[Psml] Merit Marks

[Paul R. Soucy]

These last few days there has been quite a bit of message traffic, pro and con, concerning the USPS Merit Mark program. Lot of this traffic was against changing the Merit Mark selection approval to the squadron Commander instead of an Area Monitor. There have been many more messages sent to me, without copy to psml.org in support of this change. I do stand corrected when I said our District cost to send an Area Monitor to the National Governor Board meeting was around $25,000. That is the amount National pays for these twice a year trips. Has anyone seen a Merit Mark report coming from the Board meeting? Noticed the Squadron Hints in: http://www.usps.org/x/x.pl/x/x.cgi?../newpublic2/meritmarks.html under SQUADRON COMMANDERS, HINTS ON WHAT TO WRITE is dated 29 June 1997.

Cost of running USPS is increasing while membership is dropping resulting in less money coming in. In order to reduce costs, changes are being made by National such as opening all courses to the public (extended to 2012), restructuring next years dues, combining Publications with the Ensign to be called CommCom to name just a few changes.  It won't be long before USPS becomes an revenue generating organization rather than a dues organization. National will sell a course to the general public and we instructors at squadron level will be doing the teaching or maybe just proctoring an exam. Who knows?  Now all one needs is access to the internet to become a member of USPS, no requirement to take any education courses. 

Now if National is really sincere in lowering costs here is one place to start. Change the Merit Mark selection down to the Squadron Commander where he is the best source of what a member accomplished in support of his/her squadron during the year. It's very apparent to me and others that the current merit mark system is broke and now is a good time for repairs. 

I challenge the National Governing Board to look at deleting Area Monitors from the Merit Mark program thereby incurring roughly $25,000 per year in expenses.

P/C Paul R Soucy, AP
SEO Long Bay
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