Originally Posted by
rcmiket
Honestly I could care less what he thinks or says.
Mike
Right, it's easier to just say something and not have to respond to an alternative viewpoint, case in point the whole money thing at events. You'll mock a drone group for promoting the event and indicating they have cash and prizes, but are going to remain silent when I give three specific examples of "traditional" flying events doing the same exact thing. I'm left to wonder if you didn't know those other events did that, or would just apply a double standard to those events because they fly fixed wing only. Or both. Who knows.
Originally Posted by
astrohog
Meh. I can take it or leave it, I go to events to interact with others that enjoy the same hobby I do. I certainly do not use the prize fund as a barometer to judge whether it was, "successful" or not.
On the other hand, I have hosted and run events that have donated many thousands of $$ to local charities. I would consider those events, "successful" (for the charities, if for nothing else), and it could be ASSUMED that many of the participants considered it successful, as they freely spent their money at the event one way or the other (food, raffle, entry, just a plain donation without expectation of anything in return). The REAL measure of a, "successful" event is the satisfaction achieved by those who attended. I am sure that for every "successful" event that I have run, there have been those who attended that did not feel the same way.
Astro
For someone who can take it or leave it, you sure seem to take it a lot!
But you're still deflecting or dodging the issue. Mike specifically mocked the fact that the drone events talk about cash and prizes (I mean, the alleged events) but I've given three specific examples of events who do that as well. I know he won't respond because it's really not easy to do so when faced with the facts, but I'm curious as to your thoughts on his position. It's bad for the droners, but seemingly o/k for the fixed wing crowd.
I agree 100% with you on the metric for judging success, ie finances. We've never held an event with the dollar signs in our eyes, it's always been about having fun. One of our main events we hold every year is free, no landing fee, no parking fee, just come and have fun. We will do burgers and dogs for a couple of bucks, our goal is just to not lose money on that. We also serve the seniors who live behind our field free food and drinks. Keep in mind, the starting rent at this place is about 10,000 a month! We set up a viewing tent at show center just for them and their families, and man do they love a free hot dog and coke, lol. This past weekend a few of them brought their kids and grandkids, saddled right up for the free food. We gave away at least $100.00 in food (at cost) to them, but we see it as a drop in the bucket.
We've moved away from the big donations/raffle table we had years ago that would have to be manned for two days, and of course would take all year to beg for the items. Now we hit up two local hobby shops once a year, and get two good items for each event. This time it was a Carbon Z T-28, and a DX6i. We did about 700 in sales on that...pretty nice. A portion of proceeds from every event we have goes to our towns food bank, and the purchase of (sorry for the plug here) MA subscriptions for all the town's libraries and middle/high schools.
I don't begrudge any of the events advertising what their cash or prizes are, I see it as another fun part of the hobby.