alcohol burner

My Feedback: (48)

Hi guys.....I am pasting a letter that I have sent to the AMA. I live within 20 miles of the AMA. Please read and contribute anything that may help. Please keep derogatory comments to yourself. I am looking for kind hearted and/or serious inquiries only....Thanks for your time and if you like email me personally and/or call me.....765-478-9789 Indiana time. Fridays and weekends only on calling please. I work 2nd shift......Thanks again for your time.....


My name is Tim Adams. I am currently the president of the Hagerstown R/C Aircraft club. I have been modeling now for about 5 or 6 years. I am originally fform Hagerstown. I got into the modeling field about 5-6 years ago while I lived in Indianalpolis, IN. I was learning to fly at the R/C field in Brookville, In at the Quakertown field. This is where I met a couple of individuals who recognized me and introduced themselves. They asked me why I wasn't flying at the Hagerstown field since it was closer to my residence and above all at my home town ! I felt a little embarrassed when I told them that I lived in the Hagerstown area for 20 years and never heard of an r/c aircraft club. They kinda laughed and explained to me why. They invited me up there to fly the following weekend. Ever since then I have been a member there and flown there. When I first starting flying there, there was a sign that said "Hagerstown R/C Aircraft Club" and that was it !!!!!!.....I couldn’t believe it. This is why "I thought" that noone has heard of the club. There really isn’t any indication that it existed. In the last 3 years I have gone from secretary to the president. I am going on my second year as the president. My first year as an officer I presented flyers all over town. I advertised in a local paper. Had relatives place flyers all over the school cork boards, and we have been in the local parades. We aren't getting any larger !!!!!! We have actually declined in memberships. Since I have been in office (along with another guy) we have renovated the area. Built a building and stands to assemble planes. Made up new frequency board, new protective guards and barriers. This has really caught the eye of local people who live around there along with the real Airport Pilots. Forgot to mention we are on the same property as the local Hagerstown Airport. They (pilots) all have come over and commented on how Jeff and I have turned this place around. Looks fantastic. But still have the same dilemma. Noone seems to be that interested. I am not sure if we are approaching it wrong or what. But we are in need with some assistance, ideas, and/or plain and simple HELP!.....Jeannie Houser is/was a member of our club. She can tell you how much Jeff and I have done to help promote this hobby. I am not giving up!!!! There has to be some way this can work. I am just out of fresh ideas and I need to get something going before spring.We have/will devote/d a lot of time to this. Our membership is only $20.00.......I know this is much cheaper than other fields. The last 3 members that joined we even waived the membership fee just because it was in the middle of the year. Jeff and I have forked out a lot of money out of our pockets to try and promote this. We don’t care to spend the money if we could just see a positive reaction from our efforts. Lord knows the club can't afford to do anything expensive on its income. If you aren't the person who is to respond to this, then please fwd. it to someone who can help us. Thanks for your time and hope I haven't been too boring for you. I'm sure you guys are awfully busy and get a lot of requests. But being this close to the AMA, I would have thought we would have a better impact on the public.

Well, there it is guys/gals....any ideas !!!!! Please submit.....


thanks again for your time...

Tim

MikeL

My Feedback: (3)

You might want to clarify just what exactly the problem is. If it's simply that you'd like new members, I'm not sure the AMA will be in a real hurry to help. They've got plenty to do with clubs that need new fields or are in danger of losing their fields.

All I can suggest is to get people on buddy boxes. Bring out friends, neighbors, folks from church, whatever. Talking to people is great, but having them experience it is even better. If there are other clubs nearby, invite them over for a fun-fly. If you've improved the field a lot there's a good chance some folks will join. Plenty of people belong to more than one club.

Zpat

My Feedback: (2)

Living 20 miles from a 600 acre flying site doesn't help much.
If you are seeking new members there is nothing that will attract people more than flying activity on a constant basis at the flying site.
My observation is that the general public doesn't have much interest in aviation at all. The dwindling numbers of Private Pilots would attest to that.
Our club has a nice facility on a highly traveled highway and we have a lot of flying activity going on during the season. Spectators are few and far between.

FLYBOY

My Feedback: (11)

You can do mall shows, swap meets with clubs around the area, and demonstrations at schools to help get more interest generated. If people see them, your chances of increasing iterest is higher, but now with the "I want it now" generation, many will opt for park flyers and trash them in their back yards and streets and you will never see them because they will get a very negative attitude toward RC from flying junk. Make sure you show good stuff and get people into good equipt if you want them to stay.

Static shows work well at times if you are in a high traffic area like a mall.

Live Wire

Looks like you will have to learn to live with it . We have the same problems here. Getting new members and keeping them. Some do not like to commit them selves to the club, others do not like rule but the main thing is they find out how expensive it is to fly. With larger and better field close to you does not help you at all ! Just hang in there and things will change. We are AMA and chartered and have santioned meets here but draw very few fliers to other fields. Seem like different groups of people hang to gether and do not mix well. We have people in this town that does not know ther is RC here and we have been chartered since 1985 and what I call group flying since 1976 , we had more flying in the group about 30 know 12.

glowplug

My Feedback: (1)

Distributing flyers and advertising is not enough....you need to get face to face with people.
I agree with FLYBOY......be proactive and get out and pound the pavement. Contact local Boy Scout troops and invite them to the field, get in touch with a local mall and do a static display. Have a static display and a Q & A session at a local hobby shop......

Mike

DBCherry

My Feedback: (4)

The Mall show and contacting Boyscouts (Cub Scouts too, and what about Girlscouts?), are your best bets. Put on demonstrations and offer Buddy Box flights.

Keep in mind, all these things may take time to pay off. I was first exposed to balsa models (control line) when I was about 9 or 10. Had a cousin who was building and flying them. I didn't get involved until I was 43!
Dennis-

frieshoo

My Feedback: (20)

We did a static display, and Real Flight Simulation at an Airport Open house a couple years ago, and added 10 or 12 members. We printed several hundred Club Newsletters that INCLUDED our flying schedules, and directions to the field... THe AMA gave us some material to hand out, and the club donated 100 or so magazines to give to the kids.... It worked at the Airport, so I'm sure it will
work at the Mall....

Tx_RcFlyer

My Feedback: (7)

Have you tried hosting an open fun fly for area clubs? How about quickie races or a big bird event. You need something that will actually draw the hobbiest there to see the improvements and entice them into a becoming a member.

Mike in DC

What's the situation with local hobby shops? Are there any? That's a natural place to promote the field. But I agree with Dennis that you can't expect instant turn around. You don't say how many members you have, but if you could increase 10% a year, I'd say you'd be doing extremely well. Do you offer free training? Most new members are going to come from training, but even then, you probably can only expect 1 new member for every 20 you train.

Arebeck

My Feedback: (2)

My answer will pretty much follow everyone else's. You need to get people interested by all the methods mentioned. I will add a couple of ideas that we use at our club with pretty good success.

Our club has gone from 30 members to ~50 members in the last year and a half, I attribute this to a couple of things.

1) We have members who drag their friends to the field.

2) We have 3 introductory pilots and will aways have one or two trainers available for folks to fly. I think this is important because once you see for yourself how fun and challenging RC flying is you are half way to hooked.

3) You need pilots who are willing to spend time with visitors to the field to introduce them to flying.

4) You need to be friendly to the folks who just drive up because they saw a plane flying around. They must have some interest or else they wouldn't have stopped!

5) We have a banner that we hang out while we are at the field that simply says !QUOT!Come fly with us!QUOT!. We probably got at least one drop each day in from this sign during nice weather.

6) You need to be honest with the people who stop by about the time, money and commitment need to learn to fly. It is important that they know that they it is hard to fit it into a schedule that includes soccer, swimming, scouts ... People will remember the honesty and maybe comeback when they have more time.

Enough said. Keep with it - think of new ways to interest people, but foremost is to get them on a buddy box while they are at the field.

Ron Becker
First State RC Club
New Castle, De

Nuker

Try and sponsor a "Community Day". Advertise all over town, ask the local radio about public adverts etc etc Basically offer demos all day of various flying, sport, scale, helis etc etc and make sure someone is there to meet and greet and that there is constant chatter about what is going on else they might lose interest.

Hand out tickets and 15 min out of every hour, line up people, calling their ticket numbers, to give it a whirl on a buddy box. You can place 3 public members (all ages) with an instructor and a spotter so that a 10 minute flight is shared (more in the air). Remember a lot of these folks won't want to hear the "intricacies" of flight. Quickly explain the sticks and what they do. Show them a circuit or two. Have the spotter beside them encouraging them and providing suggestions. The neat trick here is to use that buddy box switch a lot. While they are turning, most will start to come down, just hit the switch, give some up elevator and let it go back to them. You'll have to do this a few times during the circuit but to the person flying, they don't even realize someone else is assisting as most are too excited)

Now on the final approach, have the spotter push their throttle to the top. They are then told to pull back on the elevator stick and hold it there.
Bring the plane into the wind, hit the switch and they do a loop, take over at the bottom. Next person gets the box.

We had more folks get a thrill out of this simple thing than we realized using a club trainer. Every now and then someone would show a real interest, perhaps in joining or getting more serious and you could spend a bit more time with them. With 4 flight stones going at once a lot of public got to give it a try.

Between this and the demos, we all had a fantastic day (and we sold almost 200 hot dogs to boot)

Make sure you have club members available ready to talk and have some honest prices available for new and used equipment. Even if you only get 2 or 3 new members with this, it let's your community know more about the hobby and word of mouth can travel further than you realize.

Hope this helps

Bob

cropdusterdave

My Feedback: (2)

In my sleepy little town, we used to have 12 or so folks in our "club". City has always mowed a spot for us at the airport and continue to do so to this day. 12 years later...I am the only one left using it. People will show up to watch every so often...but I still sit out there all by myself on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Sure would be nice to see some faces around. Doesn't take long to get bored.

Saito_56

My Feedback: (17)

Gateway R/C in Jacksonville had a average membership of 70 for the last two years. I became active and a officer in the club. We did Mall shows, Boyscout Girlscout Boysand Girls clubs flying events, and one of the things that helped was a club web site. http://www.gatewayrc.org . We now stand at 140 members after one year. Granted the weather is great in North Florida, being able to fly year round helps. But events are a big plus. I am a new CD and will be running a Memorial day fly in, a Combat Meet in October, and a Toys for Tots fly in in Dec. Advertise with fliers, and local press helps. Good Luck

flying ace25

i need to know where the closest rc airport is to pelham alabama

GPutt33

My Feedback: (2)

Flying Ace25 - Your closest field is:

-86.866570LON 33.272853LAT 499 ELEV North Shelby Radio Control Association Helena AL

Here is a link to the clubs website I found: [link=http://www.nsrca.com/]North Shelby R/C Club[/link] You will find a map on their website.

As the crow flies the field is about 5.75 miles to your SW.

SDR-Hammer

Some good ideas have been mentioned and one that I would like to reiterate is, be friendly to all visitors. Nothing turns people away from a group/club faster than one that appears to be a clique. At our club many folks just pull partially down the drive to briefly watch, we always try to wave them in or some members will even walk out and invite them into the action. Nobody leaves our club without a lengthy conversation with a couple members.

Another idea is to take your old R/C mags and distribute them to local barbershops, dentist offices, etc. Print up some Avery labels with information about the club and stick them to the mags.

alcohol burner

My Feedback: (48)

Man, what an overwhelmign response. I really appreciate all the good advice. It goes to show you that people really do care about fellow rc'rs.....I have mentioned some of the ideas to the secretary and we are starting to work on some of the ideas you guys came up with.....We are going to start puttign magazines in doctor offices, dentist offices, barber shops, loan depts at banks, and shool libraries. I hope this will help some. Going to set up at a mall with another club for a whole weekend. Hope this will help our club and theirs.


Also want to give you guys some reflection about the AMA.......I know most everyone has no idea how it works around here......During the summer there are contests almost every week...During a contest this means no r/c flying !!!!!! It doesnt matter if it is control line, kites, free flight or any other contest....there is absolutely no flying until after 5pm....even on weekends......this really puts a damper on flying at the AMA.......It has been an issue for quite some time. The local club which has their field there at the AMA are looking to purchase some land to buy for their own club.......They are pretty much fed up with paying 58.00 for an AMA membership plus there membership to the club dues....I have no idea what it cost to join theur club but I can see where they are coming from about paying all that money out and not even being able to fly 85% of the time from March to October.....It really sucks!!!.....
[:@]

Tim