The super honest what's wrong with the IAA thread 2013 mod warning post 1 and post53

If you would like to get an answer from the IAA committee the best place to put the question is and always has been on the IAA forum at www.irishairsoft.ie or by emailing info@irishairsoft.ie. The IAA forum is also where the official discussions related to the AGM, the nominees for the new committee and the motions which have been put forward by members are bing held.
You can also email us through Facebook on the IAA Facebook page.
I do my very best to answer all questions through these channels as quickly as possible.

Thanks
Fabio
IAA PRO

As the current Vice-Chairman of the association I would just like to say a few words.

The work that has gone into getting the association, internally, back up and running was extremely difficult. We have achieved this and it is in great shape.

We are working on a lot of ideas that will benefit the entire community of Airsoft. We should have these ideas ready to publicise very soon.

As a player myself I can see these ideas being a great success for everyone involved in Airsoft and will only be beneficial to the sport.

We all need to work together....Retailers, Sites and players because without 1 the others do not exist.

<snip> stay within the rules of the first post please. Steve.

<snip>

Problem I always saw was that they IAA weren't more vocal about their accomplishments or all the the hard work and long hours that they put in.
There are too many who have no idea what the IAA do other than take the fight back to Joe Duffy.

Whatever problems people have with IAA past or present, we would not have airsoft as we know it today without them.

It seems like a thankless job to nobody wants to do but everyone wants to complain about

Steve wrote: »

OK, following on from a lot on private messages, it seems there is a lot of things that people would like to say / get off their chest.

It seems to me that, given there is a new committee due to be elected, they should know what they're in for.

In an attempt to be fair to all, please use this thread to put whatever questions you may have on public record.

There are a few rules though.

* you may ask any question you would like the IAA to answer

* you may not quote or answer anybody on this thread.

* you may not disagree with anybody's question.

* you may not discuss anyone else's question.

* The IAA may post answers here directly or they can post anon via a pm to any of the mods here.

In short, you may pose a reasonable question to the IAA that you would like answered and I personally will do my best to get an answer.

I really hope this will work, it will if we all muck in

The_ChiefDUB wrote: »

If you would like to get an answer from the IAA committee the best place to put the question is and always has been on the IAA forum at www.irishairsoft.ie or by emailing info@irishairsoft.ie. The IAA forum is also where the official discussions related to the AGM, the nominees for the new committee and the motions which have been put forward by members are bing held.
You can also email us through Facebook on the IAA Facebook page.
I do my very best to answer all questions through these channels as quickly as possible.

Thanks
Fabio
IAA PRO

I am all for giving the New IAA committee a chance, but one observation seems to come to mind as the first two posts clearly show.

Steve started a thread giving members the opportunity to voice questions and opinions and then Fabio counters that by stating that the way to do things is different. This makes it look like the IAA is divided or have different opinions on how things should be run. It also makes it look weak due to the same reasons.

I suggest that the best way to install confidence is to be united and open to your membership. Only then will you ever achieve your goals.

This is a train wreck of a thread. People can make any unsubstantiated claim (for or against the IAA) and it can only be responded to by the IAA, who have said they will not take part because of the ground rules that have been put in place.

It's time to kill it.

I find this thread farsical at best and the rantings of a few posters who obviously harbour old grudges with previous IAA committee members. Every year around the same time for the AGM, the same old nay sayers come rattling out of their boxes to try stir up sh1t. Repeating the same old rubbish crap over and over. I generally never give credence to these but I take exception to them been given a 'restricted, one way platform' to have their annual delusional rants.
Why don't these same nay saying posters join up for membership and run for a committee position. Its very easy to give out about one thing or another, but its a whole different ball game to put your money where your mouth is and stand for a position to make the changes you want to see. As far as I'm concerned your viewpoint holds no weight or credence as you wont actively take part in the reform of what we all want to see.
One of the main nay sayers or disgruntled posters was a previous Vice Chair(fair play for standing) but why did you not try and effect changes that you so grumble about. One could look at that and say you were part of the same problem that you are giving out about.
Another poster Tony , who was willing to run said he was put of by comments to him, but I could not find any comments that were negative to you Tony, and instead you then choose the side of giving out about the IAA instead of trying to effect the change you too want.
Now the way I see this is one of too ways, you either give a sh1t about Airsoft and its future OR you don't. Those that are on the committee have been working very hard to try and undo past IAA years of wilderness. They have achieved in sorting out the membership debacle and have the process sorted. They want to see change as much as all of us. Do not knock peolpe who are trying to improve what in most peoples minds is as being broken or defunct, We should only look toward the future of our sport and only reference the past as for 'what not to do'.
This constant call for transparency and updates is a load of tripe. Bren said it best in his post, We dont need to know every little thing that goes on, they have real lives too. Again its very easy to be a hurler on the ditch but not as easy to do something about it.

I've a pain in my face with the posters who repeatedly come on and spin the same old sh1t and I'm sick of it. So just give it a rest. You need to look very close at yourself and have a real good look.

We need to work as best we can as a community, not this bickering and snide comments back and forth.The IAA for one reason or another has a bad rep, be it justified or not, but peolpe/players who want to try and change and improve its image are not being given a chance. Thus giving false info to new players into the sport. So lets everyone forget about the past and move forward.

And Steve 'stop being a dick' starting these ridiculous threads with ridiculous restrictions on posting. Its VERY transparent.

I would appreciate no deleting or editing from mods, in the interest of Transparency. Thank you.

Damian
Red Barn

The only thing i will say here is that other people are right and the iaa does need to be more transparent, and let it's member's see what is actually going on.

As it currently stand the iaa are saying they represent every airsofter in Ireland yet maybe there is some that dont want to be represented by them?

Why you might ask as some may not understand what the iaa is or does or maybe thy dont like what they see.

So what do i think is wrong? I currently think the iaa try to shout down its members that challenge them or say something they dont like again if it was more transparent more people may join and say "Ah thats what the iaa are doing.

Ah thats what they are going to do or thats what they did for me"

It's not too difficult to tell the member and future members whats planned or what the have in the pipeline.

This is one thing i can think of at the moment and is my opinion not one of boards.ie before people say oh he is a mod.

andy_g wrote: »

The only thing i will say here is that other people are right and the iaa does need to be more transparent, and let it's member's see what is actually going on.

sci-ops wrote: »

The current committee, from what I can see, have been placing regular updates on the IAA's homepage, with document's of meetings also being posted, on a nearly monthly basis. This is a damn sight more than previous committees have been doing. I point this out as the current committee was/is an emergency committee, which was formed in July after a number of resignations.

Their first posting was on August 9th, informing people of what's going on.....with a number of other posts, including Agenda's which the committee were taking on, throughout August. In fact, looking at their website, the only Month I can see which was quiet for them was October....

There have been constant and consistent updates from this current committee, which from what I can see/read, were informing both members and non-members of developments, decisions etc....

Thanks sci-ops for pointing this out, you've pretty much covered just what I had wanted to say. The transparency is there on the official website for all to see if they were half bothered to look rather than going off half cocked. The current committee should be applauded for their hard work and effort over such a small period of time, not ridiculed at every opportunity.

<snip>

If you - as a former committee member conman - have such a jaded notion as to what transparency should be and why it is so important, then you really shouldn't have stood in the first place.

When someone stands for election they are asking the community to allow them to speak on behalf of said community. They become the defacto 'face' of the community to the outside world. That's on top of asking the community for fees on a yearly basis. Transparency is fundamental as a result. Without it, there is no trust. And without trust, there is no decisive will on the part of the airsoft community to throw its weight behind the IAA.

It's not about people "wasting time", or being "trivial", or "heckling", or any other b*llocks. IAA committee membership does not have a monopoly on all the crap that happens to someone voted into office, be it the local neighbourhood watch, the IAA, or Dail Eireann. It's not nice, but neither will it ever be plain sailing as you proclaim to speak on behalf of others. You will & should be held accountable.

If you want to see what transparency really is: I direct you towards the UKAPU website. By comparison, the IAA have been lacking in official communications by and large over the years. With the exception of the 2009 committee who posted plenty of minutes, albeit mostly for the first quarter of 2009, the only other committee to have shown any consistent activity has been the interim committee from mid/late 2012.

It's all about letting the membership (who have paid and chosen to elect you to speak for them, remember ... ) know what you have been saying/doing on their behalf. That doesn't mean blow-by-blow updates on twitter/facebook/et.all, but it does mean showing some signs of a pulse & activity in an official capacity on a reasonably frequently basis.

As an aside, "official" does not constitute social media activity. Quite the opposite.

On matter of the thread itself, I would like to hear from the candidates on concerns that some of their election ideas sound a bit grand and ignore the failures of the past. I refer of course to the failure to get much traction on the regional representatives by past committees and the desire to launch "branches" and "promotional wings" etc. What has changed since previous committees tried to launch the regional representative idea to make such ideas a success? Has any thought been given to creating a confusing message of two entities appearing to compete to give information in the form of the IAA and a promotional wing that has a different brand name? Have any shops bought into the notion of hosting branches? Also, has any costing been applied to the notion of branches and promotional wings?

I would also like to query the tiered membership idea and whether or not it will add needless bureaucracy, and what pricing is envisaged for the various tiers (excluding the free tier), and what would happen if the majority of membership sign-ups were for the free option? Also, why make shops & sites pay for affiliation. Once they pay, they are no longer affiliates, they are members.