ORIGINAL: littlecrankshaf
It will be interesting to see how this saga will unfold in the next decade or so. Who knows, some party may wish to take the opportunity and truly make a go at a business such as the AMA has. RCUniverse is excellently poised IMO with their much younger spirit and larger base at the moment… there may be a few others as well.
I'm not saying you are wrong, and I won't say you're confusing reality and the Internet (last guy didn't like that), but do you have any science to back up your claim that RCUniverse membership is larger and has "younger spirit" (more on that later) than the AMA? Even if RCUniverse claims more than 160,000 members, how many of them are paying, and how many are in the U.S., and, more importantly, how many of them actually exist? Don't get me wrong, I love RCUniverse, but comparing its free membership of with the AMA paid membership isn't really that meaningful.
The "younger spirit" thing really baffles me. What is "young spirit"? A lot of guys in leadership positions in my club seem to have very young spirits (despite their being over 50) in the sense that they like fun, like toys and have a lot of energy for helping the club. They seem to have older spirits in that they are concerned about noise and safety and keeping our field. Heck, they got the field and do the right political things to keep it. That's pretty adult in my book, but it also seems like a Good Thing. I don't know what age you are (I'm 55), but the one thing that is certain is that eventually you too will be old, and whether you have old or young spirit, I hope you'll get the respect and dignity you deserve, whatever your spirit. Being young is great, but it's not necessarily what makes successful or unsuccessful organizations.