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ORIGINAL: Hossfly

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ORIGINAL: PilotFighter

Figther feild is a lost cause. Contract mowers introduced St. Augustine grass, which then took over. Big birds can hardly fly there now. The owners are deaf to any conversation of reclaiming the field.

Have you flown at Texas City? They have St. Agustine, and it works OK when mowed very close. Inspected Jetero just this AM, and there must be every grass and weed that can be transported from south of the Rio Grande. I fight that problem here at home and am losing, except for an area where I have THICK St. Agustine which prevents the weeds from growing. However I do admit St. Agustine is not friendly to small models, but can be cut to a very short mat.

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I'm with the Wednesday crowd myself at Jetero. I generally work weekends, so I like the mowing schedule just the way it is. But the decision to mow the grass so high, has by design, or by accident, weakened any members standing in the club that doesn't prefer large gas planes. The trend toward large gas planes is obvious at the club.

There is no decision to mow any extra height. Just so thick, that little else can be done without additional care and deweeding, along with considerable additional COST.

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If this is a national trend, to design feild services suitable for large gas models, but not for smaller models, (by accident or design), this could be one more tiny factor in the AMA question.

However the care and feeding of a PRIVATE facility is NONE of AMA's business. Only the club-members can change things. A proper exercise of VOTE come Nov. could make a very big difference.

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I'm not trying to blame anyone. And I'm not rushing to defend the status quo. I'm looking around and trying to observe any and all possible reasons why someone might find a club, any club ,unsuitable for their needs. OF the entire spectrum of choices available to us in this hobby, from jets to small electric scale, the runway is the most important element needed to accommodate everyone. The choice is a conscious one, or at least it would appear to be. So, if I were to promote anything, it would be to promote diversity.

If you are promoting diversity at Jetero, then you will have to do more than complain about AMA. There are a number of us that want change. We hope to accomplish change. You can help or not. Right now, those Wed. Big Bird fliers have all the small airplane fliers paying most of the bills, (Edited to add that Jetero has big bills: $1000 mo. land payment, big electric bill to run all those cooling fans for the Wed. fliers, Real estate taxes, contract mowing, some $20,000+ per year) BB Wed.-fliers now have the grass cut for THEM, and they party and golf on the weekends.
They do little to promote Club Growth, the field is not good for Trainers on the weekend, thus not promoting good Club-Growth which would promote AMA Growth

If you like that, then no need to be at the club meeting on Nov. 29th when changes can be initiated.

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ORIGINAL: IFlyEm35

I tell you another thing that I have been embarassed about with the AMA. Every full scale aviation function I go to were the AMA is present, the booth is an absolute joke. This includes Oshkosh, the largest aviation gathering in the world. The booth has old models, small models, MAYBE a 4-stroke etc etc. It screams "boring" and that these are toys. Nothing bigger then a 60 size model. I looks like the display hasn't changed in 50 years. Lets get some excitement! Lets display some avg models but also some with "wow" factor. Throw a 35% - 40% composite out there. And lets stop using the AMA to promote the Dave Brown flight simulator. This is the WORST flight sim ever made. When our club has a mall show or something we let people fly Aerofly 3D or Realflight and there is a line waiting to fly it.
If we want new young members then we need to lure them into the hobby. If these potential new members see what the AMA is putting out they most likely be underwhelmed and never get into the best hobby on the planet!

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ORIGINAL: Bird of Paradise

Folks:

The ebb and flow of membership is nothing new but we may be missing something very important; that is, the reasons why members don't renew. My understanding is that many fail to renew after 2 yrs. Ideally we would be able to determine why those members did not renew.

IMO, there are likely several reasons for this including not successfully soloing, lack of instructors or a good training program, bad experiences with clubs (these occur more frequently than we might think), coming to the realization that aeromodeling is not what they wanted to do after all, too expensive, etc. Certainly economic conditions will have an impact as well. I recently saw a 30% Extra RTF in a local shop with a sign indicating that the hobby was just too expensive for the seller. Folks also come to the realization that they can't afford to crash!!

Its clear that several of the above reasons can be laid directly at the doorsteps of clubs as they are key to successful introduction to the hobby/sport and retention of members.

Its been said that "we live in a time in which instant gratification is too slow". How many newbes want to start out flying a 40% aerobat, giant warbird or turbine jet? Let's face it, we live in an "I want in now" era. This has led to some extent the proliferation of the really outstanding ARFs that many of us enjoy. People also spend a lot of money on entertainment (i.e. disposable income) and think nothing of "investing" in a flying model only to use it for a year or two.

Regards

Mike
Leader Member
AMA 20640

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ORIGINAL: kid chuckles

I think paying an instructor is just going to push more away. It is already pretty expensive to get into this stuff.