Hello all,
RCU FORUM POSTERS, I NEED YOUR HELP!

Let me lay it out. At a club board meeting tonight I brought up the fact that our club, as large as it is, does not have any “Scale” meets. Everyone agreed with my opinion that our club needs to be rounded out with a good scale event.
I have been tasked with organizing & running this event. I am happy to accept this challenge. However, I have never directed any event, much less a scale event. PLEASE, anybody that has any experience with promoting or running scale events, I need your advice. We have a very nice new facility with 650’ of runway, as is. For future reference, I’ll be adding runway to our site this winter when I’m not so tied up with business. I can see how we could easily achieve 800’ of runway. I mention this because I want this to be an annual event, getting better over time.

What I need

Date: we have September thru October open for events. What other scale events are going on around this time, what is the best date during this time frame?

Promotion:
What brings the premier scale fliers out to the field?

Sponsorship:
What companies would like to get involved with a scale event?

Here is my plan – A scale event, fly in all rolled together. Any scale plane allowed even standoff scale. I think the “reasonable” rule applies here. Also during this event I would like to have a certain time dedicated to true & accurate scale, an actual contest.

I personally feel a strong desire to promote the scale aspect of our hobby. I think that with ARF’ 3D’s, etc.. there has been somewhat of a “loss” of modeling. I greatly enjoy a lot of the aspects of this hobby, and I want to expose as many people as possible to the scale modeling facet of the hobby, with the hopes of sparking interest.

feel free to contact me directly.
[email protected]

Forgot to mention Location. Our Field is located in Central Alabama.

Well count me in, I like your plan. Not just another so called big bird only event, shutting out other modelers. Having a contest of sorts would help to bring out the higher quality models also. Not sure how you'd get the big wigs out to your club, maybe offer free stuff? lol Seriously I don't know a thing about setting these things up, I hope someone who does will chime in. Having a raffle and some prizes would be nice though, I'd offer some of my scale items for your raffle to help out. Also we nee some pictures of your club, I'm fairly new to Bama and have not seen your facilities. Does your club have a web site?

Good luck and keep us posted!

Dion

Yeah, we have a website. It's under renovation. I really appreciate all of your help! I've noticed you are in Prattville, I've been to the Prattville field, I like it. Plenty of room! You need to come up and fly with us! You are welcome anytime.

[link=http://www.alabasterrc.com/]Club Link[/link]

I'll definately take you up on your offer! Maybe a scale contest judge?

thanks,
Mike

Our 15 member club held it's first scale event last year. It was open to all scale aircraft, ARF to museum scale. We had a BBQ after the flying was over.

Local clubs were notified, and we had a thread about the event, going on a scale building website.

There were 25 pilots registered and over 50 scale models at our event. Some pilots traveled over 500 mile to attend.

We kept it simple. It wasn't a contest. Everyone seemed to enjoy the fly for fun format.

This year's date was announced last week. We have already recieved inquiries from pilots living in Canada and abroad.


My advice is to keep your format simple. Don't over extend your club's abilities. Let the event grow at it's own pace. If the attendees have an enjoyable experience, they will return, and bring others with them.

Get your volunteers lined up first. Talk is cheap. I did the same thing you did. When I asked for volunteers, I just got a couple. So I ended up cancelling it. We do a swapmeet every year and that seems to be the extent of it. We DID try a heli event last year. I ran the impound by myself, about a 9 hour job by the end of the event. The other guy that committed didnt show up. So I wont be doing that again. That whole event got praise but was run short handed and a headach at least to me.
Edwin

I'll know by Friday about the volunteers, that is the one thing I'm not worried about. We have several events a year at our field, and they are never understaffed.

I want to thank everyone that has taken the time to email me, I appreciate your time and effort.

Mike

If you want to advertise your event in MA (Model Aviation) and have a "sanctioned" event get some one who is an AMA CD (contest director) to be in charge of the event. If you don't care about sanctioning the event then that's not necessary. If it is a contest then you should probably use the AMA scale contest rules. You can down load them from the AMA net site. If you have judges then they need to be "trained" to help avoid lots of arguments. The more preparation you do ahead of time the better the contest will run.

Thanks for the invite, I'd like to check out your club some time. I'm not a judge, well not an official one! lol Like Bob said you need to be trained, but given my size I really doubt anyone will argue with me! lol Some really good advice here and things to think about, very interesting. How do you make volunteers show up anyway, is there a trick to that or what?

Dion

All the free food and drinks they want.

Hey Mike (messerschmitt),
If you can get Luke (Dion)to come, please do as he is an asset to anything he is involved with and quite the modeler too!! (Luke , you can re-imburse me for the plug later, LOL)
No, really, he's a good guy and you'd be lucky to get him to visit you. Now, if he would only come fly with me sometime...... sigh, sigh,...

Yeah,
I've seen some of Luke's handiwork here on RCU. I hope he will bring some goodies to sell at the event, I'm sure we can accomodate him with a setup!
Hey, which reminds me, I've got a CMP Zero that is supposed to be here on the 5th. Luke, so many people have complained about getting parts, are you interested in fabricating some stuff for the Zero? PM or email me if you want me to bring you the originals.

Mike

Messerschmitt,
It's a great idea to step forward and create this event . You need to delegate, you can only plan the event to be sucessful by getting people to commit to making this a sucess. First advertise at your front gate to let the people that pass by every day that a special event is coming up , so they can set aside some time to come to your event. The more spectators the better . They are what will make or break your event. You make money on this event and the club will beat a path to your door!!!!
You need a c/d to take care of the flying side of the event ,and as such knows what he needs are. you need to compare notes so that you both are on the same page.
He needs tx impound ,registration,flight line control and saftey concerns.
Your other guys should be food chairman for all the food related, raffel chairman for the spectators raffel and coordinate the pilots raffel for all flying pilots. how about the parking or the donations at the gate.
Get the local newspaper to do a story about the upcoming event.
Decide are you going to do a Scale Rally [ fun fly, low key event for your first time] or a actual scale contest . You will have to track down static judges that have expirence, and flying judges, possibly pattern competitors who understand the called manuvers.
This will make a lot of pilots think twice about competing.
Your more likely to get more pilots if there is no competition, [my past experience], just a good scale get together.
Limit most volenteers to 2 hour shifts if possible to avoid burnout and so that they can fly also since you will need all the pilots you can get.
Get a P/A system to keep the crowd informed about what is flying. Got to keep it interested!
At the noon break get the spectator kids participate in a candy drop. Make sure that the drop pilot has practiced this prior to the event with ping pong balls , these p/p balls can be marked for special prizes latter at the event.
As you can see the flying is only a small part of the event.

tom [been there done that]

Thanks, great tips! Keep em' comming!

Mike

For the first year, how about a "fun format" event with a few "pilot's choice" awards for things like "best WWI", "best 1919-1939", "best WWII", "best 1946-" and maybe "best scale flight performance".

That will reduce the workload from true scale contest rules, while recognizing the work of those who brought great aircraft.

Reduce the work load is good!!!!!
tom

Fliir,
I think you are right, crawl before running.

Mike

dionysusbacchus:
I tried to PM you, I guess you have it turned off. Please email me. I have a question for you, but I would rather not post it here.

thanks,
Mike

My email: [email protected]

It's HERE!

ARCA's first annual scale Fly-In!
September 8th - 10th, dawn till dusk! The field will available for flying Friday, Sept. 8th. Main event will be Sat. (9th). All pilots are welcome to stay & fly Sunday.

Not AMA sanctioned (not this year anyway) $10.00 landing fee, spectators enter free. There will be some awards given.

We have a nice grass runway, 650' long x 50' wide. I've had some questions about jets, we do have a club member that has (and flys turbine powred jets off our runway).

RULES
1.) Have fun
2.) Be safe
3.) Model must be scale, no size restrictions.

Thanks so much for everybodys help & advice, I hope to see you all there!

I'll help in any way possible, directions, lodging, etc..... Email me: [email protected]

I have run countless contest of all types

Dont worry about attendance the first couple of times you hold the event
It will take a little time to build up a following

Have as many awards as you can
People who get something will think highly of coming back next year

Only one award I will never give out again

Pilots Choice--This does not usually reflect the best of anything just who has the most friends
The straw that broke me was when a local hot shot got his friends to vote for his sons airplane (definately not anywhere close to the best plane of the event)
after that I said never again. Everyone else got one maybe two votes-as everyone voted for his plane.

We have a great time at our events, have a lot of fun
The scale events we have certainly improved the amount of scale planes at our field.
Hellcat56

Sounds like the rest of the pilots were short on friends. I have had planes picked as pilots choice and not know more than one or two people at the contest. A couple of years back another fellow had to bring the award by because I had left a half day early.
[quote]ORIGINAL: hellcat56

I have run countless contest of all types

Dont worry about attendance the first couple of times you hold the event
It will take a little time to build up a following

Have as many awards as you can
People who get something will think highly of coming back next year

Only one award I will never give out again

Pilots Choice--This does not usually reflect the best of anything just who has the most friends
The straw that broke me was when a local hot shot got his friends to vote for his sons airplane (definately not anywhere close to the best plane of the event)
after that I said never again. Everyone else got one maybe two votes-as everyone voted for his plane.

How do you get members to attend meetings? Easy..
Just post there will be free beer, and a discussion on raising dues...
If you are organizing an event, first develop a thick skin, prepare for obfuscation, excuses, family funerals, graduations, weddings, vacations,and some handling of the truth in a reckless manner....If you have a membership of 80, expect 10 to volunteer, and five to show up....Do not misinterprit this as a cynical answer to a sincere question, but the result of disappointing experience.. Hopefully, your endeavor will be successful, and a rewarding experience....

Hey guys,
I thought I would take the time to share the results of everybody's help and advice. Since I posted this, I have adminstered two scale events, this years being the third on. The club voted to make this an annual event, so the second weekend of september will be our clubs scale event. This year that date is September 13th & 14th. I was really surprised at how much our club members helped out on the first years event, and because of that it was a success!!!

I'm hoping to make this years event bigger & better! I fooled around and waited too late to apply for AMA sanctioning, so it won't be a sanctuned event. That's not going to slow us down, we are still holding the planned events - 513, 515 & 522 per AMA rulebook.

I want to include everybody that has an interest in scale, so there will be no model size restrictions. I've also decided to alot a time for open flying, even for non contestents, provided their models are scale.

SO WHO's COMMING!

Thanks for everyones help in 06, it got this clubs scale contests off to a good start in the right direction!
Mike

since this is your 1st time out the shoot,use the K.I.S.S. method. Get your volunteers together, get your judges on the same page( if you decide to do a judging event),remember the flyers are your main concern, cater to them. Dont plan onmaking any money on the event, dont expect a large turnout and be flexible. I found with my event that a scale contest and a fly-in didnt work well together. If you do a scale contest keep it scale, if you do a scale fly in , reward the pilots for their efforts, make it fun for them. Take notes,ask fo advice and seek out ways to improve for next yr.

Messerschmitt.....if you plan on eventually getting your event to be large enough to garner regional attendance and get spotlights in some of the major R/C mags, you'll need to avoid the time frames occupied by already established scale events. Anything too close to another larger event, and sponsorship is harder to get. Your Sept 14th time frame is real close to Warbirds over the Rockies which is Sept 26th-29th. This is already one of larger shows during the year and is covered by Fly RC, Model Airplanes News, etc and is well sponsored. A lot of big name pilots go to the big events(like Mac Hodges B-29, Dino Digornio and his scale award winning planes, etc) and thats how you get audience attendence(if your looking for that anyhow).

Im not telling you when to hold your event, you simply asked if there was other events already in that general time frame.