Involve the Community: Protect Your Flying Site by Dave Mathewson |
When I was a
district vice president, hardly a month went by when I didn’t get at least a
couple of calls from club officers saying that their club flying site was in jeopardy of being lost and asking for help and advice on what to do to save it. The first thing I would do is to ask the officer to tell me what the club has done over the years to be involved in its community. Do the members run an event and donate some of the proceeds to a local charity? Do they hold “try model aviation days” to attract their neighbors to their fields? Do they participate in events that introduce model aviation to groups like the Scouts, Civil Air Patrol, or 4-H groups? Or do they maybe become involved in their community’s parks and recreation programs, or make visits to senior citizen centers? If the answer was no, or “we’ve been thinking about doing some of that,” it’s almost always too late. If a club can point out several instances of where it has become involved in giving back to its local community then, there’s almost always a chance something can be worked out.
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