Post-Nats takes are almost as much of an event as the Nats itself. And this year things have coalesced around two main points of contention – the perennial back and forth over the shortcomings of IPMS USA’s judging paradigm, and the firestorm of indignation caused by a judge hoisting a tank to the heavens to look at its underside.

In both cases, one defense is marshalled again and again. IPMS is made up of volunteers. So what do you expect?

You know what that is? That’s an excuse. A justification to not duck, I don’t know, responsibility? Ambition?

Know what else is comprised of volunteers? Every other modeling organization on the fucking planet. Moson and Telford aren’t put on by some cabal of the elite modeling professional class. Somehow they manage.

I also hear that, because IPMS is just a bunch of volunteers, you can’t really think of the membership as customers to be catered to.

Kinda? Kinda not.

Within it all are whiffs (definitely much stronger from some commenters than others) that this volunteer arrangement is somehow unique. That those being pronounced to can’t understand.

So let me tell you a story.

A Little Club at UT Austin

I transferred to UT Austin my junior year of college. I found myself missing Texas, a visit to Austin for the Y2K New Year won me over, and so I made the jump. And one of the first things I did when I arrived? Joined Longhorn Offroad.

I’d offroaded in high school, and got back into it in a big way. We’d go to a few local places – the Llano River, a place in San Antonio everyone called “Devil’s Den”, that’s probably a subdivision nowadays. I learned a ton. We hung out, we were friends, we wrenched together, threw the occasional party, drove in Austin’s Mardi Gras parade. Hell, Mrs. Doogs and I went on an LHOR excursion as one of our first handful of dates.

It was a good time. But we had a core membership of like 10-15 of us, and then everyone else.

When my senior year rolled around, I ran for and was elected president.

We were all volunteers. Members paid dues that basically paid for a windshield sticker and a t-shirt.

But we did a few things. We organized offroad trips further in advance, so people could plan for them. We talked about them more. We encouraged members to get on our forum, we shared photos of our trips. And instead of 4 or so vehicles going, we started getting more like 10-15 vehicles, and sometimes more.

We went to new places, like Barnwell Mountain out in NE Texas.

We hosted monthly workdays at a member’s house, where we did everything from change oil to install bumpers, swap out differential gearing, run air compressor lines, build rollcages, and even our own RTI ramp.

And then halfway through the year, in mid-January 2002, we hosted LHOR 101, which was a day of offroading, with more experienced drivers helping less experienced drivers get comfortable fording deep water, getting up hills, driving through slick mud, learning how to find driving lines, and so on. With a cookout and camping that night.

And you know what? The membership was never more engaged, before or after. The turnout, to a ranch an HOUR AND A HALF from Austin, was amazing. Everyone had a blast, significant others who kinda tolerated this silly hobby got to try their hand behind the wheel, some became hooked themselves. We even had a prominent offroad magazine send a reporter out to cover it.

Not Customers. Community.

I find the idea that a volunteer org should look at its members as customers to be flawed.

It’s not about providing a service or a product that they will buy.

It’s about providing a community that they love. That they’re engaged with, and that engages with them.

Community is the reason people go to Nats. It’s the reason they love Nats. Look at the #whyIgo hashtag over on the Plastic Posse FB page. Every single post is about friends. Every. Single. One.

Members are at once your customers and your constituents and your employees. They are your community. Your people.

The Disconnect

So why is this so hard? Why is every year a repeat of the same debate?

Well for one, the stakes are super low, and as humans we seem to have fun getting all frothy arguing about meaningless things. Like – ever get into a heated sports argument? Or see friendships break down over a game of Risk? Same shit.

It’s funny how Lord of the Flies and other veneer theory silliness posits that as soon as you take away a sliver of civilization, people turn on each other like wolves, when everything about history suggests the opposite. People come together during calamities. I think the reaction to Covid would have been a lot different if the mortality rate were something like 25%. I don’t think you’d have all the anti-mask rage frothing that you did if 1 in 4 people were dying instead of 1 in 100.

Modeling, like most hobbies, is a safe place to lose our shit.

Another reason, well, I’m not sure how to describe it without triggering defensiveness. As an IPMS member who doesn’t go to meetings (three kids, work, life, Austin traffic…), makes. it to 2-3 contests per year, and otherwise follows the hobby on the socials, there are times where certain elements of the leadership give off this vibe:

This is the president calling dues-paying members freeloaders. This is people defending hoisting a tank aloft without gloves, pinching it by the tracks, to look at the underside for some reason. This is the NCC any time any innovation, much less moving to an open system, is brought up.

I understand that there are elements inside the organization pushing for change. But there’s an entrenched incuriosity, too. Instead of “what if we tried…?” or “how could we make this better/faster/easier?”, it always seems to be “NO. That’s too hard. That’s too much work. We’re volunteers, just be grateful anyone’s here.”

Changes Have Happened…

The funny part of all of this is that some changes have happened. With no fanfare. And they’ve been great.

Change 1 – If you remember back to 2021 and the Vegas Nats, photos were uploaded to an almost unusable piece of software that probably dated back to 56.6K modems. There was a whole thing about how it was impossible to photograph all these models and get all these photos uploaded in a timely manner.

A lot of us said use SmugMug instead. And starting last year at Omaha, they did. And it was an infinitely superior experience for folks following along remotely.

Change 2 – The pictures used to suck. They still aren’t amazing, but suggestions of getting down, getting closer, framing them more flatteringly – that got through. The pictures from San Marcos look way better than the ones from Vegas.

Change 3 – Putting the awards ceremony on Zoom. Excellent. And it worked great, and it was awesome for those not in the banquet.

How to Tap a Community

But. They’ve also just kinda…happened. Under the radar. Not in a “hey that was a really cool idea, we’re going to run with it!” way.

As a member of the community, I want to feel heard. I want suggestions to be met with something other than a litany of reasons they can’t be done.

When people get jazzed from an event your organization hosted and flood you with ideas of how to make that event even better and more enjoyable and more engaging next time, fucking listen. That’s invaluable community feedback. Most companies would kill for that. Ideas served up on a platter.

If a sizable minority of your community is advocating for something, find a way to at least test it. What’s the worst that happens? It doesn’t work? Then you can say “hey, it was interesting, we tried it, and it just didn’t click”. Which is a much better answer than “no, it’s too hard!”

Also, consider polls? Run a few polls – send them out to your email list, post a link to your FB page, whatever. And then publish the results. What does the membership really think of 1/2/3 vs G/S/B? Do they think judges should be allowed to pick up tanks without gloves? Is the BKB category working?

Answers to all of those would be interesting. Understanding where the membership stands would have some weight that sweeping generalizations don’t.