Originally Posted by
Hydro Junkie
Inviting the public does help but, once the public is there, you need to make them feel like YOU WANT THEM THERE. As I said in my first post, the people were basically ignoring the kid. If you want to keep the kid and his parents involved, you don't keep talking in your own little "click". You talk to them, show them how things work, let them actually see how the sticks make things on the plane work. These are the kinds of things that will get people interested, not having a model sitting on a table for them to look at but otherwise ignoring them
Yep! Being military I've had the opportunity to belong to quite a few clubs. At any new place I would park where designated (if it was) and walk to where spectators should be (also if designated, many places don't). I would wait and see if anyone came up and introduced themselves or if most would simply pass by with maybe a nod of acknowledgement.
Of course the counter is for me to have said something. But I already knew what I wanted and why I was there. I wanted to see how much the club wanted new members. Surprisingly I'd say about half ignored me initially.
And my best experience was in Germany at an American/German club on an Army Post. I walked into the club and the lone German there immediately dropped what he was doing and introduced himself. To this day, 40 years later he remains one of my best friends.