Indirect SSA dues increase or no more sporting licenses

In a note from SSA Chairman Dianne Black-Nixon in the November issue of
Soaring magazine, SSA announced a policy change regarding paying fees
to NAA for Sporting Licenses.

...."Under an arrangement with NAA, SSA has been distributing Sporting
Licenses for Soaring to SSA members as one of our member benefits. At
the time of the arrangement, NAA required applicants for FAI badges to
hold Sporting Licenses. Recently, NAA dropped this requirement.

Under a new arrangement, NAA and SSA have agreed that a Sporting
License is required for participation in international events, world
records, and USA national records only. Please note that you must have
a Sporting License before you take off on a record attempt. A Sporting
License is not required for badges, diplomas, US contests, state
records. US trophies, lennie pins, nor the Hilton Cup.

In 2005, fewer than 25 members participated in the events listed above
requiring Sporting Licenses, and for this reason, SSA has decided to
stop paying NAA a per-member fee for Sporting Licenses and to stop
issuing licenses to members. SSA members who need to renew their
Sporting Licenses should contact SSA directly. The effective date of
this change is January 1, 2007, and SSA will stop issuing Sporting
Licenses on that date.

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Personally I have no problem not getting a sporting license but I would
like to know how the monies that use to be paid to the NAA are to be
allocated or used. I have no idea how much was paid to the NAA, though
I would venture to guess that it was around $2 per member or
approximately $20K a year.

If I have a say I would like to see the monies allocated to the
competition fund or US World Team, again I am not familiar enough with
the actual 'buckets' setup by the SSA.

I hope the monies will not just disappear into the general fund.

Ron Gleason
DG 303



We are continuing our discussions with NAA, and we will strive to
reduce the cost of Sporting Licenses (currently $45 per year) for our
members."