by This week I’m at the NRA board and committee meetings being held in Reston, Virginia. The decision was made earlier that the fall and winter board meetings would be held in Virginia to cut travel costs. By being here, travel for all the associated staff that would normally have to travel to a meeting location in Texas or another state is eliminated. Whereas expenses like this in the past were fluffed off, they are not any more.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are dedicated to committee meetings. The new leadership is committed to reinvigorating committees, reducing their numbers, and demanding results from committees. Just as importantly, committees are no longer little islands acting independently from the rest of the committees. Every committee meeting that I’ve attended has been very aware of the impact of their work and their decisions on other areas of the NRA.
There seems to be a new synergy. Thus, when the Membership Committee pushes for a phone app there is an awareness that this app can be used by NRA-ILA to send out legislative alerts. Likewise, the Legislative Policy Committee recognizes that Second Amendment policies formulated in their committee will have an impact on attracting new members and retaining existing ones.
Wednesday committees for me were the Audit Committee and the Membership Committee. The Audit Committee focused on the draft of the Form 990 and I will have a full report on the Form 990 when it is released. It would be violating my fiduciary duties to go into any further detail on the draft. The Membership Committee is committed to the development of a phone app for both the iPhone and Android platforms. There is a recognition that many of the younger generations use their phone for everything. Working with both the NRA’s in-house IT team and one of our outside marketing vendors, our goal is to have this app ready before the end of the year if not sooner. Naturally, such an app will be a work in progress as more features will be added to it over time.
My Thursday committee meetings were for the Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Committee and the Legislative Policy Committee. Matt Fleming is the new director of Hunting, Conservation, and Ranges replacing Peter Churchbourne who has moved over to the NRA Foundation as their Executive Director. He provided an update on hunting programs such as Hunters for the Hungry. We also heard from Keith Mark with Hunter Nation. Their work in energizing hunters to become active voters using their data driven approach provided the margin of victory in many swing states. There is a recognition that hunters are not necessarily 2A supporters and 2A supporters are not necessarily supporters of hunting initiatives. The job for both the NRA and the independent Hunter Nation is to bring both groups into alignment.
The Legislative Policy Committee heard reports from John Commerford, Director of NRA-ILA, and the directors for State and Local Affairs, Federal Affairs, and International Affairs. Much of the discussion was about the budget reconciliation act and the zeroing out of the taxes on suppressors and short-barreled firearms. The committee also heard reports from the chairs of other committees such as Grassroots and Media as there is a significant interplay between what Leg Policy does and its impact on the grassroots as well as the public image of the NRA.
I don’t have any official committee meeting scheduled for today until late this afternoon. However, I do intend to drop into the Legal Affairs Committee after lunch.
My overall impression of the last few days is that everyone, reformers and Old Guard, are committed to working together to bring the NRA back. I hope that continues on to the Board Meeting on Saturday.