Great. Terrific. Your idea is the BEST one, mine is the SECOND best thing AMA could do.
Why not start your own thread about your idea, which is just so great, and we can stick to the subject here.
I'm sure your thread will be VERY popular, it's such a great idea, it really merits its own thread.

I don't know what you are talking about. I'm not "doing what AMA wants", I am thinking for myself.
The rest of your post makes no sense at all. "What we have to offer to the public is our own personal right and privilage." That makes no sense at all. Neither does the next sentence. Except I THINK you meant to use "accept" where you used "except". Frankly, I have no idea of what you are talking about.
But don't clarify it, anyway. I gather you have nothing constructive to add to what we are actually talking about, which is giving gliders away to kids.
It would be NICE to have a conversation without it turning into routine AMA bashing.
That's three pointless posts in a row, can you guys knock it off? Go start your own thread.

Guillow's, donated by a LHS.

AMA probably should start building up a flying site acquisition fund, 'cuz flying sites are disappearing at an ever-increasing rate.

I think we should hike the dues to somewhere around $250 a year.

Yeah, that ought to take care of it. We could easily afford to buy one flying site in Kalifornia as early as say, 2015, and maybe another in Connecticut sometime in the following _century_.

'course, with dues at $250 a year and climbing just to keep up with inflation, we wouldn't need any regional flying sites because all remaining AMA members could fly >at the same time< on the Muncie site.

AMA should buy regional flying sites ? With WHAT ?

What personal right would that be ?

Man, you rose to that like a trout rising to a mayfly. Let it go, lest we have yet another "Fat Cats Building An Ivory Castle In Muncie Dave Brown Is The Antichrist" thread.
We wuz talkin' about giving a way model airplanes, nothing more, on this here particular thread. PLENTY of other threads where people can rage against the AMA machine...

Which Guillows glider are they giving away? Does the club contribute at all, or does the LHS foot the bill alone?

O.K. to get things back on track here. How do we give away small gliders that fly to kids all over the country? Here are a couple of thoughts.

Let the AMA work with Kellogs cereal, and put an airplane in every cereal box. Print the values of AMA on the box, and offer an "AMA junior pilots license" (no value) by sending in the boxtop along with a postage stamp to cover return mailing costs.

Work with McDonalds, Burger-King, Wendy's, and put an airplane in every kids meal. Offer junior pilots license as above. These food chains are always looking for new ideas - perhaps they would cover the entire cost of the airplanes.

Every kid in the country either eats cereal or goes to McDonalds on a regular basis.

Yah, don't much care for nonsense ill-considered off-topic 'lets throw it all away' posts. Sorry.

Dunno which glider it is, but the wing slides into a slot in the fuse, and the tail bits are stuck into slots in a plastic thingamus on the tail. The club has a four-member 'glider repair station' going during the whole event, and there are usually a half-dozen kids standing around that table with their lip stuck way out.

The gliders are donated by the LHS owner, and purportedly the price is $0.80 each (dunno if that's wholesale or retail, though). The club also manages to latch onto several boxes of JR hats to give away, and I forgot to ask about the source for those.

By the end of the day probably 95% of the gliders have been well and truly redecorated by felt pens of many colors.

I _think_ (but don't quote me) that the club's contribution is lunch for all the kids, parents, and teachers who show up. Trust me, an entire 3rd grade can chew it's way through a bunch of burgers n' dogs. Of course the club members also work and run the event and clean up afterward.

Off topic, but here's a little blurb about an upcoming event at CCRC : http://www.ccrc.info/index.php?optio...d=21&Itemid=43

Sho' nuff.

In the back of my feeble mind I can hear Carl Sagan mumbling bill-yuns and BILL-yuns . . . .

Maybe it would work if AMA had 'coupons' printed up and Kellog's/McArches/Burger Queen stuck the coupons in the boxes. AMA would only have to spring for gliders for the returned coupons rather than shipping out several tons of balsa. AMA could also include a single-page flyer touting the organization to the kids for future reference. I bet Dad would read it too.

Maybe the coupon could be good for a Delta Dart, since we already have a handle on those . . . and Junior could pester Dad to help build it.

This could get evil . . .

Hmm

Hamburgers, hot dogs... gliders

you guys are on to something.

Do you remember the glider that was made from a styrofoam plate, published in MA in May 2003. They called it the FPG-9. If I remember correctly, the FPG-9 can be purchased as part of a tour of the Museum. That would mean that it is already in AMA's inventory. I wonder what they could sell those plates to clubs for to be used when food is served by the club.

Hi JR. Haven't seen many posts by you lately. Welcome back. Your idea of the styrofoam plate might just be the answer to having an airplane in stock. Are these printed on the plate?
Regardless, this sounds like the type of airplane that would work.

Fred: I also like the idea of the coupons to be sent in, and I'm sure that there must be a lot more ideas out there if we can get others thinking. The trick will be to get someone on the EC of AMA interested enough to have the subject discussed there. We can sit here all day and make suggestions, but at the end of the day, it's still here and has gone nowhere.

I still like the idea of somehow giving the new pilots an "AMA junior license" having no value, which to us would just be a piece of paper, but to a kid they can imagine big things if their name is on it.

ET started this thread. Will therefore bounce this difficult part back to him. I'm fresh out of ideas.

All very good ideas - I really like the McDonalds, etc coupon idea.... The AMA portion shouldn't be difficult, and there's bound to be someone here on RCU that is part of the corp., and could bring it up to Ronald...

That idea might work well for local events and clubs too (similar to CCRC stuff), I'll have to keep that in mind for next time! Thanks all!

At most of our fun-flys/fly-ins, we give out various little balsa gliders as "raffle prizes" to all the kids that are there... each kid gets a (free)ticket, and every ticket is called during the "raffle" - seems to be a big hit everytime. Often there's 2 or three times the number of gliders flying at any one point in the day than r/c models - and the grins are priceless!
The gliders we give out... uh, the kids "win"... are donated by the area hobby shops, usually 2 in Tucson.

Noticed on the Guillows website last night that you can have the little balsa gliders printed with a logo or whatever, and there's a good variety of models too...

Seems like I'm getting more ideas from this thread than contributing... sorry!
(Done rambling again)