Well the current proposal Wouter made on what qualifies you to be a voting member probably goes back to a private post I made to him some time ago in which I proposed that he formalises the membership criteria, in order to prevent the unnecessary long-winded discussions that occurred on the Forum about how the F16 class should be run, who can vote on the rules etc, mostly started by inquisitive folks who were not at the time involved in the class, and in my mind are still not. Some of these discussions led others to believe the class was disorganised (because it did not have a Democratically elected president and committee that most US sailors are comfortable with), that it did not "allow" sailors to form their own local associations even if they wanted to (Wouter said go ahead, knock yourselves out, do what makes you happy, he`s just not doing it for you). I find it ridiculous that some folks believe they should have a say in matters regarding a class that they are not yet members of. I also believe ownership of an F16 compliant boat is not enough. It`s like saying you want to join an archery association, go to their meetings and vote on how they run themselves, because you have a bow and quiver of arrows somewhere in the attic under a rolled-up carpet collecting dust, which you have absolutely no intention of using. This is why most yacht clubs and boat classes struggle to grow and change for the better, they are dictated to by voting members who turn up at the club exactly once a year, at the AGM, just to have their say.
Here is an example of how being fully-inclusive can harm if not kill off this class before it even gets going : Take the Australian situation, where the Taipan could form the strongest seat of F16 sailing in the world. Now give every Taipan owner the right to vote on F16 issues(I think there are about 200 of them), even though they don`t even own a spinnaker (their boat is still fully F16 compliant under the rules, no rule says the boat MUST be fitted with a spinnaker !). They could vote against any proposal that would allow development in any way, since they percieve that this would allow other boats to be built that could be faster than they are, which would not suit them. This in my mind would be detrimental to the rest of the boat-owners in this class, since you can count the Taipan sailors in Australia who have supported F16 in any way over the last 4 years on one hand. Having an involvement-based membership system prevents this kind of problem.
After all, why would you want to be a member of an association that is there to promote a class of RACING boats if you have no intention of racing them ? If you just like the boat because of it`s design, get one by all means and go sailing. If you never race it as an F16 then don`t worry yourself over whether the class rules change from time to time, or whether your boat complies with them or not. In fact, don`t even worry yourself whether an F16 organisation even exists or not. If you own a Blade or Taipan or Stealth or whatever, keeping it class-legal to it`s own class rules will pretty much ensure that it is F16 class legal as well, since the F16 authority would never change the rules in such a way that any of the presently included classes would become outlawed,(would they ???) as that would be suicidal in my opinion.
I agree with being inclusive, but we must be careful to include those with a common goal ie that of promoting the F16 class. Perhaps allowing club-races to count would help those who can`t travel, or even having a membership application form in which you describe how you intend helping the F16 class to grow should you be granted membership if you don`t intend to race at all. Your membership application could then be accepted or rejected based on this, and could even be revoked if you don`t deliver on your promise, or show that you have at least made an attempt. Maybe my ideas are a little controversial, feel free to disagree.

Steve