i have been looking to find another club so i could fly this weekend. so i looked up a local club both on rc universe site and the AMA website. the person it told me to contact had not given a phone number so i e-mailed him a few times with no reply to my emails. there was also no information to finding where the field is. if people are going to give information about clubs why dont they atleast tell you how to get there

The listings on the AMA web site gives you the president or founder of the club. Unfortunately, some times this information changes and no one bothers to update the AMA. Some times you can get lucky and type in the name of the club in a yahoo search and find a web site with the information your looking for. Good luck.

Try going to you local hobby shop and asking them where the clubs are and who to contact.

Also, you have to remember this is a hobby. The person that you are emailing may not check his email that often. Or his computer may be down. Our club president was not getting his email for a few days last week while I upgraded his computer. I sometimes go a week or longer between checking my email. For my computer business I had to set my mail server to copy all emails to my cell phone so I would know when I got an email.

Another issue is that these days, with all the spam and virus traffic, mail from unknown people sometimes just gets sent to the trash. Be sure to have a subject line that clearly mentions the club name or something. Mail with a subject like "Hi" (or no subject) gets deleted unopened by a lot of people.

Sometimes they change all the elected officials,the one i'm looking at changes the president once a year,i think.I don't know who's responsible for upkeeping the web pages but all clubs have somebody.

even true that it changes, the least the person could do is respond and forward a email to both parties to explain. Or just step up and provide the information to the person.

Yep, they should, but often, it doesn't happen.

It's also worth noting that the average age at most of these clubs is still in the 60's.

Email and the internet isn't the "big thing" to them as it is to guys who don't recall a time before the web. You'll usually get much more response from most clubs by using the "old fashion" tech they are used to. It's called the "telephone" perhapse you've heard of it?

i would try calling someone but they don't have a telephone number listed. it doesnt make too much sense when you consider that it is a small club and you can go to the field everyday and there is never anbody that uses it. all i am trying to do is get someone to teach me to fly when my usual instructor is out of town so i dont have to wait weeks before a lesson

I would suggest trying to find when the club meets. Our club meets monthly. The information on when the club meets is buried in our website, but it is there. I have been trying to get our website maintainer to clarify things, but when they use a free hosting service...

Don't give up!

You may also want to post the link to the club website here.

If there is a hobby shop listing in your phone book, try calling or visiting there for local club contact info. Even if the staff doesn't know who the officers are, they can usually put you in touch with some sort of contact person. We provide our shop owner with some small handouts with current info on them. Good luck, Dzl

I guess I was lucky. When I decided to enter this hobby earlier this year, I managed to locate the only club within 30 miles of me (I live in a small rural town). I emailed the link on their website and got a response from two of the club officials! Within 24 hours!
As an added bonus, one of them owns/operates a small hobby shop at his home, which is at the other end of the field.

I am sorry to hear of your mis-fortune, though. I think if a club is going to advertise (a web site or listing on a site such as AMA is "advertising"), they should keep up with contact updates.

As stated by someone else, "Don't give up".

Dano13

Our club is just getting a web site set up. It's alot of work and then someone needs to maintain it. The hobby is the airplanes not the paperwork.

The best idea is to call the local hobby shop. (shops) If they can't get you either directions to the field or a land line contact, then maybe, just maybe, the club isn't very active or worse yet they lost their site!

Hang in there, keep shaken the trees. You never know when something might fall out.
Al