Mary,

I just received your “Subscription Renewal Notice!! And More……”. I truly enjoy Catamaran Sailor Magazine. And I would gladly pay $20/year to subscribe to it.

However, I do choose, at this time, not to become a NAMSA member. I am sorry to have to ask this, as I know that the special processing will add to your work load, but here I go anyway.

I would like to continue to subscribe to Catamaran Sailor without becoming a member of NAMSA. I will gladly pay $20 for the subscription, so long as I can be assured that I will not be a member of NAMSA, will not have a vote, and will not be listed as a member or counted in a total of members. And of course, I want to make sure that all of the $20 would go to Catamaran Sailor Magazine.

Please let me know if you can offer such a plan. Hopefully the additional income will more than offset the work of offering this premium subscription level.

Sincerely
Jamie Diamond

Jamie, I love you. That means I get the additional $5! I wanted to explain that on the card, but I couldn't figure out how to fit it in without confusing people. And that's why I said not to renew the subscription for more than one year, until I could see how this alliance with NAMSA was going to work out.

Plus, I didn't want people to give the extra $5 to me instead of NAMSA out of sympathy for me.

If you do not want to belong to NAMSA because you don't believe in its agenda or whatever, just say so on your renewal card when you send it in. I will just not forward it to NAMSA for membership -- and I get the $5.

However, it would be good if you would explain on this forum, or on the NAMSA forum, why you don't want to be a member of NAMSA. Dialogue is good.

What Catamaran Sailor is doing for NAMSA is the basically the same thing we offered to the Multihull Council of US Sailing, but the Multihull Council was not interested.

I offered my magazine as a vehicle for newsletters for any and all organizations. Nobody took me up on that.

The stuff that I put into Catamaran Sailor is mostly what is interesting to me personally. If it is interesting to other people, too, that's great. If not, oh well.

I have only one agenda, and that is to keep communication open to all the beach-cat sailors. As far as I am concerned, that was the mission of NAMSA in the distant past, and I am continuing that mission to this day.

As far as the revival of a real NAMSA, I think that it can be of tremendous help to the Multihull Council in implementing many of the ideas and suggestions the Council has but cannot do because it has no money and no authority.

Here is what Jamie explained about why he does not want to be a member of NAMSA at this time, posted on the Old Forum:


I understand Jamie's viewpoint perfectly, and I thought about that a lot.

When Rick reached age 55, I think it was, he sort of automatically became a member of AARP. We thought it was just a way of getting motel discounts. But when we found out it was actually a political organization and that they were lobbying the government on behalf of the membership, with views and opinions we did not share, and without asking for input from the members, we immediately unjoined.

I made it very clear to the board of NAMSA that in offering my magazine as a perq of membership, I would in no way be relinquishing any of my control of the magazine. I made it clear that the magazine would not change in any way, and that I will criticize what NAMSA is doing if I don't agree with their policies.

What I am doing is basically the same thing "Sailing World" did in providing free subscriptions to the magazine for members of US Sailing and including "American Sailor," the newsletter of US Sailing within the magazine.

As I said in my preceding answer to Jamie on this forum, any subscriber who does not want to be a member of NAMSA for any reason can just say so when they renew their subscription.

Right now NAMSA needs funding to get started, so I thought this would be the best way to get a lot of members quickly, at the very low cost of $5 a member. And next year, when I send out subscription renewal notices, I will have a box to check, yes or no, whether you want to continue to be a member of NAMSA. "Yes" and NAMSA will get the $5; "No" and I will get the $5.

Meanwhile, I hope NAMSA will not establish policies without polling the membership; and the more members it has, the more credible the input. This is a way to get a lot of members fast -- and, therefore, a lot of input.

I just want to give NAMSA a chance to get off the ground, and this was the best way I could figure out to do that. Racing sailors already have to belong to so many organizations, and it gets expensive. This is a way to make it very inexpensive to be a voting member of NAMSA and also get the magazine. And it is a way for NAMSA to have a newsletter (included within the magazine) at no cost to NAMSA.

It certainly does not benefit me financially in any way -- in fact, it is the opposite. I'm just trying to help.

Many other countries in the world have a national multihull organization, in addition to their national sailing authority. The United States has not had a multihull organization like that. I think it is badly needed because US Sailing lumps us all together as though we are one entity. So that entity needs a unified voice.

I DO have a question as to whether NAMSA should continue to be "North American" or whether it should be only for the United States. When dealing with US Sailing, it seems to me that it complicates things if the organization includes Canada and Mexico. That is something that I think should be put to a vote of the membership. But since I am not involved in the inner workings of NAMSA, that is just something that I hope all the new members of NAMSA will express their opinions about.

Mary,

Thanks for taking the time to explain this and for taking a flexible approach while at the same time helping support NAMSA giving them a chance to succeed.

I understand what Jamie has to say, and I don't think that I agree. I think that CatSailor is a magazine for ALL the catamaran groups, not just one. Just as NAMSA is a group for All cat sailors. However, the OTHER group isn't.

Which "Other" group or class are you referring to? Tornado Class, Performance, Mystere, Dart, F18HT... or some other... maybe the Hobie Class? By the way, you can get a free copy of the Hobie Class News if you join the Hobie Class as well. Doesn't have Mary's entertaining editorial though.

I think it is great that Mary has offered the NAMSA members a copy of the Catsailor Magazine as part of their NAMSA membership. I think the way it is done is very important though. I haven't seen the subscription form, but I would hope it is an opt-in check box to "Make me a NAMSA Member for no extra fee" or something like that. It may be a "6 of one or 1/2 dozen of the other" kind-of-thing, but the way it has come across, so far, has a negative spin to some. Now, Catsailor subscribers who do not want to be NAMSA members have to take a negative step to make sure that they do not become a member. Also, now NAMSA doesn't know if they have dedicated members or just Catsailor readers that are willing to spend an extra $5.00 because they don't know how or are too intimidated to opt out.

Personally, I would be more apt to check the box in a positive way "make me a member for free" and on the other hand, I wouldn't feel over charged if I didn't want to be a NAMSA member... it's all in the marketing.

Hi, Matt,
I would guess that Pitchpole Dave is referring to the Hobie Class as the "other" group. I don't think there should be an "other." I think we should all be separate but united, if that makes sense.

As I have editorialized in Catamaran Sailor, I think the new Hobie policy is actually a good thing that will benefit the fleets and the sport by giving the fleets more flexibility in planning their events. I seem to be kind of alone in my opinion.

As I think I explained in posts above in this thread, if somebody wants the magazine but does not want to be a member of NAMSA, they can just say so when they send in their renewal.

I deliberately did not give people a check-off option for this first year, because I wanted to give people a trial year, so to speak, of membership in NAMSA and a chance to vote on the policies it is proposing during its start-up. I don't know why somebody would not want to have a voice in establishing this new organization, especially when it is basically free to them.

I have been very candid about the fact that NAMSA needs some funding in order to be able to implement any of its ideas and plans. So my plan provides some funding for NAMSA and also provides a vote to everybody who becomes a member.

Next year there WILL be a check-off box for whether you want to be a member of NAMSA or not. No difference in price for the magazine, so if people check "No," it will mean that NAMSA has not been doing a good enough job for them to want their $5 to go to NAMSA instead of to me.

The "marketing" of NAMSA is up to NAMSA, not to me. I'm just trying to give the organization a jump-start.

I strongly believe that we need a national multihull organization, as other countries have, to link together all the multihull classes and all the multihull associations, clubs and organizations. I also think that the Hobie Class Association should be a part of this national group, so we can all work together, protecting the interests of each individual organization but working together for the common interests of multihulls within our national governing body, US Sailing.

Maybe it is just a stupid dream of mine.

If NAMSA does not follow through with some of its promises and plans this first year, I will be the first to dump them, and I will continue putting out my magazine, and they will be on their own.

P.S.
You said something about people not having a choice about whether they are going to be a member of NAMSA if they subscribe to the magazine. I would also suggest that the members of the Hobie Class Association do not have any choice about the fact that their organization is subsidized by and partly controlled by the Hobie Cat Company. Again, this is a matter of needing funds to implement programs and pay for the HCA newsletter.

>>...I would also suggest that the members of the Hobie Class Association do not have any choice about the fact that their organization is subsidized by and partly controlled by the Hobie Cat Company. Again, this is a matter of needing funds to implement programs and pay for the HCA newsletter.<<

Not sure how that applies to what is going on with NAMSA and Catsailor magazine subscriptions. We don't have anything to do with memberships. That is only done through the class.

We subsidize the class association that we created and ran for over 20 years before letting it go to the membership. It is also quite reasonable that we should have some control over what is demanded of us as the manufacturer, regardless of the amount of money we give the class. But, for us, that is still just one vote on the rules comittee.

Mary:

Your analogy of the AARP position was exactly the same thing I was thinking of as I read Jamie's letter. I did the same thing with AARP that you and Rick did because my principles were more important than discounts at a low-budget hotel. I've met Jamie before at regattas and you couldn't find a more sincere, caring, and dedicated person to our sport; I understand his positioning.

However, I've elected to renew my membership (ahead of time) with no questions asked and join NAMSA. Having been in marketing in a former life (when I worked)I realize that sometimes seamless decision making is the best because a lot of people don't have the time to actually get around to do what they want to do; they can't even stop from their busy schedules to review something. As an example: At our beach club we would charge yearly for a beach storage/maintenance/use permit, then ask our members to join our local Fleet. It was a nuisance explaining to all of our members what we were doing and why (we also had people that just didn't join because they were cheap, but they wanted all the benefits of the memberships such as the parties and the regattas), so we just included the membership in with the beach fees. It's worked perfectly for us. If someone doesn't like our club, they can elect to either become a non-participant (about 30%), or they can leave (and buy a $1 million lakefront property).

If NAMSA starts getting vindictive about one-design or doesn't seem to do anything but complain, then I'll bow out, but right now numbers can mean a lot in the general promotion of our sport. How about offering a NAMSA decal for our trucks/trailers?


Wyatt on cold Lake Erie.

I'd buy a NAMSA decal for my truck.

Also, I see Jamie's point and respect it.