Community Clubs Win! - 2011/04

April 2011 43
Community Clubs Win!
by Bob Wilson
A model air show for the public should include some hotshot pilots who can safely present RC flight to the captive audience.
Top of page: Bob Wilson and his board of directors hand over a check to KIDS Place founder Alisa Ashe. L-R: Charlie Berry, Jim Alvord,
Alisha Ashe, Stan Penland, Bill Schadt, Bob Wilson, and Lou Vitale.
THERE ARE TIMES when an
aeromodeling club should step up and
become something more than a place for its
members to engage in their own selfish
interests. Jay Smith covered an excellent
example of this in his article “Fly-for-Tots
2009,” in the March 2010 MA, about the
Raleigh Durham Radio Control Club
(RDRC) in North Carolina. It raised
approximately $27,500 for a charity.
The article made me feel proud to be part
of our modeling community, and many
clubs are donating to good causes. But the
RDRC is a big club and had a huge
population on which to draw. Could a little
club do the same thing, only on a smaller
scale?
What about my club, the Macon Aero
Modelers? There are only 33,000 souls in
Raising funds to
support the
community
pays off
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44 MODEL AVIATION
Above: Jim Alvord and his wife, Maureen,
tend the registration booth. Keep your
greeters happy so they can return the
favor to the audience and talent.
Big airplanes impress
the crowd. Assign a
master of ceremonies
to coordinate the
show pilots so they
can keep the air filled
with entertainment.
A well-maintained site will attract quality talent.
If attaining volunteer help is a struggle, consider
inviting another club to share the load and the
benefits.
Below: Robbie prepares his
Aviastar for flight. Pilots who
quickly communicate their
needs to the event director
find solutions for a good time.
Below: Mike Rhoten and Erwin Gribble
cook over smoky grills. Simple pleasures
attract the most people.
Above: The most money to be made is in
concessions. When guests leave to get a
bite to eat, they don’t always come back;
keep them fed and entertained.
Photos by the author
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the entire county and no television station of
our own. Could we pull off something
similar in the mountains of western North
Carolina? I brought up the idea before our
board of a public-invited air show to raise
funds for a charity.
“Let’s do it!” they said.
We have a beautiful turf-grade Bermuda
grass runway that is roughly 400 feet long
and 75 feet wide. Our club members
commonly fly 42% gas-powered models as
well as numerous electric-powered aircraft.
We had the tools to raise funds for a
worthy cause, but how would we go about
it? Read on and I will tell you.
Which Charity? We knew that if we chose
a big organization, our efforts might not be
recognized. Knowing that the amount of
money we might raise would be relatively
small, we needed a cause that was local—a
charity people were familiar with that would
appreciate our efforts. We needed a cause
that the media would support.
We finally selected KIDS Place: a nonprofit
organization that takes care of abused
and neglected children. It is well respected
in our community, and many people seem to
want to help kids.
Publicity: There are four small towns
surrounding our club, each of which has its
own radio station and newspaper. Most of
the local news outlets cover weddings and
church activities; the most exciting story is
usually when Rufus gets caught stealing
chickens from a neighbor.
We contacted the newspapers and were
told that they would be happy to give our air
show advance publicity—especially since it
involved kids. Then we found a couple
pictures of some of our gas-powered aircraft
and submitted them on DVDs, along with a
story to go with them.
We handed copies directly to the editors,
to make sure that they wouldn’t be “lost in
the mail.” It’s also a good thing to know
your local newspaper editors, so a personal
visit is not wasted time.
It is a great idea to submit your story to
small newspapers seven to 10 days in
advance of your event. You might find that
you are competing with wedding
announcements.
Our remaining media sources were local
radio stations, for which we prepared a script
about our event. The FCC requires radio
stations to air public service announcements
to maintain their licenses.
We followed that by making a bunch of
posters that we stuck to store windows
throughout the area the week before the
show. Most businesses were happy to
advertise for us. It resembled the old days
when circuses came to perform and plastered
their posters throughout town.
Organization: I made a list of
approximately 30 details that our board
would need to address, including posters for
the highway, a public-address system, pilot
registration, food service and donations,
collecting money from visitors, and myriad
others.
I was the only CD, so I appointed a
“deputy CD.” At the air show we spent our
time watching for problems and greeting the
visiting public. Spectators were invited to
come onto the field to talk with our pilots
and look at their models.
We invited a county commissioner and
actually put him to work collecting
donations from visitors. Our club members’
wives were able to help a great deal, and we
even called on several members who hadn’t
been active in a year or two to get involved.
A local barbecue restaurant donated
several gallons of baked beans and cole
slaw, and the local portable toilet company
allowed us to use a couple of its facilities for
free. These generous gestures helped
minimize the club’s costs.
Pilot Participation: Although we sent
invitations to clubs that were within a 125-
mile radius of our site, we were disappointed
when only 17 visiting pilots showed on the
day of the event. We had hoped for more
than that and were prepared to park motor
homes and trailers on an adjoining section of
pasture that we had mowed.
An air show is meant to entertain
spectators, and this puts pressure on pilots to
keep things going. Nothing bores a spectator
more than long periods in which nothing is
flown, so we worked all of the pilots hard.
There was smoke blowing all over the place
and 3-D maneuvers, along with silent
electric flights.
Our air show was planned as a two-day
event, but rained wiped us out on Sunday.
Had it not rained, judging by the number of
calls we received that morning, we might
have doubled our total receipts. But it was
successful, and we will be doing it again.
It’s Easy! How large does a club have to be
to put on an air show and become a
respected part of a community by supporting
a charity? If you have 15 members and each
gets one other person to participate, you will
have a total of 30 people. That’s more than
enough to put on a small public-invited
event.
There are some rewards in all of this.
One is that your club will be seen as a
valuable and respected member of the
community, and there is no way to measure
the public relations benefits of such a
reputation. Another is that you might attract
new members. And the most important is
that you will feel good about your club’s
efforts.
All of our club’s members enjoyed being
part of the operation. Although we were
tired after a long day, we all went home with
big smiles on our faces. MA
Bob Wilson
[email protected]
Sources:
Macon Aero Modelers
www.maconaeromodelers.com
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