Executive Vice President Report - 2010/06

June 2010 135
HI FOLKS! As I am writing this, March
has been an extremely busy month. I flew to
Phoenix, Arizona, to attend the Electric
Flight Expo, and then drove to Torrey Pines,
California, to meet with the RC club
president and learn the great history of this
AMA landmark. I finally wound up in
Pomona, California, to attend the RCX
show.
I will share my experiences over the next
couple of articles so I don’t miss any of the
interesting activities of the trip. Before I
begin, I must thank AMA employees Erin
Dobbs, Rich Hanson, and Wes De Cou for
their help in making arrangements/contacts
for my trip. Without their collective
assistance, my trip would not have been
nearly as productive.
West to Phoenix: My bride of 40 years
retired in mid February and was able to tag
along with me. We spent a few days on
vacation sight-seeing, but our main focus for
the next 13 days was the EFX and the RCX
show.
It was agreed that if we went to the
Botanical Gardens in the morning, we could
visit the Commemorative Air Force
Museum (CAFM) in the afternoon. (I’m
assuming you don’t want me to share my
cactus pictures here!)
Upon entering the museum, I was
greeted by an AMA member who also
volunteers for the CAFM. We were given
first-class treatment by the volunteers and
even got to crawl through a B-17! This was
very interesting to me because my father
was a tail gunner on a B-17 that was shot
down over Germany in WW II. He spent 19
months as a prisoner of war.
There were numerous WW II airplanes
on display and I was told all were in
working order. Please don’t miss the
opportunity to visit the museum if you are in
the area.
Next month I will share more of my travels
out west, but before I close, I wanted to let
you know about the great work one of our
staff members, Chris Brooks, is doing with
our volunteer associate vice presidents
(AVPs).
Chris has organized a representative
group of AVPs to address ways in which
these volunteers can closer connect AMA
with our membership. One of the outcomes
of his work will be to develop
communication tools specifically for AVPs.
Chris is starting this by issuing challenging
questions to the AVPs via e-mail and then
categorizing individual responses for the
AMA Executive Council. He and they are
focusing on the following objectives:
• Energize the relationship between vice
presidents (VPs) and their AVPs.
• Help them identify and understand key
operational and marketing concerns.
• Make them feel heard; give them a
voice.
• Work toward developing a baseline of
duties to hopefully evolve a more
common job description across the
board as each VP sees fit.
• Develop an ongoing communication
vehicle and/or forum for all 200-plus
AVPs to participate in.
• Identify key training opportunities and
issues.
• Cultivate grassroots volunteers for the
pipeline of national leadership.
• Open channels of communication
between national leadership/staff and
the field.
I fully support Chris in this worthy
endeavor. I strongly believe our AVPs are
key to ensuring effective communications
with our membership.
If you see Chris at one of the events or
when visiting AMA Headquarters in
Muncie, Indiana, please take time to shake
his hand and provide a word of
encouragement.
AMA’s Public Relations Manager, Chris
Brooks.
Keep in touch, have fun, and don’t forget to
slather up with sunscreen!
Executive Vice President
Mark Smith; [email protected]
Mark Smith
Executive Vice
President
14632 W. 50th St.,
Shawnee KS 66216
Tel.: (913) 568-4347
Above: The B-17 on
display at the
commemorative Air
Force Museum.
Right: The entrance
to the
Commemorative Air
Force Museum.
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