President's Perspective
Dave Brown, AMA president
We dropped the ball ...
As a few of you are probably aware, the United States recently hosted a World Championships for RC Aerobatics (F3A) at Pensacola, FL, September 10–19.
The competition was a complete success by any measure. It was well run, well judged, well attended, and well thought of by the participants.
It is the first World Championships I can remember where I heard no comments that the individual or team results were incorrect. I was particularly proud of the United States team of Chip Hyde, Kirk Gray, and Jason Shulman, and their team manager Reeves Lippincott. These people worked as a team, and the results were very much the result of that teamwork.
The local club, led by Contest Directors Tony Stillman and Ron Vant Pruet, worked like clockwork. Oh sure, "we" had a few bad breaks and a jury decision that went against "us," but that didn't affect the success of the United States team. It was a great competition.
The F3A World Championships was the largest (94 competitors from 35 countries) international event I can ever remember that no one knew about! In talking with many local people, some as close as a mile from the site, it was amazing to find how few had any idea that the event was going on.
The number of spectators, other than the people who accompanied the teams, was very small. I've seen as many spectators at a good public flying field on a summer weekend!
What happened? We dropped the ball in the public relations area. Who was to blame? Maybe no one, maybe everyone. Frankly, it was a case of everyone who even gave it a thought assumed it was being done by someone else. I haven't figured out who should have done this.
Unfortunately, we don't have a public relations person at AMA Headquarters, as we have had in the past. Maybe we should reconsider the decision to do without one.
During the competition I had many opportunities to discuss this lack of public relations with Executive Director Joyce Hager. We agreed that we need to create a procedures manual for how we should approach this situation in the future. We realized that it was the lack of such a document that created this situation, and we don't want to repeat this mistake.
After we returned from the event, Joyce and I exchanged a few e-mails on the subject, and I thought the members might like to get an insight into how the creative decision-making process works. Following are the e-mails that were exchanged.
Email exchange
JH: "As I develop or update my list of things to do I got to thinking (which could be a problem).
Other than hosting or running the Nats and world championships for the contestants, what is our goal on these two things?
- Would it be to provide a good competition for competitors at the national and international levels?
- Is our goal to break even financially, or make a profit?
- With Muncie being the international aeromodeling site, why would we not host all world championships, except, of course, Indoor here in Muncie. Is this not a world championships site?
I need really to know if our objective is to make money on these events."
DB: "Thinking! That could create a problem!
I'd say our principal goal should be to create a positive, memorable experience for the participants, spectators, and supporters, while maximizing the positive exposure for aeromodeling in the eyes of the public.
In short, it should be a 'happening.'
Muncie might just hold such events, but the motivating force behind a typical US bid is usually a local club which has a burning desire to do it. That's kind of hard to find in Muncie."
JH: "Okay, but do we want to make money or just break even?"
DB: "It's not a matter of 'making money' or 'breaking even.' It's a matter of fiscal efficiency. For example, if we ran a world championships and drew 25,000 spectators, and ran a program for the kids that got an initial exposure to, say, 1,000 kids, and got some really decent media coverage, it would be worth thousands of dollars in cost.
On the other hand, if we are going to run one like the F3A in Pensacola, where the only exposure we got was among the participants, I think we had better break even, or produce a small income to offset staff time and travel.
Ironically, the two are not all that mutually exclusive. Pensacola could have gotten the exposure we would like to see, and created the income to support itself if we had really looked at the marketing of the event.
A 'come on out and fly an RC model' program for kids, with the Saturday finals and a Sunday air show, would attract many people. And those people buy hotdogs, T-shirts, programs, drinks, and, yes, they might be favorable to buying a trainer kit to take home, all at a profit.
How about a student art contest for the local schools for the best aviation art created? I know it is all hype, but that is the difference between an event and a little get-together.
Look at the Indy 500. The race is really only the excuse to get many people together. They make what would otherwise be 'just another race' into an 'event!'
How? They start hyping the event in advance. They crown a queen. They have many parades. They have marching bands, balloons, PA systems, programs, media days, etc. In short, they take 'just another race,' and make it into a 'happening.' Along the way, they also make a few bucks, but the profits are not from charging the race teams more; they come from the 'event' side of the house, not from the 'racing' side.
Along the way they also made automobile racing an accepted sport, recognized around the world, and accepted in spite of its dangers. We need some of that for model aviation.
Hmmm, I just reread this, and got to thinking that it sounded like a good start on a column. Hmmm."
Dave Brown AMA president [email protected]
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
