Meeting Attendance

Red, Our club is the Staten Island RC Modelers and we're on Staten Island, not Long island Jeff

OK, Staten Island - still NY, who I thought had banned smoking in restaurants.

" We have about 150 members, have a meeting once a month and a local diner. Personally, I rarely go to the meetings. Standing room only crowd heavy with smokers is what keeps me away."

Just curious,

Red

Our club has 260 members and 35 attend meetings. We have tried presentations, raffles, etc., as outlined elsewhere. This approach has not been successful. The newsletter Editor (me) is excellent, which doesn't seem to help. We have a lot of older members who don't like to drive at night. I tend to think our situation is simply normal, and don't worry about it.

Then let them pay what it's worth, let's day...grass cutting. Get an estimate from a professional lawn care business. Show that to them the next time they gripe and remind them how much their dues would go up if the club had to pay outsiders for everything. Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

Gentlemen, Snide remarks and snotty attitudes maybe fun in a newsgroup thread, but apply it in the real world and watch the membership dues dry up as you lose the "card only members" and see if the 10% of the doers in the club can cover all the costs. Reality in any club or organization in my experiance is that only a small percentage are full blown active and of that group only a small percentage of them actually do the real work. The rest pay their dues and call it good, but they do keep the club in the black and sometimes bring in new members that are doers. I have also seen those that "do" develope such a BS elite attitude that they drive off any possible doer recruits, but swear that no one else offers to help. Yes, I have done field dirty work, judged and helped at shows in my time along with the other thousand above and beyound duties. As far as I am concerned, just thank the guys that only pay dues for the money and just let it go. They are not going to be an asset anyway if you shove a broom up their ass to make them do more than be a paid member.

Bob Ruth

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (BobAndVickey) posted message IDon 17 Jun 2004

I am not a club member, and I do not own R/C equipment. I found this group because I own some control-line planes and am comptemplating the move to R/C.

That said, if I were to join a club, I very likely would be one of the 'card only' members. Not because I am lazy, but because mid-spring to late fall is when I am most busy with work. If I can't make time to go on a vacation trip with my wife, she'd likely kill me for making time to mow the field. Of course, that would solve my other time issues. :-)

For my two pennorth from this side of the pond, I was a founder member of a club, was elected Chairman and never managed to get anyone else to take over the post. Along with the few others who did the mowing of the strip etc., I was grateful for the members who paid their dues and rarely turned up to our weekly club nights, where building, repairs, engine running in etc. could be done, and, more importantly didn't often turn up at the flying site. Without them, I wouldn't have had anywhere to indulge my obsession.

Sadly, the club eventually folded, and now I have to fly solo or not at all. Fortunately, the farmer whose land we used to rent, is sympathetic and still allows me access to the field.

Malcolm

And there lies the key to it all! Priorities! For most people this is just a hobby and they really and truly have other things that are more important to them. Were this hobby to go away they'd all quickly find something else to do with their rec time.

For a handful this hobby is their life and they really have nothing more to worry about. Were this hobby go away most would mourn and actually show signs of depression. But virtually every one of them would recover and find something else.

For a select few, this is their religion. Were this hobby to go away they'd all probably drink the Jim Jones coolaid and croak!

I would bet you see quite a few from that last group on this group!

Chuck

It is a matter of priorities. We all have the same amount of time available and it is our choice how we spend it. I don't like the phrase "I was too busy." It should be more like "I chose not to." We can all seem to find time to do what we really want to do.

We had a demonstration fly for a group this week. It is an every year function. A guy that hadn't been around for months called and said he was coming. He also said that since it was a club function, that everyone should be there. I should have, but didn't, mention to him that meetings and work days were also club functions and he never seems to be able to make it to them. He was the club secretary for a while and missed about half the meetings. He was always to busy to set aside one hour a month. Go figure.

John VB

John, That's exactly what I'm talking about. ONE HOUR A MONTH. Priorities or not,that's not asking for much, to support the club.Even if you do a little belly achin g.At least you show up,maybe win a raffle prize,have some coffee and cake.Talk to a person or two.Even if the non-attender is an azz whole,there's bound to be someone that he can get along with (maybe another azz whole).Every club has a couple.

Hopefully they don't think the same about you...or maybe they do and that is why they choose not to attend...

Go back and reread some of the replies to this string and incorporate some of the common thoughts - you may (if you are smart) wind up with a different outlook.

FredD

He's not smart - he's got webtv.

different

Yes! It is just and hour a month. Plus travel time! And for me that would run it up to something like FOUR hours total time. Another reason why I have my own site.

But in addition, some people have other responsibilities that demand their free time. Things like a child's little league game, church meetings, school, second jobs etc.

And the one I prefer is simply being able to be home and spend time with the family! And when I was working, there were weeks when I didn't even get an hour for that!

So again it's the priorities! And for me it's only a hobby! One I would give up before giving up anything to do with my family. As for you sir, you need a dose of reality!

There seem to be two camps:

1. "An hour a week/month/whatever isn't much to ask. Why don't people show up?"

1. "The meetings don't provide what I need from my hobby. They may provide other things, but I prefer to socialize elsewhere, I'm not interested in planning events as long as the basic features of the club remain in place, etc."

Both are almost completely right.

1. An hour isn't much, but it's too much for some people. If I have a job, a family, a home to maintain, and other obligations, I may have only a few hours a week for my leisure activity. And one of those few hours can be a LOT.

1. Sometimes when you don't attend, and bad people end up running the show, the basic things you count on can go away.

Neither of these facts is enough to convince the people in either camp, though.

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As for the "field needs work" issue, the Cal Sailing Club in Berkeley had a great system: you joined the club for some very small amount of money, dues paid every 3 months. During those 3 months, you had to do 2 hours of work -- sanding and fiberglassing a boat, teaching lessons, being in charge of checking people/boats in/out, etc. Someone on duty wrote down your work-time on a card.

If your work-time fell behind (i.e., you handn't done 2 hours in the last 3 months) you could still join up for the next three months... but you couldn't sail until you brought your work hours up to date.

This allocated the work very fairly, brought in a steady stream of income from those who joined, came once or twice, and then disappeared, and managed to keep the cllub facilities maintained at a decent level.

There *were* meetings that you could attend, but only certain folks did...and nobody resented anyone else not being there, as far as I could tell for the 5 years I was a member. (I went to, I think, one meeting.)

It's still true that 90% of the PLANNING work got done by 10% of the people, but they were folks who wanted to do that, and the scut-work got shared out nicely.

As yourself WHY it's important that people attend meetings? Is it so that they can be forced to hear you tell them how much you're doing for them? So that you can try to convince them to care about the same things *you* care about? So that you can have a larger social circle? Or is there something else that their presence provides? (For both you AND them!)

--John