President's Perspective
Over the years, one of the cornerstones of the AMA has been the sanctioning of events. In recent years, the number of AMA sanctions granted has risen to nearly 2,400 per year; ironically, there is roughly the same number of chartered clubs. The system of managing all of those sanctions has evolved over the years, but the basic concept of sanction categories has been pretty much the same for four decades or more. A recent situation involving an AMA Special Interest Group has raised the question of just how appropriate our sanction system is in today's aeromodeling world. A close look reveals a system that is (was) geared toward the competitive world of organized aeromodeling of 40+ years ago. For example, it refers to the fact that contests in different categories of aeromodeling (i.e. Free Flight [FF], Control Line [CL], Radio Control [RC]) should not be in conflict with each other.
President's Perspective: Expo a Success
AMA held its first Modeling Expo at Muncie June 7-8 in conjunction with our three-day Homecoming 1997. Focusing on youth and model hobbies, it was a big success despite weather that was far less than cooperative. The focus was on all forms of model hobbies, airplanes, rockets, boats, cars, and trains, along with kites. We even scheduled hot-air balloons, but the weather washed that out. Some will ask what AMA is doing promoting anything other than model airplanes. The theory is that if we get a youngster into any form of modeling, he or she is much more likely to eventually try aeromodeling. The comments I heard were overwhelmingly positive on this approach.
President's Perspective: Growth: Whose responsibility is it?
The value of any activity will be appraised, in large part, by the rate at which it is growing or declining. There is a saying in Business 101 that goes something like, "a business is either growing, or it is dying." In model aviation, unlike most other industries, the industry has traditionally relied on the organization of its customers for most of the promotion and growth of the activity. There are exceptions where the industry did some promotional work, but even most of that involved the industry helping modelers run programs. The industry looked to AMA, and the AMA looked to its clubs, and the clubs looked to its members. This has historically worked very well; aeromodeling grew into the sport/hobby it is today. In fact, it may have worked too well.
President's Perspective: AMA and its average member.
A few weeks ago, I spent an evening "solving the problems of the world" with a couple of other members of the Executive Council, and, as very often happens, the discussion drifted toward what AMA does, or could do, or should do, for its average members. It's natural for this discussion to occur, as most of your officers get asked this question on a regular basis. As the evening wore on, we talked about flying sites, the magazine, flying sites, insurance, frequencies, flying sites, competition rules, instruction programs, flying sites, awards programs, club recognition, safety programs, etc, etc. Each subject bounced around the question of which group it would benefit most, and very often, which group would it hurt. As subjects would come up, we would drift into ideas which would benefit one group of members or another. After following that trail off into oblivion, someone would invariably bring up the need to do more for the average member, and the discussion would restart in a different direction.
President's Perspective: Vacation is over, back to work.
Each year, the officers of AMA give up one column to enable the magazine to enhance its coverage of the Nats. For some, it is a welcome respite, but for others, well, let's just say it is not a universally acclaimed policy. I actually did take a vacation trip this year and went to visit some aeromodeling friends in Ireland, and attend the wedding of the daughter of one of them. The trip proved, once again, that it's the people that make the sport of model aviation so great. Among the challenges your officers face is to develop a budget for the organization. It's an interesting process, which takes a lot of time. You usually start with establishing the assumptions of such factors as interest rates, inflation, and membership growth or shrinkage. Just establishing these factors can be very challenging, and a lot of guesswork is involved.
