Saturday NFRC Extravaganza!

Its NFRC time kids… let’s take a look at one of my favorite subjects… this is long too.. sorry.

((BEFORE I START- Since I wrote the below on the plane yesterday… PLEASE NOTE… just because the NFRC is pushing this thing along does not mean it will work or be accepted. Just because the State of California will implement does not mean that it will work in the short or long term or anywhere else. So while the process continues the facts are still the same, the NFRC and its money making labs and IA’s still have no clue on how the commercial world works….)))

-- I enjoyed the NFRC blog especially since it seemed like it felt that were writing it just for me! Thanks guys…

-- Attendance on the blog was noted at 99… up from the 79 pre registered folks… you can assume that a handful of the 20 extras were board types, so still not a great showing… I bet they probably had to get temporary staffing to handle that mob since 11 staff members were probably overwhelmed!

-- The election still smells… some thoughts..

-- The Tony Rygg part is sad- he had no business running and it really is a blatant conflict of interest- one that will be ignored of course. Still it’s funny that the folks at NFRC are so scared that they had to prop up the Admiral to run.

-- Jim Benney was so proud that the turnout was better than last year… however was it better? See when you read between the lines (and that’s what I do here because you learn that they are never straight over there) that this year you had 114 voters out of 209 for 54%. Last year they noted that they had 121 voters BUT that was only 51%... so wouldn’t that mean that the NFRC went from 238 members to 209? And they had 7 less people vote to boot… nice work with percentages guys! And yet there are still people who think the CMA is gonna work… Ha ha ha.

-- Man I wish Jim Benney was grading my papers in High School if he thinks that was a good turnout…

-- On the election site, you could make comments and Frank Fisher of Arcadia who is virtually alone in his commercial love of the NFRC made a hilarious comment. Basically he wrote that the NFRC should alert the media that no one from the commercial side stepped up to be involved in this election… wow.. ok let me at it.

-- First the commercial guys are a lot smarter than people give us credit for. All of the major players know that they’ll be pummeled on the board like Mike Mantegi has been. Mike has tried for years but gets minimized at all turns. Anyway, smart folks know that a board slot means nothing especially when the board is skewed the way it is. No matter what we do, the commercial side will never have the juice to get things done- it is set up that way… you know because they are a 501c3 and so they can basically do whatever they feel.

-- Hey Frank, do you know who won the spot 3 years ago for “Commercial Interests”.. none other than Marcia Falke… yep thanks to the way NFRC does stuff, an IA can run in the same category as a commercial manufacturer. Uh Huh.. that makes sense.. a person who can profit like crazy representing the lemmings she’ll be charging someday.

-- Second, the commercial guys are in a severe minority because the NFRC, if you have not paid attention, is a residential group and one that is dominated by money making anti commercial concerns. Any commercial guy running has no chance. Like I said we’re not stupid.
Face it Frank.. aside from you and TRACO, the entire industry is against this… I am baffled on how that is a missed point. And as for the “getting ivolved” angle.. the NFRC fed that line to David Walker of the NGA at the Chicago meeting and it’s a bunch of hooey. And even before that, that was the line thrown at many people… well guess what it wouldn’t matter… (hell I even tried to get people there once!) one example…32 people were involved a year ago to vote by a large margin (doubled) to accept defaults… and a year later the Board did what they do and proceeded HOW THEY WANTED… and that is the RULE not the exception. So believe me the whole “getting involved” stuff is a joke.

-- Last, even if a commercial guy ran, the NFRC had their guys lined up… the Larsens, Rygg’s etc. Please don’t tell me you are that naive. But keep drinking the Kool Aid and if this thing somehow works and glaziers are getting crushed with unnecessary costs and jobs are running late and people are mad… we’ll make sure they all know who was all for it…. Trust me I’ll even take out an ad to thank you guys.

As for the meeting… wow so much to say…

-- It was sad that Glass Magazine could not have anyone cover the event (Though with a major auto glass show I can understand)… which makes me wonder, why even write about it if all you are going to do is repeat the propaganda that was on the NFRC blog? Hell gang, no quotes from me? Damn. Maybe call Marg Webb or someone else to get you the “other side” of the story? Then again with a writer as good as Katy Devlin, sending her to this would be akin to having Bob Woodward cover a student council election at Peabody High.

-- Oh and as for blogs the only people from Glass Mag that read mine are the lazy ad execs (and not all of them- you know who you are) who try to use what I write to get accounts and new ads… Shame they can’t get sales on their own and need to use this forum as fuel. C’mon you got good writers there, get your business the old fashioned way… earn it.

-- Back to NFRC… unless you read USGNN you did not know that several people from the opposing side of the current NFRC adventure were not there in Jacksonville. Good for GANA, IGMA, AAMA and NGA as they all have much more important business in protecting and working for their membership instead of wasting 4 days to watch a bunch of people summarily ignore them and claim “consensus” because they were physically in attendance. It’s funny, I think those groups did all they could to help the NFRC avoid failure but they were ignored thus it will be a painful lesson that we’ll get a kick out of someday.

-- I also got a kick out of the headline over “applause” all around after the Titanic moved up the ladder… yep guys that ovation is well deserved… let’s see it only took years and years and thousands of dollars and wasted hours to develop a program that has little hope, no consensus and will have no acceptance in our industry. Jolly Good Show!

-- I still look back to the first meeting I ever went to… poor Larry Livermore and Greg McKenna were at the front of the room and they looked totally shellshocked as the input flowed in… they knew then and I’m sure would admit under oath now, that this program was going downhill because the board was determined to do their own thing.

-- I saw that Joe Hayden had homework again and asked for people to list the “Barriers to Success for NFRC” and the blog dutifully listed a bunch of them even ones that were sort of negative, but they “forgot” to list the best one and the one listed 1st on the picture board I saw..
BOARD ACTION OVER RULING MEMBER CONSENSUS
Amen to whomever wrote this… Yep the beat goes on but I am thrilled that was there for everyone in black and white to see.. and hopefully in Braille for Marc LaFrance to read. So Joe go ahead and address this.. or have Potomac (damn they have been quiet lately) do up the typical BS PR but facts are facts and the board in its ability hide under their charity tax ruling can veto any and everything if they choose. That said, quit saying you have a consensus because you ignore most of the ones you have ever had.

-- The NFRC announced they are going down to 2 meetings a year… it’s a good news/bad news thing… I mean 3 times a year I get a treasure trove of fun stuff to mock.. now I’ll only have 2. Damn. But seriously you wonder why it took them this long, except for this has always been what one observer called a “travel club”… see before I got going on this blog, the NFRC was great at having their meetings at plenty of expensive (Hawaii, Quebec) and out of the way (Santa Fe) locales. Then hammering started and we got sensible locations that were actually accessible by non stop flights. Fiscal responsibility! But seriously the conspiracy theorist in me has another thought… I wonder if going down to 2 meetings is because they know when the Titanic hits the iceberg, that’s one less 4 day stretch of abuse…

-- Last… you know my blog accepts comments and my e-mail is on the site for everyone to use (and they do- believe me!) But NFRC has a “blog” but yet does not allow comments… which kinda makes it more like a revolving press release and not a blog… but any way good try guys and thanks for keeping us all up to date.