We are in the final ten days of our first-ever membership-growth drive, and we have in fact grown a lot because of it.  Unless there is a run at the end and every section recruits 3 or 4 more new members, however, it looks like we are not going to reach the full goal of 5200 to make the NAR the biggest it has ever been.  But we have gone from below 4500 members on January 1, 2010 to over 4800 members as of July 15.  This is our largest membership level since 2003, and this is a very good news story for all of us.  It gives our NAR more resources to grow our programs and services, and we intend to do just that at the NAR Board of Trustees meeting on July 31. 

 

A  big thank you to all the NAR members who have gone out and actively recruited new members by explaining the value of NAR membership.  Please keep doing this even after this drive ends.  And an especially big thank you to the three manufacturers -- Semroc, Quest, and Aerotech -- who have been sending free merchandise worth over $30 to the new members as part of the incentive to join during the period of our drive, which ends on July 31.  It will probably take until September for the last of the new members from this drive to receive their "free stuff" (2 rocket kits and a hat), but it's coming.  It will take us several months after the drive to count up and pay the cash bonuses for those of you who recruited new members.

 

Over 300 NAR members have participated in our online survey of what their NAR should do with the $32,000 we recently received as a result of a legal fee reimbursement.  The NAR Board will follow our members' wishes on this.  As part of this survey we also asked for general feedback on how the NAR is doing, and this feedback will be a major agenda item at the upcoming Board meeting.  Every Board member will read every word. 

 

We also asked in the survey for volunteers to help in one of the NAR's national programs or committees and got a very encouraging number of offers.  We will be in contact over the next several months with everyone who volunteered and who gave us their name and contact information.  Unfortuntely, some of the volunteers did not provide contact information so we cannot take them up on their offer.  If you volunteered to help your NAR with something in this survey but did not provide contact information, please send me a note so we can put you to work on what you would like to do for our NAR!

 

A big "well done" to NAR members Pat Butler and Tony Reynolds, who organized and ran the Great Lakes Cup on June 26-27.  This was an FAI World Cup, the international equivalent of a NAR regional meet, but with multiple counties competing.  It was the best one that has ever been held in the US.  We had modelers from Russia, India, and Canada plus most of the US International Spacemodeling Team, and the best local community support I have ever seen for any NAR rocket meet anywhere.  It was fun for everyone, especially our foreign guests.

 

I look forward to seeing many of you at NARAM-52 in Pueblo, CO the week of July 31 through August 6.  The NAR Board will be meeting at the event hotel all day on July 31 and any NAR member is welcome to observe. 

 

Be safe, have fun, and pay forward.