Dear Sirs,
I shall not be renewing my membership. Common courtesy demands that I advise of my reasons.
Simply put, you displease me.
You once again have increased your rates. The last increase got you a new palace for a headquarters .... what's the new one for? You guys want new cars?
That such would come, like a bolt from the blue, is no surprise. When did you ever consult your membership about anything? I've been acquainted with the IAEI since 1967, and not once in all that time have you asked your membership their opinion on anything. Not once has there been a poll, an election, or even a request for input. You claim to speak in my name- then tell me to shut up!
Who, then, do you represent? Surely not the trade professionals you claim to represent.
Rather, you have become little more than cheerleaders for the most arrogant actions possible. The IAEI has supported such outrages as the 1996 code specifying what the 1999 code panels would decide! So much for 'independent' code panels.
Discourse? Your internet forum was a complete failure, your magazine lacks a 'letters' section, and you've instituted a "process" for making comments. Can't you handle a simple 'letter to the editor?'
Your magazine articles border on the illiterate. Where anything of 'substance' is discussed, it is a topic so basic that ... well, anyone who needs the basics explained has no business inspecting anything.
Possibly the biggest failure is your failure to discuss Paschen's Law, a claimed 'law of Physics' that conclusively shows that an AFCI can never work at household voltages. Considering the stampede to adopt AFCI's this is a claim worthy of major attention. Is it real, or is it fantasy? It seems to me that sending a reporter to a college physics' department for enlightenment is a reasonable expectation for a trade association.
Instead, you rail against the very AHJ's who give the NEC legitimacy, asserting that they must rubber-stamp each new edition without delay or modification. You've got that relationship exactly backwards. You also rail against those who question the 3-year code cycle. This might be a good opinion, but you fail to explain just how a 3-year cycle is necessary, and that any other interval is inadequate.
As for the 'free' codebook each cycle ... Someday I'll learn why IAEI members are the LAST to receive the new edition. Why does the local supply house get copies months before IAEI members? As for the value of the 'free' copy ... how is it that the local supply houses always offer better pricing than I can get with my "members' discount?"
I'm sure you'll muddle along just fine without me. You certainly don't seem upset with the losses in memberships you took the last time you raised rates. If anything, the declining membership seems to spur you to ever-more radical activities. You're showing every sign of having been hijacked by activists. You don't mind, as I no longer matter.
Well, if you feel that way .... you can do so without my dues.
Sincerely yours
John Steinke
