What happening to our hobby ?

[Ron Gray]

I didn’t think you were Phil! 

 

 Re your last point, new venues, new friendships - imo that is what we should be doing. Inter club fly-ins around themes, such as scale, sport or just pure fun, basically just having a laugh with like minded folk. 

[martin collins 1]

A couple of us at one of the clubs i belong to have been discussing exactly that Ron, inter club fly ins with Warbirds etc, that is something we have actively taken part in this year, Flair fly in, Best of British Buckminster and the recent Tibenham Fly in. We have thoroughly enjoyed seeing the larger array of models and chatting to other `enthusiasts`, if we stuck to our own clubs most of what you see are the same Riot/Ruckas types which seem to fly great but have no appeal to me as a model. I`m not poo hooing them as their owners love them but i enjoy turning up with something out of the ordinary and like to see those types of models which the Fly ins more often than not have in abundance. 

[Ron Gray]

IMO what we all should be doing is looking to say the 2 nearest clubs to your own and engaging with them to develop a ‘round robin’ series of events for next year. Could be themed events as per the above, but all based on a fly-in type approach. I will be doing that myself and it will be interesting to hear of others.

[David Davis]

I will be going to just such a Fly-In at Gueret on Sunday.

[leccyflyer]

My experience of clubs has been that the vast majority of flyers are happy to just fly at their own patch and have little interest in spreading their wings further and flying at other sites. It's a pity, because I've personally had great enjoyment from flying at other sites, either at fly-ins, or as a guest.  There have been exceptions and the obvious one is where folks are a member of more than one club.  I find the variety of flying from different sites, which may be suitable for different models, is an important part of my hobby. The idea of co-hosted and reciprocal events is a good one but I can't say that I've been part of one in practice, as for our annual ADS Breakfast Fly-in at Kerloch Flyers, the vast majority of participants are members of both clubs.

[Learner]

We cant get 2/3 of our club to fly at our site, let alone somewhere else further away.

I wonder why they join sometimes but glad they do.

[Ron Gray]

Yes, apathy reigns supreme but without trying / pushing you’ll never know.

[leccyflyer]

I think the best attendance we've had at a normal flying day this year whilst I've been there has been around a dozen - that's out of about 36 members, so about 1/3rd being the most active flyers is probably about right. It's up to 2/3rds at my local club, but that's 10 flyers out of a total of 15 members.

 

 

[Cuban8]

3 hours ago, leccyflyer said:

My experience of clubs has been that the vast majority of flyers are happy to just fly at their own patch and have little interest in spreading their wings further and flying at other sites. It's a pity, because I've personally had great enjoyment from flying at other sites, either at fly-ins, or as a guest.  There have been exceptions and the obvious one is where folks are a member of more than one club.  I find the variety of flying from different sites, which may be suitable for different models, is an important part of my hobby. The idea of co-hosted and reciprocal events is a good one but I can't say that I've been part of one in practice, as for our annual ADS Breakfast Fly-in at Kerloch Flyers, the vast majority of participants are members of both clubs.

Many years ago I was complaining to a good club friend of mine (still is) about how I was struggling to get members to contribute to the club magazine/newsletter that I produced at the time - I've never forgotten his reply....."good luck, but you're wasting your time, because the majority of flyers just want a field to fly on, a natter with their mates and everything else is of no interest"

OK, a somewhat sweeping statement, but essentially true to a great extent. I get the impression that as the membership grows older the situation will get worse.

I've just worked my way through the 2024 BMFA annual report and even at the top level of the organisation of our hobby, finding  people to fill important posts or to engage with its general running is becoming ever harder. I recommend members take time to go through the document - it's 29 pages but very informative as to how much goes on behind the scenes and to what extent the BMFA is trying to stem the decline in the hobby. 10/10 for effort.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

2 hours ago, Cuban8 said:

Many years ago I was complaining to a good club friend of mine (still is) about how I was struggling to get members to contribute to the club magazine/newsletter that I produced at the time - I've never forgotten his reply....."good luck, but you're wasting your time, because the majority of flyers just want a field to fly on, a natter with their mates and everything else is of no interest"

OK, a somewhat sweeping statement, but essentially true to a great extent. I get the impression that as the membership grows older the situation will get worse.

I've just worked my way through the 2024 BMFA annual report and even at the top level of the organisation of our hobby, finding  people to fill important posts or to engage with its general running is becoming ever harder. I recommend members take time to go through the document - it's 29 pages but very informative as to how much goes on behind the scenes and to what extent the BMFA is trying to stem the decline in the hobby. 10/10 for effort.

 

Link C8 ?

[EvilC57]

2 hours ago, leccyflyer said:

I think the best attendance we've had at a normal flying day this year whilst I've been there has been around a dozen - that's out of about 36 members, so about 1/3rd being the most active flyers is probably about right. It's up to 2/3rds at my local club, but that's 10 flyers out of a total of 15 members.

 

 

Obviously not just our club then. Of around 130 members, those of us who do fly regularly only ever see maybe 30 or 40 of them maximum. The other 90 to 100 pay their subs, but we never see them.

[Cuban8]

51 minutes ago, john stones 1 - Moderator said:

 

Link C8 ?

Bmfa has emailed the link to club secs with a password for access.

[leccyflyer]

30 minutes ago, EvilC57 said:

Obviously not just our club then. Of around 130 members, those of us who do fly regularly only ever see maybe 30 or 40 of them maximum. The other 90 to 100 pay their subs, but we never see them.

I believe it's pretty standard at most clubs and the hard data from my long term club back in England, where every visit to the flying site had to be entered in the site log came very close to what is described as the 80:20 rule - 80% of the visits were made by 20% of the members. That 20% of members were at the field every week and did lots of flying. A proportion of that remaining  bulk of the membership might make one visit a month or less and a substantial number were never actually seen at the field. That was for a similar sized club to yours - about 120 members, declining to just under 100 in a ten year period.

[leccyflyer]

As for what's happening to the hobby, personally I think that rumours of it's demise are a wee bit exaggerated. The various betes noires that are blamed for the perceived demise of the hobby are repeatedly trotted out and they certainly have been since I returned to the hobby thirty years ago. If you believed half of the doom and gloom you would have expected everyone to have given up years ago - and it's always blamed on something that the mourner doesn't like.

 

Whilst having lunch today I was leafing through an old magazine and it contained a familiar refrain from a disgruntled correspondent about the "youth of today"

 

Here it is

 

 

 

Check out the date .😄

[GrumpyGnome]

80/20. Good old Pareto!

 

We have just over 30 members, bit I think only about a third fly regularly.....  unless they do it more regilarly while I'm not there, and don't use Watsapp or share pictures.... 

 

We think it's busy if 4 are there at any time 🙂

 

So lots of airtime, but the downside is the subs need to be high. Swings and roundabouts. 

 

We've had a few new members this year, but none are new to the hobby. 

[martin collins 1]

Sounds very similar to one of the clubs i belong to..........

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

And ours, also the 80/20 rule. Down to 90/10 for mowing at the best of times and 50/50 + on 'Paella' days.

[SIMON CRAGG]

14 hours ago, GrumpyGnome said:

80/20. Good old Pareto!

 

We have just over 30 members, bit I think only about a third fly regularly.....  unless they do it more regilarly while I'm not there, and don't use Watsapp or share pictures.... 

 

We think it's busy if 4 are there at any time 🙂

 

So lots of airtime, but the downside is the subs need to be high. Swings and roundabouts. 

 

We've had a few new members this year, but none are new to the hobby. 

Pretty much the same as our club.

 

As club sec. I decided that it was time to try and do something about recruiting new members.

 

First stop, contact the BMFA.

 

They were very helpful, and did confirm some of my thoughts about membership numbers etc.

 

Arrange a photo shoot for a new Facebook page. Done.

Update our web site with easier access to new members. Done.

Arrange to be part of the BMFA "Trial Flight" register. Done.

Write article for local press with photos, to be submitted next Spring. Done.

Arrange for flyers to be distributed. Done.

 

So at the very least we are trying to do something about our club numbers, and not just moaning about it.

 

How many members we get is anybody's guess. 

[Cuban8]

The 80:20 ratio is quite true - we used to call the members who we hardly ever saw our 'armchair club' - still far more armchair pilots than field regulars today TBH, and they keep the club afloat financially but its never been an ideal situation. Fewer younger members (when you can get them) will not be quite so inclined to 'fly their armchairs' when other distractions come about, I suspect - so another ticking timebomb there?

 

From the post above .....

"Arrange a photo shoot for a new Facebook page. Done.

Update our web site with easier access to new members. Done.

Arrange to be part of the BMFA "Trial Flight" register. Done.

Write article for local press with photos, to be submitted next Spring. Done.

Arrange for flyers to be distributed. Done."

 

All very positive and I take my hat off to those putting in the effort to organise these initiatives. Well worthwhile - one can only make things as easy and attractive as possible - whether or not there is a receptive audience of any size , I'm not certain of. My own experience suggests not.

We mustn't fall into a pit of despair though, the hobby is not going extinct within the next few years.........what is certain is that it will continue changing and that IMHO it will mean that it will get much smaller than now. 30,000 plus BMFA members again isn't going to happen and we'll probably have to cut our cloth to suit a far smaller membership of perhaps, I'd guess in the future, 1/3 of what we knew in the 'happy time'. I believe that Australia and New Zealand's model flying bodies manage perfectly well with far smaller numbers than we've been used to seeing in BMFA. The drone dividend hasn't been fantastic for us considering their huge sales and large number of users registering with the CAA (200,000?)

 

The old model mag editorial about about plastic in kits and the scourge of Rock and Roll made me laugh..........its always been that way when something new comes about, until the new approach has made its mark and is found to be an advance over what has been the norm.

I doubt if those newcomers that we are trying to attract will be overly bothered about the materials used in their models - as long as they do the job and the model does its stuff.

Edited October 18, 2024 by Cuban8

[EvilC57]

From the post above .....

"Arrange a photo shoot for a new Facebook page.
 

Wouldn’t work for us. It’s written in to our club constitution that we shall not have a ‘social media’ presence.

[payneib]

2 minutes ago, EvilC57 said:

 

From the post above .....

"Arrange a photo shoot for a new Facebook page.
 

Wouldn’t work for us. It’s written in to our club constitution that we shall not have a ‘social media’ presence.

Why? That seems an odd position to take. 

[Cuban8]

6 minutes ago, payneib said:

Why? That seems an odd position to take. 

Depends on the circumstances and opinions of the members and those running the club. My own club tends to keep a low profile as regards public social media and we don't make a priority of attending fetes and advertising  etc or generally 'putting ourselves about'. We don't advertise the exact location of our site. Not saying that any or all of this won't change in time, but it suits us at present.

We are on the BMFA clubfinder, so if anyone is actively seeking a club in our general area and contacts us,  then we'll do our best to help.

[SIMON CRAGG]

Interesting.

 

We have one "younger" member who is very well versed with social media, and also belongs to another car and heli club.

 

We asked him for some opinions / advice on the subject of recruiting new members etc. 

 

He underlined how times have changed, stating that Instagram / Tik Tok? and Facebook were now the "Go to" places to find out about flying clubs.

 

I forgot to add that a club member donated an excellent Laptop leads and dongle. I downloaded the latest Phoenix 6 flight sim, so that we can have a Flight Sim on the go at any fetes etc. we attend, and possibly in our club hut. Really good free sim as well!.

 

So far so good.

 

I set up a Facebook Group for our club (bit of a learning curve), and within 24 hrs had recruited a new member (recently moved to our area, had an "A" cert), so was pretty much oven ready. Turned out to be a good flyer who has already fitted in well with the club.

 

I don't expect miracles throughout the Winter months, but as I have stressed to our Committee, its no good standing about in a wet soggy flying field moaning about the lack of numbers, and the decline of our wonderful hobby. DO SOMETING ABOUT IT!.

 

I am led to believe that the BMFA are going on a recruitment binge, and are employing an "Outreach Officer", so I will be interested to see what they come up with. 

 

 

[EvilC57]

4 hours ago, Cuban8 said:

Depends on the circumstances and opinions of the members and those running the club. My own club tends to keep a low profile as regards public social media and we don't make a priority of attending fetes and advertising  etc or generally 'putting ourselves about'. We don't advertise the exact location of our site. Not saying that any or all of this won't change in time, but it suits us at present.

We are on the BMFA clubfinder, so if anyone is actively seeking a club in our general area and contacts us,  then we'll do our best to help.

Ditto.

[Richard Acland]

On 17/10/2024 at 09:40, leccyflyer said:

My experience of clubs has been that the vast majority of flyers are happy to just fly at their own patch and have little interest in spreading their wings further and flying at other sites. It's a pity, because I've personally had great enjoyment from flying at other sites, either at fly-ins, or as a guest.  There have been exceptions and the obvious one is where folks are a member of more than one club.  I find the variety of flying from different sites, which may be suitable for different models, is an important part of my hobby. The idea of co-hosted and reciprocal events is a good one but I can't say that I've been part of one in practice, as for our annual ADS Breakfast Fly-in at Kerloch Flyers, the vast majority of participants are members of both clubs.

I would like to go and visit other clubs in my area. The only problem is the first question is always "have you got an A cert". When my answer is no, but I have been building and flying RC aircraft for 40 odd years and am the secretary of my club. The reply is sorry but that is our rule. So I stay and fly at my club where everyone is welcome regardless.7