Hello all, I am wondering why clubs are said to want young people so badly. I think I qualify as a "young person" (14), and until I did some show-and-tell and got solo rated, I received absolutely zero respect from all but a few of our club's members. On several of the AMA threads, I read that there were a few special junior discounts available to juniors to try to get them started in r/c. Yesterday, I, along with 4 other members, visited a boy scout camporee. We had volunteered at the last meeting to do a flight demo for the boy scouts. I noticed that the members who accompanied me to this comporee were not too interested in being extremely friendly and welcoming. Instead they seemed to be more worried about the kids not stepping on their airplanes(even to the parents). Surely this isn't the proper attitude to take?
As I said before, when I started out at our club, I got very little or no respect just because I am not as old and probably not as wise as the rest of our members. Once I got solo rated, and had visited several meetings (consecutively), I felt comfortable enough to give a presentation about two scratch-built electric parkflyers I built. This seemed to give me some status among the rest. Then, I showed up at out fall fun-fly and probably flew more flights and had better landings than just about all of the attenders (is that a word??). I had to quit because of a low battery. Next, I volunteered for this comporee. When I got there, I was shocked to find that I was being treated truly as an equal. But if I was, why weren't all the boy scouts who are "needed" in our club? Is it because they are afraid that when the older members pass, our club will fall too? Or do they "see themselves" in us kids? Basically, from what I've read, the clubs seem to be recruiting young people. Why don't their actions follow this? Thanks, Andrew

P.S. No crashes in front of some 300 boy scouts.