NPAA’s 2007 Annual Meeting a Success

Dubuque, IA - The National Professional Anglers Association (NPAA) a not-for-profit association dedicated to the growth of the professional fishing industry held its national convention on January 4-6, 2007. NPAA members include Touring Pros, Registered Pros and Supporting Members. The Annual Meeting took place in Dubuque, IA and was deemed a success by all members who attended.

Several tournament trails were represented at the meeting and showed excellent support for the organization. Kristine Houtman of Cabela’s Masters Walleye Circuit, Bill Brosnahan of Walleye Anglers Trail and representatives of FLW Outdoors were present. The support from them was terrific.

“FLW will be a Supporting Member of the NPAA as long as it is in existence,” said Mark Dorn, Director of Operations. With him in attendance were his team members, Sonny Reynolds, FLW Walleye Tour Tournament Director and Kevin Hunt, FLW Walleye Tour Stage Personality and Tournament Director.

The biggest topic of discussion was the introduction of a new matrix, called PAR (Professional Angler’s Rating), which was just introduced to the membership.  This matrix assists an angler by helping them take an assessment of their promotional and professional activities within the industry.  Deemed “the shining star” of the meeting, this matrix is the first-ever, quantitative promotion tool to be introduced to the industry. By quantifying an angler’s promotional ability, sponsors and potential sponsors can now easily put a number to an angler’s promotional value.

The NPAA plans to use PAR as a minimum requirement for becoming or remaining a Touring Pro Member, which will elevate the standards in the organization. The PAR system is based on a points rating, which will require a minimum of 100 points to be earned per year for promotional and professional efforts.

Anglers themselves will benefit greatly from this matrix.  It will serve as an easy-to-use tool for putting together quarterly and annual reports, assist in quantifying their value to sponsors, and help them to achieve their goals.

The membership will be using 2007 as a test year to tweak out any bugs and give time for feedback from the anglers and the industry. If passed by vote at next year’s meeting, the matrix will be used as new criteria for holding the NPAA Touring Pro Members to a higher requirement.

In addition to the matrix, several hours were spent in Open Forums with the membership suggesting the direction of the NPAA in 2007. All members in attendance voted overwhelmingly to focus on angler promotions. They feel that members joined the organization to better themselves as professionals and to grow their careers.

Special guest speaker was Dave Landahl, Public Relations Manager of Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation (RBFF). RBFF is a federally funded not-for-profit organization which as set up to promote fishing and boating to Americans. Part of their mission includes a program called Angler’s Legacy. Members in attendance signed the pledge cards and promised to take one person (either someone who has never fished before or someone who hasn’t fished in a long time) fishing this year. Opportunities to work more with RBFF are in the offing, especially expanding NPAA’s current youth events to become Angler Recruitment events which span all ages.

The 2008 Annual Meeting plans are underway with the dates being set for January 3-5, 2008. Location and agenda are to be determined. In the past, the NPAA Annual Meeting was open only to members. Next year, the meetings will be open to non-members who want to attend with a member.

For more information on the NPAA, visit the web site at www.npaa.net.