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BMFA Mag February 2022.


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2 hours ago, Dickw said:

what type of improvement in style, quality, and content would you like to see.

Off the top of my head... The feel of the mag is old fashioned and although I'm over 70 myself, sometimes I think it's aimed at average readers even older than me! Lots of historical photos & articles with pics of Fred Bloggs flying his steam-powered Clodhopper in 1947 - that kind of thing. The fairly regular coverage of social events with elderly/old blokes in DJs handing one another trophies and certificates - it's not the sort of thing I ever associated with flying model aeroplanes, frankly, and I don't want to read about it. (I did buy a DJ myself in the 1970s, a cunning plan to impress a girl. Never wore it after 1978...) The amateurish and deeply unamusing cartoon inside the front page - if nothing more professional and funny is available, scrap it. I've done lots of writing (freelance) and editing in my time - many of the articles are too long, disjointed, and badly need editing. I mean, people lament that too few youngsters get into this hobby, and it could be that one look at the magazine helps to put them off - despite there being a few pictures of young modellers. Added to that, the mag seems very definitely aimed at long-experienced modellers - those old blokes in DJs, probably - and much of it passes over my head since I hadn't built a flying model aircraft in around half a century when I joined BMFA. There could be fewer photos - but bigger images spread across big chunks of the page, maybe a full DPS even, good quality images too. Yes, I'm a former pro photographer and not everyone can produce the goods, but there are an awful lot of modellers out there with good cameras producing huge file sizes, so... The technical articles tend to be esoteric, specialised - need more "intro to" articles, covering basics, features on individual model builds - that sort of thing. I could go on, but...

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Very well put Tony, the only thing I'd go further with is to say that intro articles and beginners subject matter are already well catered for in other magazines and where most younger modellers (under 50 these days)  get their info and that is on-line and on YouTube. To their credit BMFA are embracing new tech and social media, so that can only be a feather in their cap. The hard copy mag does seem to be out of place.

I don't mind reading about the good old days of Aeromodelling - and with our 100th anniversary this year, to have a few pictures of old blokes flying compressed air models and whatever else is fair enough and quite amusing. Whether the average teenager or 20 to 50 years old make much of it in terms of relevance to their hobby is debatable.

 

Edited by Cuban8
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31 minutes ago, Cuban8 said:

Very well put Tony, the only thing I'd go further with is to say that intro articles and beginners subject matter are already well catered for in other magazines and where most younger modellers (under 50 these days)  get their info and that is on-line and on YouTube. To their credit BMFA are embracing new tech and social media, so that can only be a feather in their cap. The hard copy mag does seem to be out of place.

I don't mind reading about the good old days of Aeromodelling - and with our 100th anniversary this year, to have a few pictures of old blokes flying compressed air models and whatever else is fair enough and quite amusing. Whether the average teenager or 20 to 50 years old make much of it in terms of relevance to their hobby is debatable.

 

 

I don't know about aeromodelling 'teenagers'  (ie 20 to 50) but when I was in that age bracket I read all I could find about vintage and post-vintage motorcycling and spent hours tinkering with machines of the era and competing in events that had been run since the early 1900s.  I still like paper magazines and subscribe both to RCME and my daily newspaper.  When I was writing software as part of my job I always printed a listing of my program because it was easier to debug than reading it off-screen.  I use GPS but I wouldn't want to be without hard copy maps and charts and can spend hours studying OS maps.

 

I do enjoy the BMFA News even though a lot of the articles refer to disciplines that don't attract my practical interest - perhaps even because of that.  I think it's better to use the medium that suits the application and that means both on-line/application content and paper where it suits.

 

Geoff

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6 hours ago, Tony Harrison 2 said:

Speaking as a tyro flyer I have to say that frankly, I find the BMFA mag dull and hardly ever useful. I wonder what proportion of the BMFA membership appreciates, values or enjoys the magazine? I wonder by how much the sub could be reduced by ditching the magazine? I belong purely for the insurance and because my club requires it. If the magazine was better - and I've worked professionally with many magazine titles, UK and abroad - it might provide added value to membership, but really, it's hopelessly old fashioned and amateurish.

Hi Tony

 

As a tyro flyer you will be unaware of the importance of the BMFA to the future of flying.  We have just gone through a process leading up to the implementation of Drone :Laws.  Had it not been for the BMFA, and their CEO, Dave Phipps, in particular, we would have had our hobby decimated by the rules that now apply to drones as opposed to model aircraft.  The BMFA, in conjunction with 3 other model associations, was able to get in front of a parliamentary committee reviewing the implementation of drone laws and then in front of Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport, in order to put our case for a differentiation for the operation of model aircraft for sport and recreation purposes, we would have had our sport/hobby pretty much destroyed by the originally proposed drone laws.  The BMFA also took the initiative to form a pan-European grouping of their equivalents in all other European countries in order to influence the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) who were responsible for drafting the EU rules on drones.  Indeed, Dave Phipps was asked to front up the new organisation and speak to EASA on their behalf.  At the time, the UK was still part of the EU and so we would have had exactly those rules.  The esteem in which EASA and our own Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) holds the BMFA, and Dave Phipps in particular, is one of the reasons we in the UK have ended up with a situation that is essentially business as usual.  It could quite easily have been a very different outcome and you might not have been able to become a tyro flyer quite so easily.

 

Please don't take this as a criticism of you, I am merely trying to explain to you, and to a good many others at the same time, that the BMFA is more than just the provider of insurance for flying model aircraft even though it might not seem so to you.  There are a great many other things the BMFA does but I won't bother to go into them at the moment.

 

Returning to the magazine, you should not confuse this with the type of commercial magazine that is represented by RCM&E.  BMFA News is the only way that the BMFA has to communicate to all of its members.  The magazine is used to distribute information on changes in Air Law, changes in the Achievement Scheme (very topical to you as you will be taking an A test in the not too distant future as part of your being able to fly solo unsupervised - usually a Club ruling and not a BMFA ruling, I might add) vacancies on various BMFA Committees and so on covering all the model aircraft disciplines.  As a new comer, and presumably flying radio control fixed wing, you may be unaware of the other disciplines such as Free Flight, which at one stage was all there was!  

 

I hope that has helped you to understand that the BMFA is more than just a provider of insurance.  If it didn't exist, the sport, or hobby, as we know it would be faced with an existential crisis post the Drone Laws.  As it is, you are now able to enjoy the hobby in a way that you would not have been.

 

I hope that has helped you to understand the wider role that the BMFA performs and the rationale behind the magazine.

 

Enjoy your flying.

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The item I thought you  would all be talking about is the small column on page 5 -   applicants for  " the Members Director"  aren't all the directors there to represent the members?  

Why do we need an extra Director?   Does the whole BMFA membership get a chance to vote for all the Directors or is it just for this one?

 

 

 

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kc - the Director posts come up every 2 years for members to vote on IF there is more than 1 candidate.  Quite often, there is only 1 candidate so there is no vote.  It will be the same for this post.

 

Like all Directors, they are there to do a specific job e.g. Competition Director.  Yes, they do represent members but in their area.  Looking at the Terms of Reference it seems to me that this is designed to get the Achievement Scheme Controller as an Executive Director and to then take on Chairing Areas Council (was the Hon Sec) as well as doing more to promote regional events, youth engagement and the Achievement Scheme.

 

Same as any company board director.  Don't forget that the SMAE, trading as the BMFA, is a Company Limited by Guarantee and subject to the Companies Act.  It is not a glorified Club Committee.  

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I don't actually remember being given the opportunity to vote on the SMAE directors,  but maybe it's just my memory at fault!   Can anybody remember such a vote?

The worst thing that can happen to a club is to have uncontested elections and not let any 'new blood' come in.  So lets hope we see several nominations for this post and a proper election.

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Can we assume you'll put your name in the hat kc?  You'll only see an election if there are candidates for the position.  I may be wrong but I believe Pete Christy, who often posts here, was largely responsible for the policy change some years ago, enabling per member postal voting for these positions but it's many years since the need for a vote arose.

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The price of a good quality, glossy magazine that caters to the needs of the users of this forum is £44 per year for print-only subscription. I don't think I want half my subs spent on the BMFA magazine.

 

On top of that, the RCM&E version of the hobby is only one aspect of what the BMFA covers. I value what BMFA does as a governing body, I don't expect the magazine to be all that interesting, but I do expect it to cover some of the administrative (boring but necessary) stuff and have news from across the hobby.

 

A couple of other sport associations I have belonged to updated their magazine offerings and they became even less use by trying to be 'interesting'. 

 

As members of any voluntary organisation, I also think that we should remember that there is not really a living breathing entity "the association". Actual people, almost all volunteers, are doing or not doing what we complain about. We too could volunteer, help, and then build the BMFA as what we really want. If I have not got time or inclination to do any more for the BMFA than skim through the magazine, I am profoundly thankful to those that toil away making this all work.

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1 hour ago, Richard Acland said:

I must be one of the few that find it interesting. Not many of the articles pertain to my particular branch of the hobby, but I like to see what other people are up to as regards other aspects of the hobby. 

Call me old fashioned but I like the magazine. As an examiner, it keeps me up to speed on all sorts of topics related to our great hobby. I like the "chummy" way it is written. Having editited a magazine in the past, I know how much work goes into producing a copy every month. Well done the bods who put it together, long may it last!.

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If you don’t like any of the articles.....send one in. Get your face on club corner etc.

I have great admiration for those who have to do the regular monthly column. 

Sometimes the mag is a good read, sometimes it’s not for me but then other members might find it great.

 

To me , it’s getting a bit NFC centric, of that’s not your thing put pen to paper. I have in the past.....it’s not that hard

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Good to see positive responses which I like reading and give a good impression of our hobby. I am confused by the 'hanger' used multiple times simply because I thought aeroplanes are stored in a hangar. 

 

5 minutes ago, cymaz said:

it’s getting a bit NFC centric

What's NFC?

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