View from HQ
Joyce Hager Executive Director
WELL, it looks like we survived the Y2K bug.
AMA did not experience any downtime on the computers, but the year-end rush of membership renewals was at an all-time high. The first weekend of the new year brought in more than 300 faxes!
The new year also brought two new AMA Vice Presidents: William Oberdieck will replace Dave Gish in District VII, and Bruce Nelson will replace Ed McCollough in District XI.
I would like to welcome both of these gentlemen to the Executive Council, and I look forward to working with them for the next three years.
In addition, I would like to express my thanks to Dave and Ed for helping me during my tenure as Executive Director. You will be missed.
Invitation to Join AMA
Since the last column, I had a chance to review what might have happened when AMA did a co-op mailing with two modeling publications.
As I expressed last month, anytime you do a mailing of this type, you are bound to send information to some current members. The reason is, if you are matching first name and last name to eliminate duplicates, a person's name would have to appear identically on both lists.
In checking, I learned that many of our members were listed as, for example, James in our records and Jim on the magazine tapes. These names would not show up as duplicate records because their first names are not the same. The process of merging two lists is to eliminate as many duplicate records as possible.
In trying to recap the process, I learned that if the mailing house did purge the lists, they used the wrong one when they went to do the mailing. The result was that some of our members received invitations to join AMA.
Since the error was on the part of the mailing house, it will compensate AMA for the mistake. The company offered to mail apologies to the members, but I decided that it was not necessary, since Dave and I covered this issue last month.
I am sorry for the inconvenience and concern that this mailing brought to our members. I want to assure you that if we do another co-op mailing in the future, the criteria will be better defined.
Just remember: if you have a license card with an expiration date of 2000 or later, your membership is current!
Visiting the AMA Flying Site in Muncie
I was forwarded an e-mail message from a member who will be traveling, and he wanted to know what would be needed if he stopped in Muncie to fly.
I thought I would address that issue here, since there are other members who may have the same question.
The AMA flying site in Muncie, Indiana is open to members and their guests seven days a week, from dawn to dusk. Only current AMA members may fly at the site.
On some weekends, part or all of the facility may be closed to what is referred to as "open" flying because of a scheduled event. So when planning your travels, you may want to call ahead to be sure that you can fly your airplane at the site.
If you arrive during normal business hours, please stop in and sign our guest book.
While you are here, visit the National Model Aviation Museum and the museum store. Hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For holiday and Sunday hours, please call ahead.
If you would like to speak to one of the staff members or have a look at the offices, all you need to do is request it. Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
There is a pond and picnic tables located on site. If you bring a friend with you who doesn't fly, he or she can fish or have a picnic.
You can always find someone flying at the site during the summer months. Why not plan now to attend the Grand Event, scheduled for June 10–11?
Chartered Club Renewal
It is that time of year again: chartered club renewal packages were mailed the first week of February.
There is much information provided to chartered clubs, and sometimes it's a bit confusing to the new club officer. The basic items needed to renew your club are:
- A current list of club officers (minimum of three current adult members)
- A basic charter fee of $20
- If you have site insurance, review what our records show and make any corrections to the existing document, or if you have a new site, make sure you provide complete information
The cost of insuring a flying site is $20 for each certificate; if leasing from a government facility or county/state facility, it may request additional wording from the standard form—this is referred to as "special wording," and the cost for this type of certificate is $30 each.
Club-renewal papers will be sent to the person who is listed in our records as the club contact.
Please be sure that we have the list of your current officers. A list of current AMA clubs, along with the address and contact person, is published quarterly on the AMA Web site.
Check our site to ensure that we have the correct information, or contact AMA's club secretary at (800) 435-9262, extension 291.
Happy flying,
Joyce Hager Executive Director [email protected]
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
