at, I thought I was a full scale meet! Bill