200 MODEL AVIATION
View from HQ
Executive Director Jim Cherry
A full 32% of respondents fly
at least one or two times a week.
he 2007 AMA membership
survey has been completed and
the results are in! Past projects
of this kind have included a general
membership survey using the consulting
firm Axiom in the fall of 1999. A
detailed reader survey for Model
Aviation was performed in March 2004,
and in late 2006 the Academy
conducted a Web page survey.
Of the more than 62,000 E-mails
sent to notify the membership of the
most recent survey, more than 8,100
members—or roughly 13%—responded.
In the arena of polls and surveys this is
considered an excellent response
percentage.
(During renewal time we ask
permission to send E-mails to you. If
you opted not to receive E-mail
communication from AMA you would
not have received the survey
notification. If you wish to receive
future E-mails from your organization,
please contact the Membership
Department.)
To reward those who took the time
to fill out the survey, gift certificates to
the AMA Online Store (www.modelair
craft.org/site/default.aspx) for $100,
$50, and $25 were offered as incentives.
I’m pleased to announce that Krzysztof
Szal of Wheeling, Illinois, won the
random drawing for the $100 certificate.
Franklyn Perry of East Aurora, New
York, was the recipient of the $50 prize,
and Marvin Weber of Alamogordo,
T New Mexico, won the $25 certificate.
The Web and ease of being able to
compile information from the
membership is a real asset to AMA’s
leadership. In times past, to conduct a
survey of this type cost thousands of
dollars and required hiring an outside
firm to develop the survey, test it,
administer it, and compile the results.
I hope to be coming to the
membership on an annual basis seeking
their thoughts on various aspects of the
Academy. Don’t worry! We promise not
to spam your mailbox every month and
we respect the time it takes to complete
these inquiries.
One of the hardest parts of any survey
is the development of the “instrument,”
or the survey itself. It is a balancing act to
determine the questions that will provide
the answers or information you are
seeking and cover all the areas needed
without making it so time-consuming that
people won’t take the time to fill it out.
A few members contacted me about
areas they felt were ignored in the survey.
In all cases they were right. The
omissions were not by plan or intent. (I
guarantee that the next time we conduct a
general membership survey, Soaring will
be mentioned.)
By setting time limits and careful
wording in the questions, we acquired the
information we needed. In a future issue
of MA we will publish highlights of the
survey, but I am including some items of
interest until the full report is published.
• Over the past two years, 49% of
respondents have increased their
participation in aeromodeling; 14.5%
have decreased their level of
participation; and 36.5% have remained
the same.
• The greatest percentage of respondents—
32%—have been members for one to five
years; 24% have been members for 21
years or more.
• A full 32% of respondents fly at least one
or two times a week; many indicated that
their flying was seasonal but with a
higher frequency during that time.
• The largest percentage of respondents fly
at AMA chartered club fields; private
property ranked second.
• The availability of suitable flying fields,
insurance, and membership growth were
the three most important issues to the
respondents. MA
Jim Cherry
Executive Director
[email protected]
05sig7.QXD 3/23/07 8:42 AM Page 200
Edition: Model Aviation - 2007/05
Page Numbers: 200