Hi Everyone,
As you probably are aware by now, there have been many changes in our region so far this year. One of the first things I have seen is our last two contests were both big successes. Farview was 31 pilots, almost double from last year and Two Tony’s (Lums Pond) went to 27. There were three people that could not show that were pre-registered for various last minute issues so the potential was there for another 30.
At the time I am writing this, our 4th contest this years is just finishing up in Maine. Look for the contest report on the IMAC web site very soon.
Currently, we are working on the following:
IN the New England States area, John Banks is working on the following
-continued planning for the NE Region finals. Met with the club, gained their commitment to provide a dozen volunteers to assist with the event.
- in the process of scheduling another IMAC primer, this time at the Woodstock field. I have been contacted by several guys on FG, we just need to finalize a date that is good for everyone.
- still working with Dave on making sure all of our contests are publicized. Planning on doing an article for the front page of FG on the Maine contest, as a segway into the Nats.
In the Canadian area, Isabel is working on the following:
- The calendar for Quebec & the Maritimes has been finalized and posted. Everybody submitted their contests for IMAC & MAAC sanctioning, and all have been sanctioned. I secured a new venue for the Quebec Finals, due to noise & footprint issues at the previous venue. The Finals will be held at the Saint-Lazare airport. We'll have a Quebec folk blues band in the evening for a special club :)
- We negotiated a special deal to get all our trophies for Quebec made locally at a discount. This year we'll have trophies for the top 3 in the Quebec Points Championship, as opposed to top 1 last year. All our communal equipment that gets lugged from contest to contest has been looked over and we don't anticipate having any expenses on that side for this summer.
- For the Canadian Nats, everything is going well. I visited the club in Ottawa and took some measurements. It will run Friday to Sunday, with 2 unknowns. I got help negotiating for the banquet venue and it should be secured soon for Saturday. The club will do a steak dinner on the Friday, and we will probably have a band in the evening. We have sponsors (see www.scaleaerobaticscanada.com for details), including an airplane from Aeroworks, and Great Hobbies is sponsoring the pilot t-shirts. We have about 35 pre-registrations to date.
In the New York and New Jersey area, Tony is working on:
-I have taken the lead on developing a CD's contest check list that is designed to summarize all that a CD must do to run a smooth contest and to identify those tasks that must be done at all meets such as on time starts, expeditious flight line management, identifying and completing a significant number of tasks before the start of the meet. This activity lead to the creation of the document that was used at the Lums Pond meet.
- I along with Bill Lairsey are leading the process of developing a judges summary sheet that will be completed in the next week or so that we will used in future contests to ensure all judges are approaching the judging process in the same manner. The summary document is being designed to serve as a quick reference guide and will be given to the judges at all meets. The summary guide will use the 2 page summary that is typically given out at national judging schools as a base and will embellish it to include definitions of some critical areas such as roll stoppage, breaks, etc. It will also clarify some of the judging areas that have historically been interpreted in more than 1 way, e.g. the scoring of snaps, how to score a break that goes left where the pilot takes it right. This is often zeroed when the correct handling is a point deduction. A version of this document was provided to all judges at the Lums Pond Meet.
- Lastly we all jointly expended a significant amount of time discussing the Lums Pond meet and we took joint action to put things in place that were intended to ensure the success and smooth running of the meet. This includes the CD checklist, the judging summary, Bill's pre meet review with Mark and all the input and review on all of our parts.. This statement is not meant to take away from the magnificent job that Mark McQuaide did but is meant to identify the fact that we all wanted to ensure that Lums Pond was a complete success and I think it was excellent.
Brian is working on the following for the Maryland and Delaware area:
-Raised the bar on contest write-ups by writing and posting for two contests in my areas. Guys are starting to go read them as soon as they get posted and seem to really like them
-After discussion in officer forum, relayed lessons learned from past contests to CD before contest. This was done by you Bill by meeting with Mark before contest to share some issues we need fixed with how contests are run and the result was Mark hitting a home-run for how to run a contest - forums are lit up with people saying how great the contest was run
-Continued the standard of rapid posting of the 3 P's (Points, Personalized contest write-up, Pictures) for last DE contest. Goal: Increase IMAC membership/participation
-2 IMAC Primers have been scheduled and publicized in MD in the upcoming months
-A 3rd primer is in the works - CAPI voted to hold one prior to their contest in September but a date still needs to be set.
-Primer in a box is under development (~25% complete)
-Been doing a little networking to get people to register for CAPI. It was added to the schedule after everyone went through and pre-registered for contests for the season. I am trying to start the avalanche effect on this one by getting a lot of people on the pre-registration. It is the same weekend as Clover Creek making it a challenge but this contest must be successful this year to survive - club was not happy with low attendance last year when a scheduling error killed participation. I think it will be big this year as everyone I've talked to says they are coming but I am concerned by the pre-registration numbers (I don't want anyone to not plan on coming because they think it is going to be a small contest)
Dave Michael directs our marketing efforts and this is where he is currently at, he also works on marketing for all of IMAC as well so this list goes for both every region
I am pulling together a proposal regarding IMAC Marketing structure/purpose and would like to get moving soon. I'd like to start reaching out to people through the Regional Directors to build a team representing all Regions and with a mix of experiences that would be as representative of total membership and prospective members as possible. Some of the criteria would include:
> Varying levels of IMAC experience- years flying IMAC as well as competitive class
> Level of RC experience / club administration experience
> Variety in stage of life (i.e., some people have lots of time to attend contests while others have less time but still want to as much as possible)
> Must be enthusiastic about our mission and able to contribute to the cause
At a high level, the marching orders I will give to the IMAC Marketing team are:
- Initiate development of programs that help us achieve our goals of:
> Growing our membership
> Increasing contest participation/making contests more successful
> Increase the number of IMAC contests
> Contribute towards improving judging using alternative methods
> Raising the value of IMAC to host clubs
> Improving the membership experience overall
> Other? (tbd)