Originally Posted by
dryverman
I usually don't make comments regarding AMA threads, I spend most of my spare time in the basement building "toy" planes. When I'm on RCU it's mostly checking the warbird and scale threads, but your question got me thinking. I have belonged to a club of 40-50 members for many years, we fly at an old airstrip owned by the town. Each year we go to select board to get their approval to fly, as we have been doing for many years. Economic reasons aside, they require us to have site insurance and we as a club require all members to have a current AMA membership. The town has no other requirements, we basically use the property for free. The site could not be better, 800X75 runway, no restrictions at either end. Being an AMA member is a small price to pay to have what we have... would you agree?
That sounds like a decent deal for your money. The problem is that many AMA members get far less for their membership dollar. For years I've advocated that the strongest rational reason for joining AMA is a quality field close to where members live and work, and thus putting money out there to "level" the experience would be well placed. But what I've found is that those "haves" generally don't support spending money for the "have nots".
So if your AMA dollar gets you ready access to what sounds like a great field close to home, that's fantastic. But what about another member sending the same amount to AMA and all it gets them is a rough grass field? If they have some compelling "need" for an AMA field, I suppose they'll pay. But absent a need to fly large planes or jets, a great many can just save the money and fly smaller stuff at the park or school within walking distance and spend that $75 a year (plus the $100 a year club fees) on planes, batteries, etc.