District VI—Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri
Randy Cameron
Vice President
flyrcam@gmail.com
2134 S. Hillcrest Ave., Springfield MO 65807
Tel.: (417) 830-9211
www.amadistrict-vi.org
www.facebook.com/AMADistrictVI
As many of you have probably read or heard by now, the annual dues will be increasing from $58 to $75 for Open members. That is a $17 increase, or less than $1.50 per month. This is the first dues increase in 13 years. The Senior discount will remain at $10, bringing those dues to $65. Park Pilot membership will increase to $38.50.
There are many reasons this dues increase is necessary, and I will try to touch on a few—inflation, increases in the cost of doing business, and increasing costs of insurance (if you pay medical insurance you know rates increase annually). Additionally, AMA’s role increased in becoming more involved as an advocate for aeromodelers to the government at the federal, state, and municipal levels, which has required us to have a government relations department.
AMA has recently hired a public relations firm to help promote model aviation in the media and to help limit bad press. Both the government relations team and the public relations team have been extremely effective in helping us maintain the status quo. We are still able to fly as we have in the past, but these programs are expensive and are a cost we didn’t even have in 2003 when the dues were last increased.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via email, or call if you feel the need to talk about it. I hated to increase dues, but I finally concluded that the increase is necessary for AMA to continue doing business in our current environment without programs suffering, or with the possibility of losing our freedom to fly.
You can save some money and effectively delay your dues increase until 2018. Current members can lock in your 2016 dues at the current rates of Open member $58, Senior member $48, and Park Pilot member $29.95, if you renew for 2016 anytime between July 1 and September 14, 2015.
During this timeframe you can also lock dues in at the current rate by renewing for two years (2016 and 2017). This has an additional $3 savings. Open membership is $113, and Senior membership is $93. Park Pilot membership doesn’t offer a two-year plan.
The new enrollment form on page 145 has these options available to you as well as online at www.modelaircraft.org/joinrenew.aspx.
The following comes from Dan Smith.
Members of the Lake Ozark Radio Control Society (LORCS) in Ozark, Missouri, held an education event at Belair Elementary School in Jefferson City, Missouri. As you can see, the children had a great time.
We tricked a few teachers into thinking they were flying an airplane. The truth is that Dave McDonald was flying the airplane. The first teacher’s model was all over the place and the second teacher looked like a pro.
I want to thank Belair School for the invitation. I know we had just as much fun flying for the children as they did having the RC aircraft brought to them.
On May 30, 2015, I attended an event put on by the LORCS. It was a charity fly-in with money raised for the American Cancer Society. They had 46 registered pilots and collected more than $3,000 for charity. There were roughly a dozen Civil Air Patrol cadets at the event. Several were AMA members, and they were either flying or learning to fly.
Nice job LORCS members! Working with schools and doing great charity events. Have you thought about becoming an AMA Leader Club?
Enjoy our great hobby and the freedom of model flying!
