What is most important in making a club attractive?

What does "efficiency of the leadership" mean?

Buckeye said:

What does "efficiency of the leadership" mean?

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The club is well-run, well-managed; the incoming funds are handled responsibly, etc.

If I may add another optimum category - on site motor vendor.

I know I've said it once already but drama kills clubs and destroys any possibility of getting new people into the hobby. So much drama could be avoided if people would just walk away. We had 2 idiots in our club a number of years ago decide it would be in their best interests to hash out their differences via email. Not just email each other but CC THE ENTIRE CLUB WITH EACH MESSAGE. I begged them to stop. Then the emails of, "take me off this list I am done with this club" started rolling in. Did they stop? Nope. Their stupid overinflated egos were driving that disaster. The club nearly tore itself apart. We're doing a lot better now but it's taken years to recover.


Another bit of drama that irritates the crap out of me is when you have a club prez (which by the way, NOT ONE OTHER MEMBER HAS STEPPED UP TO VOLUNTEER FOR THIS POSITION) and then members decide to be highly critical of everything he does. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You won't even lift a finger to help the prez and yet every decision he makes you have to be so critical of? Seriously? This is one of many reasons why I am no longer club prez.


And don't get me started on social media. If club members have issues to discuss and hash out do not do it on Facebook/Twitter/TRF. Ever. I know a lot of you shun the book of Faces and good for you but if used correctly it is a fantastic tool for outreach. It is so easy to share photos and videos which is a big part of our hobby. But airing dirty laundry for all the world to see is colossally stupid.


And on a related note...want to make your clubs leadership lives easier? Do not EVER come to them and say, "Hey, we should do ______" which is actually code for, "Hey, you should do _______." People did that crap to me all the time and when I'd say no or stated hey I don't have time or say, "That’s a great idea - do you think you could take care of that for me?" I'd get a annoyed response...In other words, do not come to your leadership and volunteer their time for them. You see something you want fixed then consult with the leadership and then volunteer to fix it for them. More than likely they already have a lot on their plate.


I needed to post this lol. It was cathartic.

DAllen said:

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Do not EVER come to them and say, "Hey, we should do ______" which is actually code for, "Hey, you should do _______." People did that crap to me all the time and when I'd say no or stated hey I don't have time or say, "That’s a great idea - do you think you could take care of that for me?" I'd get a annoyed response...In other words, do not come to your leadership and volunteer their time for them. You see something you want fixed then consult with the leadership and then volunteer to fix it for them. More than likely they already have a lot on their plate.

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My wife used to run the volunteers that did landscaping work at my kids’ elementary school. She used to get all kinds of people doing just that. Her favorite response was “I’ll be weeding on Thursday at 9:00. Can you come by then and we can talk and weed?”

Really cut down on the requests for her to do their pet projects.

More baristas.

A friendly bunch of folks, especially including the volunteers at the launch, is very important. Feeling welcome encourages new people to hang around and come back.

Being able to launch just about anything helps, so that whoever comes to a launch will find the support, both from the people and the GSE is really important.

One thing you didn't include on your list is having vendor support at launches. This is incredibly helpful, and people do get a bit spoiled if they can buy just about anything at the launch site. We have had people who just see a crowd on the lakebed and stop by to see what we are doing. They may have previous experience with rockets, or not. They will buy a RTF rocket and maybe a kit or two, and join in the fun.

The biggest influence by far on what makes for attractiveness is personal hygiene. How does that song go . . . Everyone's crazy about a sharp-dressed rocketeer

Seriously though, people will do a lot for their friends. Without friendliness, it's not really a club, it's just rocketry's version of fast food: Show up, pay, fly, then leave.

Mike

We would love to have a full time launch vendor, but the best we can usually do is our two major launches each year. More volunteers is always nice, the vast majority of the work for our big launches falls on a group of about 6-8 people consistently.

Yes, baristas with great personal hygiene.

dshmel said:

Porta-Potty

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We have a few at our monthly launches and this is our club's largest monthly expense, so a little slack might be in order for smaller groups or those in remote locations.

Buckeye said:

3. Keeping a schedule and not being afraid of a little weather (one club near me cancels launches i

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But you still have to be cautious. We have not launched since September, due to a very uncharacteristically wet year. It is very inconvenient, at best, when there is a lake in our lakebed.

We had a small disaster in October, when it started raining after midnight Friday night, and had dozens of vehicles in need of rescue by a local 4x4 club. To make it worse, "ROCtober" is our big youth launch, so there were many scouts, CAP, etc., camping that night.

Being cautious is a good thing, and second guessing on the weather seems to be a very popular pass time.

boatgeek said:

I really haven't seen much in the way of trouble from RSOs/LCOs other than LCOs regularly mispronouncing my name. In their defense, it's not obvious how it should be pronounced, so I'm not really complaining..

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I am just guessing here....


BOTE - geke?

Enthusiastic youth members! You will need one or two adult members, but they should be enablers, not leaders.

A good youth program, or youth activities like separate low-power pads at major launches.
Hook them young, they'll be HPR members when they get older.

In no particular order:

An active field and regularly scheduled launches.
All flyers/rockets welcome, 1/8th A to whatever the recovery area and waiver will accommodate.
Half hour of stretching and aerobics before each launch.
Healthy eating counceling.

Concerning, drama, it’s part of the human experience and will be present to some degree in any group activity. It’s how the adults in the group handle it that makes the difference.

I recently took a vacation to Florida and took a rocket with me. I was visiting in the Tampa area so I contacted Tampa Tripoli thru their FB page for directions and got a quick response. My first impression was the friendly people. Every one I spoke to was very welcoming and helpful. After gauging the wind conditions and the closeness of the surrounding cypress swamps, I decided not to launch my intended 7000' flight and risk loosing it. But I did bring my brother's grandson and his Estes V2 and some D engines and we had a ball. I would join that club anytime. Oh and they do have an outhouse!

BABAR said:

I am just guessing here....


BOTE - geke?

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Yeah, that's just where everyone goes with it. It's really pronounced BOE-aht-GEH-ek.

+1 to welcoming 1/8A to the max waiver. That's a really nice thing about the club I fly with.

So we are seeing "Friendliness of the members" as a clear #1 priority, followed by the ability to launch (presumably) large rockets to a (presumably) high altitude, and string club leadership. Very few people seem to car about hosting LDRS or NSL, or having TAPs and L3CCs available on site.

Buckeye said:

What does "efficiency of the leadership" mean?

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That means leadership is presently tolerating each other and not laced in drama and bulls**t at the moment.

What is most important in making a rocketry club attractive?

The pizza, wait... I meant people... lol

Bat-mite said:

So we are seeing "Friendliness of the members" as a clear #1 priority, followed by the ability to launch (presumably) large rockets to a (presumably) high altitude, and string club leadership. Very few people seem to car about hosting LDRS or NSL, or having TAPs and L3CCs available on site.

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I took ability to host big launches to mean having a larger field. So I voted for that as well as friendliness, waiver altitude (more tomwatch others, currently) and size of rockets. Not really concerned about actually hosting it as much as having ability to.

rfjustin said:

What is most important in making a rocketry club attractive?

The pizza, wait... I meant people... lol

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we have a great BBQ & micro brew place we go for 'après launch'!

https://www.millriverbrewing.com/

A club, in my mind, has (at least) three missions, and none should be neglected. There's the organized launching, obviously. And then there are educational and social aspects, helping newbies and sharing tips, and shooting the breeze. The latter two really work better, in my opinion, at indoor gatherings combined with the business meeting. I've seen clubs that don't hold the indoor meetings during flying season, and I think that's a mistake.

Communications are vital. My club's web site is updated, but it's just not very good. Does saying it needs improvement mean I should volunteer to improve it? I would, but I don't have that skill set.

In the poll, I chose friendly people and low dues and flight fees. Actually, the costs don't need to be very low, I don't mind paying my way, but if they're really high that's a turn off.

Also, I've yet to encounter an unfriendly environment in a rocket club, but I picked it because, should it ever happen I will walk away and never look back.

Wow. Friendliness of members is #1 by a long shot.

This is valuable information for clubs trying to increase attendance. Or fight decreasing attendance. Speaking of which, we haven’t had a “hobby rocketry is dying” thread in a while.

samb said:

Concerning, drama, it’s part of the human experience and will be present to some degree in any group activity. It’s how the adults in the group handle it that makes the difference.

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I agree. Not everyone in a group, especially a large one, is going to be friendly. Introverts launch too.

As long as the surly/grumpy folks don't actively make other's time miserable, it's not a problem.

Introvert isn't the same as surly/grumpy. I'm not asking that every member be an outgoing ambassador of good will with a perpetual smile. Even people who (like me) have some difficulty opening up to strangers (unless I make a conscious effort to do so, in which case it's tiring) can answer a question or say "Hi" being civil and friendly, if curt. "Yes, I left out the engine block so I could fit longer motors. Please excuse me, I need to go."

jqavins said:

Introvert isn't the same as surly/grumpy.

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Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't mean to imply introverts were grumpy/surly. That was meant as two separate statements.

I've heard from introverts about how exhausting it is for them to be social. I have no problem with people who keep to themselves at launches.

Tiring, but often worth it.

I am an introvert, but I am not shy and I do not avoid social interaction. But after a long day of rocket camaraderie, I need to go home and be by myself for awhile. My wife knows that after rocket day, I am not going to want to hang out. She is the same way, so we totally understand each other.

We do launch everything from 1/2A to M usually. Not much in the way of cellular coverage, so phones/internet are very scratchy. We don't have a toilet on site . Nearest loo is about 10km away, and a bunch of trees at about 1km (1100yards) away. Download ability really limited.