District II Report - 2003/06

June 2003 165
HAVE YOU visited the AMA District II
Website lately? Doug Crawford stepped in as
Webmaster in early February and since then
has made some significant improvements to
our site. The club section now has E-mail
contacts and Web site links for all District II
clubs that provided this information during
the club charter process.
Check out the club locator. This is
actually a feature created by District VIII
Webmaster Bill Lee. Bill has allowed us to
link to his locator on the District VIII site so
members in our district can take advantage
of it. Bill’s locator allows searching for a
club by inputting either a zip code or the
name of a city or town along with a distance
radius to search in.
Another new addition to our site is the
district event calendar. District II clubs can
use the calendar to list upcoming events
including non-sanctioned events. The district
calendar is similar to the one found on the
AMA Web site. The major difference is ours
allows visitors to our site to interactively
enter their own events. Give it a try.
By the time you read this we should have
switched to a new company to host our site.
This will give us the ability that we didn’t
have with our old host, to add other features
that Doug is working on for the future.
The new District II Webmaster doing what
he does when not creating Web sites.
We’ve added another new member to the
District II team. Eric Henderson has agreed
to step into the Associate Vice President
(AVP) position covering middle-to-south
New Jersey. Eric is an extremely active
modeler and many of you know him from his
travels throughout the district.
In December 2002, Eric stepped down at
the end of his second term as president of the
National Society of Radio Control
Aerobatics, the AMA Special Interest Group
for Precision Aerobatics. While he primarily
participates in Radio Control (RC) aspects of
the hobby, Eric is not without some
experience and knowledge of the non-radio
disciplines.
He is the designer of the Gremlin Combat
model. He has contributed articles to several
modeling magazines and is the current
contributing editor of the “Precision
Aerobatics” column in Model Aviation.
Eric’s contact information can be found
on the AMA District II Web site at
www.amadistrictii.org under “District II
Officers.”
We have a
great group of
AVPs here in
District II. Use
them to your
advantage.
Invite them to
your events and
add them to your
newsletter
mailing lists.
(Electronic
mailings work
well while at the
same time saving your club a few bucks in
postage.) As with every member of our
District II team, they are here to help.
Last September we held the first of what we
hope will become a tradition in our District.
The first annual District II Fly-In was held in
Phoenix, New York, and hosted by the
Syracuse Thunderbirds Aero Radio Society.
Sponsored by District II, our intent is for
the fly-in to bring together those members
from our district who may not generally
participate in events outside their own clubs.
We wanted to provide a venue where
members could meet other members in the
district to get an idea of how things are done
elsewhere and kick around ideas about how
other clubs operate.
Harris Hill Lift Over Drag president Dan
Tenny returns from the flightline at the
District II Fly-In.
John Steele and Ken Hall do a little powerplant
maintenance at the District II Fly-In.
Several members of the District II team
of officers were there to answer questions. In
addition to me and several AVPs, our new
Webmaster, Frequency Coordinator, and
Newslist Moderator were in attendance. The
East Coast Flying Site Assistance
Coordinator, Joe Beshar, made the trip up
from Oradell, New Jersey.
East Coast Flying Site Assistance
Coordinator Joe Beshar looks over some
of the models at the District II Fly-In.
Mark Mozo launches his TufFlight Predator
during a Combat demonstration at the flyin.
Our intention is to move the event each
year to a different part of District II. The
district picks up the costs of putting on the
fly-in. The club that hosts the event has an
opportunity to make a few bucks by running
a raffle, operating a food concession during
the day, or doing any of the other things
clubs do to raise money at an event like this.
If you think your club might be interested
in holding the District II Fly-In in the future,
drop me an E-mail or give me a call and I
can give you a little more information.
See you next time.
District II Report
Note: For a listing of all district volunteer
workers please consult a previous issue of
Model Aviation or the above Web address.
New Jersey/ New York/
Europe
Dave
Mathewson
Vice President
7271 State Fair Blvd.,
Baldwinsville NY 13027
Tel.: (315) 727-4275
Fax: (315) 635-1039
E-mail: [email protected]
District II Web page: www.amadistrictii.org
New District II AVP, Eric
Henderson.