Hi Ron and Bob.
These are all good suggestions.
There are some things I want to write - am feeling a bit off today (back pain) so I hope this makes sense.
For most of us, this is a hobby first and foremost. I pay my money in order to go fly my planes. That is my primary motivation in doing this. But maybe I am looking at this all wrong.
Before my time at the Bong Eagles, several club members would go to local schools to have building sessions. They did this for YEARS at multiple schools around the state of Wisconsin. The end result was hundreds of dollars spent and hundreds of hours spent for, as they saw it, nothing. For all the effort made, there was not a single new member. None of the kids or teachers ever came to a single flying session.
Recently there was a request to have someone come to do another building session at a school and the club decided that they wouldn't or couldn't do it. I understood the decision while at the same time not liking it.
We've tried to get SO interested, having SO events at our contests and passing the info out to the state-level SO folks. No one has come to them yet. We don't know if the SO folks are sending our contest information out. Frankly I am guessing not.
If we are going to go this route for sponsorship with a STEM perspective then we need to change our mindset.
We still need to get our needs met - i.e. be able to go flying. But the more important thing is to bring things back to helping out with STEM education. And that means building sessions and passing our knowledge along. It means being a mentor.
Maybe we need to do two day contests where the first day is all about helping SO kids, teaching the next generation of flyers. And we will need to actively promote these events - With the local schools, with the SO, with other clubs, with the Make movement.
The EAA Family FlightFest offers us a glimpse of what we could do. We could advertise a build session (with signup so we can control the numbers to something manageable) and offer a Delta Dart build, or something like a P18.
And then the following day is for us.
Regards.
Mike Kirda
Received on Sat Jan 23 2016 - 10:44:53 CET
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