Re: Future of Empire State Indoor Champs

From: Nick Ray <lasray_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 13:52:08 -0400

I would be interested in coming up if it ever landed on a weekend that
it was possible for me to go with out having to miss lot of classes. I
hate to see anther site disappear as well.
Nick Ray

On 10/21/06, Robert Clemens <robert.clemens_at_att.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To interested members of the Yahoo Indoor Group,
>
> The annual business meeting of the Western New York Free Flight Society
> will
> be held On November 18. An important item on the agenda will be whether or
> not to continue holding our annual indoor contest, the Empire State Indoor
> Championships, at the Buffalo Bills fieldhouse- or anywhere else, for that
> matter. As some of you know, attendance at these meets over the past four
> or
> five years has been minimal, with only 18 contestants showing up for the
> most recent meet, held May 21. Both my club, the Western New York Free
> Flight Society, and the co-sponsoring Flying Aces Club, took virtually
> unacceptable financial losses as a result. These are chiefly because of the
> building rental fee of $1,000 for the day which requires a turnout of at
> least 35 open contestants at $30 per to break even. The inclusion of an
> after-the-meet RC electric fun fly saw only a handful of fliers show up and
> failed to stanch the bleeding.
>
> I recently heard from a fellow modeler who kindly passed along the results
> of an informal survey he'd done to seek reasons for the continuing epidemic
> of no-shows at the contest. He found three. Here they are, with my
> responses:
>
> 1. Bad impression of the place because the excessive heat
> generated from the indirect lighting pushed the planes to the girders or
> formed a difficult to penetrate "ceiling."
>
> This is certainly a legitimate criticism from those flying the ultralight
> events
> such as Easy B, Penny Plane, etc. But the lights have caused no significant
> problems with other events, such as scale and catapult glider. And we
> turned
> off some of the lights at the 2006 contest which, according to John Kagan,
> apparently solved the "ceiling" and drift problems. But attendance by
> those who would fly non-lightweight events has suffered as much as the
> lightweights. Some of the scale guys from out of state tell us that they
> love the site but a one-day
> contest isn't worth the trip. We did try a two day contest two years ago
> but
> attendance was a disaster.
>
> 2. The nearness to the USIC at Johnson City.
>
> There's not a lot I can do here. Sandwiching the Buffalo contest into a
> busy
> spring schedule is no easy task, and the building with heat turned off
> would
> be very uncomfortable if we tried to hold the contest on most weekends in
> February, March, or April.
> Also, the treacherous upstate New York late winter weather could easily be
> a
> factor in getting to and from the site during any of those months. We tried
> a fall contest once, and it was another attendance
> flop.
>
> 3. The uncertainty that the event could be canceled in short notice due to
> the Bills deciding to practice at any moment.
>
> This one is specious, since only once in all the years we've held the
> contest at the Bills fieldhouse did they pull a switch on us that required
> a
> change of date. But once doesn't make a trend or a continuing threat. This,
> I
> believe, is a complaint without merit.
>
> So there we are. We've worked hard to make this contest attractive to
> indoor
> fliers. Those who have attended have told us we've succeeded. The site,
> lights or not, is still one of the best available in the entire eastern
> portion of the country. I don't know how the two clubs will vote on this,
> but speaking for myself I'm about ready to throw in the proverbial towel.
> Gentelemen, I believe the future of the ESIC hangs by a thread.
>
> Bob Clemens
> Western New York Free Flight Society
>
>
Received on Sat Oct 21 2006 - 10:52:44 CEST