USPA 50 year anniversary=FREE Membership

[JohnMitchell 14]

They do work to keep the FAA off our backs as much as possible. They've gotten repack dates extended from 60 days to 180. They have an instructor certification process, the quality of which is debated. But I do get frustrated, too, with decisions they make that seem to be more about what the manufacturers want, not what the jumpers want.

[DSE 3]

JohnMitchell

They do work to keep the FAA off our backs as much as possible. They've gotten repack dates extended from 60 days to 180. They have an instructor certification process, the quality of which is debated. But I do get frustrated, too, with decisions they make that seem to be more about what the manufacturers want, not what the jumpers want.

The USPA does a lot of great things, and having recently had the opportunity to work with a coupla foreign organizations, I'll say that the USPA does a pretty darn good job at a lot of things we don't realize.

That said, it's been five years since the offer was made to (at no charge) turn the IRM into a secure, downloadable document that would allow for limited printing, but easy use on a tablet, computer, or phone. Imagine the cost savings of a digital IRM? USPA would enjoy the same revenue, but no printing, shipping, storage costs.

The website is pretty poor.
Overall, USPA appears to be technically challenged. If a small org like CSPA can do a lot for their members with technology (such as immediate membership updates, online renewals, SFOC, etc.)

USPA could be/should be streaming media at the Board sessions as well, it costs nothing except the few minutes to set up the stream. I'm not sure why USPA seems to fear tech so much. Jan Meyer has long been a proponent of streaming sessions, for example. I don't know if the resistance to tech overall is the BOD or the administrative team, but it would be nice if they were doing more with tech.

Getting the SIM into an interactive download was pretty cool, I believe that was Jim Crouch that made that happen?

Having said that, I wish everyone had the opportunity to interact with other parachute orgs...for whatever faults USPA has, they're quite minimal compared to some of the others, IMO.