In the Air
Membership news and updates from AMA Headquarters
AMA Officer Nominations Correction
In the March and April issues of Model Aviation, the nomination announcement mistakenly identified the date that a letter of acceptance and a résumé of professional qualifications and model aviation experience from the nominee must be on file at AMA Headquarters as July 15, 2013. The correct date is July 5, 2013, 15 days prior to the published meeting.
Nominations for the office of AMA president and vice presidents in Districts I, V, and IX are due at the Headquarters of the Academy of Model Aeronautics June 21, 2013. For more information, visit www.modelaircraft.org/aboutama/Organization/ec/2013nominationsdue.aspx.
The Aurora Barnstormers Volunteer for a Community Event
On October 13–14, 2012, the Aurora Barnstormers of Illinois attended the Aurora Paper Airplane Show, hosted by the Family Counseling Service of Aurora. The two-day, family-friendly event, supporting Family Counseling Service and Big Brothers Big Sisters, featured vendor booths, carnival-style paper airplane games with prizes, and paper airplane competitions for all skill levels. Members of the Aurora Barnstormers R/C Club helped kids design and build their own paper airplanes and promoted their club, the Academy of Model Aeronautics, and model aviation.
The show was held at a local mall and vendor booths, carnival-style paper airplanes, and music attracted potential participants.
Competitors were divided by age group and prizes were awarded in different categories.
Competition events included farthest distance flown, longest time aloft, best acrobatic design, accuracy, and the largest and smallest airplane to fly a set distance.
— Kevin Ross Aurora Barnstormers R/C Club
AMA Thanks Its Lifetime Supporters
The Academy recently welcomed Life Members David Fry, San Martin CA; Ben Demeter, Colorado Springs CO; Ronald Echandi, Union City CA; Stephen Warren, Conroe TX; DeForrest Hill, Tulsa OK; and Stephen E. Pointon, Santee CA.
For information about becoming a Life Member, contact AMA Headquarters at (800) 435-9262.
—AMA Membership Department
High Tea
The women of the Greater Pittsburgh Aero Radio Control Society (GPARCS) held their first Saturday afternoon tea at the Three Rivers Tea Company in Cecil, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2012. The outing featured an authentic British venue with savory tea sandwiches, scones with Devonshire cream and jam, and little finger sweets displayed upon an elegant, three-tier dish. Unlimited pots of favorite teas completed the luncheon.
A little hand-launched glider was used as a centerpiece and miniature gliders were placed at each vintage setting as favors. Some of the women chose to wear their finest hats and gloves, while some chose to come casual. The choice was theirs and the gathering was purely social.
The tea room had a Victorian-style atmosphere with lace tablecloths, old-fashioned, wide-brimmed hats adorned with tulle, feathered boas, and dazzling jewelry. Also on display were teacups, saucers, teapots, and assorted teas for sale.
Some of the women of GPARCS have worked the Mint Julep contest, assisted at the Scale Nats in Muncie, Indiana, and helped with the GPARCS club contests, fly-ins, and picnics. They treated themselves to an afternoon of camaraderie.
—Mary Ann Poole
Scrapbook Preservation, Part 1
The National Model Aviation Museum’s archives houses many scrapbooks. One of our most famous and fragile, from the Percy Pierce collection, is pictured here. This scrapbook was part of an extremely rare, early 20th century collection, purchased with member donations in the late 1990s.
Scrapbooks can be made from a number of materials, and can contain nearly anything. These materials degrade at different rates, depending on many factors such as chemical composition, surrounding temperature and humidity, and other outside forces acting upon them. This can cause individual parts to break down, but also damage the surrounding materials because of friction caused by the expanding and contracting of different types of materials placed next to each other.
Imagine a scrapbook as an apartment building. As the apartment ages, walls start to degrade, pipes leak, pests invade—if the building is built with inferior products, conditions outside are severe, and if it is not properly maintained, it can end up as a pile of rubble.
A few particular types of materials cause serious problems. Following is a list of these materials:
- Newsprint: A popular addition to scrapbooks is newspaper clippings. The ultimate destroyer, these are filled with acids ready to leach into the rest of the items in your album. They become brittle and stain surrounding pages. I suggest photocopying clippings and using the copies instead. Most copier paper now is acid free. (As it ages, copier paper eventually becomes acidic, but can easily be rephotocopied.)
- Food: I have heard of adding cake to wedding scrapbooks and candy to birthday scrapbooks. I suggest not adding food at all, but if it is something you really want to add, put it in a sealed bag made of food-grade plastic. This plastic is generally inert, will keep your food isolated, and keep pests from sniffing it out.
- Stickers: Don’t trust “acid free” stickers to be safe for scrapbooks. Most adhesives are non-reversible. Pulling stickers off can tear pages and leave sticky residue. Don’t use them if preservation of your precious memories is one of your goals.
- Pens and markers: A #2 pencil works fine. Ink can seep through pages, blur when wet, fade over time, or even eat through pages. Carbon pencils will outlast the lifespan of your scrapbook.
- “Magnetic” photo albums: This 20th century invention was not actually made of magnets, but with adhesives/glues that stuck photos to the pages.
The glue can seep through photographs and leave lines of stains, adhere so well that removing photographs seemed impossible, and then later dry out, allowing the stained photos to fall out. I recommend dismantling any you have, if possible.
More information about scrapbooks, including proper care and storage, and dismantling “magnetic” photo albums, will be covered in a future issue of MA.
—Jackie Shalberg Archivist and Assistant Historian
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
