Please redouble your efforts in this area, particularly for rockets that do not have traditional form factors.  Your fellow flyers will thank you! 

A summary of the current state of the NAR is on the NAR website. There have been many successes and enhancements to member benefits; perhaps the most significant are the increase in our liability insurance limit to $5 million, the decrease in dues for adults aged 25 and under, the significant enhancements to our new website (including a Section Handbook and a Contest Guidebook  and a members only R&D repository, soon to be joined by a repository of back issues of Sport Rocketry), a new Teacher Certification program, and the significant increase in aid to Sections, students, and teachers. All of this, along with the continued success of ongoing programs such as TARC, NASA Student Launch, and Sport Rocketry magazine, has been made possible by increases in NAR membership and the efforts of our volunteers.

Having achieved our initial membership target, enhanced support for sections, teachers, and students, rolled out a new website, and established a model and sport rocketry exhibit in the Museum of Flight, the board's next major initiative is to improve national events. The NAR currently has four National Events: NARCON, the TARC finals, NSL, and NARAM. These currently involve several hundred NAR members and around 1000 nonmembers (mostly TARC teams) each year. That's a lot, but given that the NAR has about 6000 members, we'd like to offer more.

The Board has initiated actions to enhance NAR National Events in general, and contest rocketry in particular. Contest rocketry is part of NAR's core DNA-it's a key part of our history and an ongoing source of NAR culture and expertise. It represents a significant technical challenge outside of HPR, it serves as a source of competitors for the U.S. International team, and it has been responsible for many of the technical advances in the history of model rocketry. That said, participation has been flat to declining for a number of years, and the number of local and regional contests has been declining as well.  

At the same time, High Power Rocketry has grown significantly, and the Board would like our National events to offer more to our 3000 HPR fliers, while growing the current population of about 300 contest flyers. This could involve reducing real and perceived barriers to entry to competition, restructuring contests in general and NARAM in particular to be more appealing to new contestants, and enhancing opportunities for HPR flyers to participate in large events.

The Board has established a Special Committee on the Enhancement of National Events, chaired by Dr. John Hochheimer, to develop recommendations to be implemented over the next year.

In the interim, the board made three changes to the Model Rocketry Sporting Code (Pink Book). First, in order to enable more flexibility in the offering of R&D events, ease the judges' burden, and ensure that R&D reports are all included in our website repository, we now require that R&D reports be submitted electronically at least two weeks before the event.  

Second, we have created a new Mentorship event that will be offered at all contests from now on. This event, called "Mentorship," awards contest points for bringing new contestants into NAR competition flying.  

Third, we have proposed that teams be limited to three participants beginning in the next (2016-2017) contest year as one way of spreading contest expertise and enhancing competition.

A division

1 Stenberg, Zackary

2 Van Milligan, Ashley

3 Estrada, Ryan

4 Richardson, Jay

B Divison

1 Stenberg, Alyssa

2 Van Milligan, Allison

3 Kolland, Benjamin

4 James, O. Lee IV

C Division

1 Flanigan, Chris

2 Dunbar, Jonathan

3 Stenberg, Jon

4 Van Milligan, Tim

Team Division

1 Thunderbirds

2 The Flying I-Beam Kids

3 Altimeter Buddies

4 Pod Bay Doors

Section  

1 Launch Crue

2 COSROCS

3 IND

4 PSC