President's Perspective - 2009/05

act or fiction? There’s strength in
numbers. We’ve all heard that saying.
Frequently it’s used when referring to
membership organizations such as AMA and
how the power of the organization to effect
change that impacts its membership is directly
related to the number of members the
organization has.
The larger the organization’s membership,
the louder the organization’s voice. Strength in
numbers relates to how an organization
represents and advocates for its membership to
political leadership.
AMA launched its first-ever national
membership drive on April 1, 2009. Virtually
all member-based organizations have such
drives. Increasing any organization’s
membership is the key to its strength and its
future. AMA’s membership drive will last
until September 14, 2009.
Your membership dues are used to fund
the various programs that AMA has developed
to support our members and clubs. Our Flying
Site Assistance Program grants have helped
many of our chartered clubs improve their
current flying sites and, in some cases, help
purchase new sites.
The Take off And Grow (TAG) program
has helped chartered clubs introduce model
aviation to their friends and neighbors. The net
effect is building aeromodeling’s credibility
within the community. Becoming an asset in
your community can only pay dividends when
you go to the community looking for help and
support.
AMA’s Charles H. Grant Scholarship
Program has awarded more than $1,000,000 in
scholarships to our younger, college-bound
members. Many of these recipients have gone
on to successful careers in the aviation and
aerospace industries.
Our structured liability insurance program
President’s Perspective
AMA President Dave Mathewson
F
… you might be saying hello to your newest
friend.
May 2009 5
Mission Statement
The Academy of Model Aeronautics is a world-class association of modelers organized for the purpose of
promotion, development, education, advancement, and safeguarding of modeling activities.
The Academy provides leadership, organization, competition, communication, protection, representation,
recognition, education and scientific/technical development to modelers.
helps provide many of our chartered clubs
access to thousands of public and private
flying sites throughout the country.
All of these programs are important, but as
important is that your dues also support
AMA’s ongoing efforts to advocate for our
members. Whether it’s being the voice of our
members with the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA), the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), or
even before Congress, your dues give us the
ability to do that.
Although your dues allow us to provide
these programs and services, our membership
numbers help make our efforts successful.
Increasing our membership can only increase
the level of influence we have when
advocating for you.
In several of my columns during the last
year, I’ve written about the FAA’s Aviation
Rulemaking Committee (ARC). It was created
in 2007 to make recommendations that will
eventually be used as a regulatory basis to
determine how small unmanned aerial systems
(sUASs) will operate in the National Airspace
System. If you’ve read these columns, you
know that model aircraft, by their very nature,
are considered sUASs by the FAA.
The ARC’s work will be complete in the
near future (and may be complete by the time
you read this). We don’t know at this time
how or if the final recommendations of the
ARC will have an impact on what we do as
model aviation enthusiasts, but it’s more
important now than ever before that we do all
we can to grow our membership to give us a
stronger voice in helping keep model aviation
as unregulated as it has been for the last 70 or
more years.
We need your help to make that happen.
More information on our membership drive
can be found in this issue of MA and on the
AMA Web site at www.modelaircraft.org/
membershipdrive.aspx.
You only get one chance to make a good first
impression. Is that fact or fiction?
I received an interesting e-mail from a
longtime AMA member. This person has
remained a member, although circumstances
prevented him from actively flying for the last
few years. The situation changed and this man
decided it was time to return to model aviation.
To get rid of the rust, he put together an
RTF electric-powered model and headed to the
local field. The members at the field didn’t
know him and were unaware of his extensive
modeling background.
What happened next is why this member
wrote. The reception he received at the field
was, in his estimation, more than a little cool.
Here he was, a potential new club member,
visiting a local club, hoping to make new
friends who share a similar interest, and he felt
unwelcome. Although he was allowed to fly,
he wasn’t offered assistance from any of the
others. (Fortunately he didn’t need it.)
He is convinced that if he wasn’t an
experienced modeler, he would have left at the
end of the day totally discouraged. Chances are
he would have then sought another hobby that
might have been slightly friendlier.
When someone new shows up at our fields,
even if it’s only to watch, it’s a pretty safe bet
that the person has an interest in what we do. If
he or she shows up with model in hand, it’s
likely that the club is looking at a potential new
member.
It doesn’t really matter what type of model
he or she has, or how it is powered. It’s a
model aircraft and that’s the common
denominator between all of us.
When a new person comes to your field,
consider that individual an opportunity. He or
she is a potential new member to your roster
and an opportunity to promote model aviation
and to put your club and members in a good
light within your community.
Take a minute from whatever it is that
you’re doing to say hello. You never know—
you might be saying hello to your newest
friend. MA
See you next time.
Dave Mathewson
AMA president
[email protected]
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