Community Clubs Win!
by Bob Wilson
Raising funds to support the community pays off
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 our area. 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.
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 non-profit 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 other tasks
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 rain 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.
Bob Wilson [email protected]
Sources:
Macon Aero Modelers www.maconaeromodelers.com
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
