So you think the AMA DVD is the biggest joke AMA has pulled on you? Not really. IMO, about the biggest joke on the AMA membership is the entire program of the magazine Model Aviation.

What brings this about? I have always saved magazines. While in Buffalo Gv. IL for many years, I accumulated a bunch. FM, MAN, Scale RC , MB, MA, RCM, and a number of foreign mags along with many Air Classics, Air Progress, WarBirds, and several others of the times. Then a bad Spring thaw and many flooded basements -- one being mine -- I lost many magazines. Then in 1982 I lost more when most of my personal stuff was moved into storage for some 3 years. In '85 I returned to the Republic and lost some more. In 2001 I moved into current quarters and disposed of more. Now I'm finally getting into unpacking some remaining boxes in the barn, and I found a number of old mags that I thought were long gone. Some of the RCM stuff, in their battles against AMA, bears note for background to you that have been in this organization for a short time of 20 years or less.

I only had a few RCMs remaining and they are now all gone except 2. The November 1972 RCM had 9 columns in the late Don Dewy's editorial reference the AMA and their publication choices. It is very interesting, well displaying that AMA internal politics and personal care-taking is nothing new. In a very short overview, AMA was hoping to have 45,000 members in the coming year. AMA made a deal with Potomac Aviation publications (American Aircraft Modeler) to host the AMA's 8 pages of AMA News each month for some $160,000.00 per year. As Dewy termed it, AAM's publisher Ed Sweeney was a "friend of the family", actually a friend of J. Worth.

NOW HEAR THIS: AMA chose that route and had to levy a 50% dues increase that next year to support the AAM deal. Prior to that selection both RCM and MAN had offered AMA -- Pres. Johnny Clemens / Executive Director John Worth -- that EACH WOULD HOST THE AMA NEWS SECTION FREE OF CHARGE. At that time AMA with some 40,000+ members would be represented in both RCM -- 75,000 circulation and Model Airplane News with 80,000 circulation. AMA turned it down.
Of note is that back then MAN was an ALL-DISCIPLINE magazine.

Oh, BTW, this issue of RCM had both the AMA's '72 Glenview NATs and the 1972 Soaring NATs, all bringing attention of AMA activities to those outside the choir.

Now I also found an old RCM, June 1975. Here the flack was about AMA starting up its own publication. Here Dewey applied another 8 columns -- small print -- to that application. Again, there were a number of economic areas discussed by Dewey along with 3 other prominent RC Leaders of the day. Again AMA ignored everything other than the wants of the few.

You can see that sorting old magazines is very time consuming for me. I find them most delightful to review through.

In 1979 through 1981 and into 1982, I sat on that council and fought against mandatory magazine subscriptions. Unfortunately at my first EC meeting, I learned that the EC was then simply a rubber stamp for the ED. There was a new AMA President then, the late Earl Witt. Earl really wanted to do a good job, and worked hard. He made some changes that someone else always received credit for. Earl laid the groundwork for getting AMA out of the DC red-light district. We had no computers back then and times were, shall I say "Battle Stations, This is no drill." [X(] Yet, the mandatory magazine continued. Of course it was destined to become so profitable that member dues would be almost nothing! Ha!
The ED fought long, hard and rather successfully to maintain his dictatorship.

In the last 20 years the politics have not really changed, just as life in general, they are more technologically advanced. There is little change other than the size of the bureaucracy, along with the resulting clamps on the freedoms we once enjoyed at our club level. Like our so-called 'free country', Big Brother can pretty well run over the majority of the stable working classes, and the AMA hierarchy will go on its merry way, making rules and ignoring the membership. I am wondering where AMA's overall decrease in membership while increasing spending will finally meet face to face.

The magazine is costing you almost as much as your insurance, yet that is never mentioned by AMA, in fact just the opposite. The magazine could very well do as it was originally purported to be intended and that is to be an income producer and profit center. I fully predict that no such changes will be forthcoming unless YOU members turn to page 149 of your March 2005 MA and initiate action to make changes. Four more changes at EC level could well make a difference. What are you waiting for? If you don't, then the joke will continue to be on YOU.[>:]

edit: Here vice hear. Must be getting old!