President’s Perspective
Enhanced communications
The ability to communicate with members is key to the success of any membership organization, and AMA is no different. During the past 18 months, we have been working on enhancing our communications network.
Electronic communications have improved dramatically in recent years. The Internet has created a means by which we can now exchange information in a nearly instantaneous and extremely cost-effective manner.
New Members-Only forum
In early June, AMA launched its new Members-Only online forum. It is not intended to compete with the other popular, more traditional model‑aviation–related forums. Those forums play an important role in the modeling community and are a good resource for aeromodeling-related information.
Our AMA forum will be dedicated to an exchange of AMA-related information. It will be another conduit we can use to share information with our members as well as a place where questions relevant to AMA can be asked and answered. Although posting privileges are intended for our members, the posts will be available for all to read.
RSS feed
In addition to the new forum, we have implemented an RSS feed in the AMA News section of our website. When you subscribe to this feed, you will automatically be notified or, depending on your choice, updates will be automatically downloaded to your browser or e-mail program whenever content on our page changes.
We expect both of these new features will help keep our members more informed about important AMA issues and update you about things happening within your organization.
Please take a moment to visit our website where you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the AMA Community page and register to participate in the new forum.
A new member’s story
Sometimes things work out as intended. I recently received an e-mail from a relatively new modeler who wrote about what prompted him to become involved in aeromodeling.
While he was sitting in the waiting room at his doctor’s office, he noticed a copy of Model Aviation magazine on the table. With some time to spare before his appointment, he picked up the magazine and glanced through a few articles.
Although he had always had a casual interest in aviation, he never really gave much thought to modeling. Before he placed the magazine back on the table, he took the time to note the address for AMA’s website. During the next several days, he visited our website and a number of other modeling-related sites he found using an Internet search engine.
Intrigued by what he had read, he sought out a local AMA-chartered club, which he identified using the search feature on our website, and paid the club a visit. The warm reception he received from the club members and the ability to participate in the club’s training program sealed the deal.
By the following weekend he had visited his local hobby shop, bought a trainer model recommended by the club members, joined the club, and became a member of AMA. All of this happened because one of our members took the time to bring his or her copy of Model Aviation to the doctor’s office and leave it for someone else to read.
It makes you wonder how many other times this scenario has played out for others. Next time you visit your doctor, car-repair facility, or any other place with a waiting room, why not take a copy or two of past issues of Model Aviation with you to leave?
Clubs and associations
A number of years ago, the local model aircraft club I belong to was part of an association of clubs. At one time roughly 18 clubs were part of this association.
There were a number of advantages to all of us banding together. Strength in numbers was near the top of the list, and I can remember several times when we came together as a group to stand in support of one of our association clubs.
The camaraderie built within this group benefited all of the clubs since it became the norm for each to support the others’ events. As a result, our fly‑ins, rallies, and contests grew. The communications network that developed helped all of us in our yearly planning and helped ensure that clubs didn’t inadvertently schedule events that would conflict with another.
Club meetings grew, especially when this communications network was used by a club hosting a unique program or presentation to invite members from other clubs in the association to attend.
I mention all of this because during the last year or so I have seen a resurgence in the association concept. AMA refers to these associations as chapters and has chartered a number of them throughout the country. Clubs can gain much by working with others that share a common interest.
Your AMA district vice president or associate vice president can provide you with more information about the AMA chapter concept. It might be worth taking a look to see how forming a chapter can benefit your club and neighboring clubs.
See you next time ...
Dave Mathewson AMA President [email protected]
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
