Historical State Participation


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Ed Kettler
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Post by Ed Kettler »

Here's the data sorted in descending order by 2005 members:
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jj
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Post by jj »

Thanks Ed.

I do find a bit of this confounding though. It seems to show colorado bouncing up and down a lot in membership, but the latest info on the seb site has 10 members in CO which would be double from last year. Seems like the dates and renewals might be making the swings look more drastic than they really are.

also looks like Ohio has also picked up in membership somewhat.

But with all the talk I've heard and seen about TX events they now appear to only have 26 members, down from 05. hmmm

Well, consider it general trending information.
jj
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Post by jj »

Seems like AZ, NY and Canada have really taken a hit while a few states have actually increased in general. Most have had a decline, but still seem to have a core critical mass.

Any clues as to why AZ and NY took such a big hit?

CA seems pretty steady.

Is it travel (or lack of travel) related?
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o1moregil
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Post by o1moregil »

one other thing that I think that will help the current combat pilots not to leave the sport is CASH!! ...no no no ..not Rabbit Leader, I mean Money for the 1st place, for example: $20 entry fee (or whatever fee it is), plus... lets say $10.00 extra that go seperate in a box or envolope (this is money for the 1st place), lets say we get 9 pilots at a meet, THATS $90.00 bucks that go to the pilot that makes the most cuts, its 90 bucks that will defenetly will help for travel expencess. Now your not only traveling for the love of this, you are also getting a shot at some cash
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Ed Kettler
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Post by Ed Kettler »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Any clues as to why AZ and NY took such a big hit?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

If you look at the postings of contests on page 1 of the thread, there were no RCCA contests held in AZ in 2004 or 2005. So the chicken and egg question is "did membership decline because there were no contests or did contests decline because there were no members"?
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o1moregil
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Post by o1moregil »

[quote]<i>Originally posted by jj</i>
<br />
Gil, that new guy in Midland is my brother Vic. I'm sure you two can start building up some momentum for combat in the middle of .... a lot of unobstructed area to fly in. [:p]/quote]


Middle of noware jj,lol [^], .....there are 36 active members at the Midland club, and around 80 at the Odessa club, and they are 18 miles apart from eachother.
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Post by Web-Pilot »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by jj</i>
<br />Thanks Ed.

I do find a bit of this confounding though. It seems to show Colorado bouncing up and down a lot in membership, but the latest info on the web site has 10 members in CO which would be double from last year. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

JJ,

WE do have 5 new RCCA members in Colorado in 2006! Co only went up or down by 1 or 2 in the previous years since you and I joined and doubled the numbers. 100% in one year is significant growth I think, but I don't see it "bouncing up and down a lot" Three of those 5 new members in 2006 are in one family. The real key is to make it go up in 2007 and not down.

George
jj
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Post by jj »

The bouncing was the 4-6-5-7-6

Now it is at 10 but if the trend continues it will go to 8 next year and then to 12 in 2008 ??? [?]

Gil,

At the Mile-Hi events we do give back a percentage of cash for winning an event. George has the percentages but if you win you get more than your entrance fee back. Of course it depends on the mumber of contestants.

I moved my brother Vic down to Midland. I know first hand what isn't there. But you don't have to worry about losing flying sites due to tons of new housing developements.

Vic will be busy for the next few weeks getting settled into the new job but he is really into competition and has been an RC pilot from back when..... well a long time. He will certainly help get combat going in Midland just so he can try to kick my butt at LSN next year. [8D] Sounds like you'll be able to get some local interest started up down there.
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Ed Kettler
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Post by Ed Kettler »

Gil and Vic, hop on over to North Dallas for the SSC and 2548 contest on the 17th. It will be worth the drive!
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Post by jj »

Well Vic is in Dallas this week in training (6 hours of full motion flight sims every night). The he goes back to Midland and probably will be tied up for a while so I doubt he'll make it. Also, his Open B fleet is ready but he doesn't have a 2548 and not sure on the status of his SSC.

I told him he would likely need to focus on SSC now. He was going to pick up an engine or two from Lee. Maybe he'll get a break some day and stop by a field if people are practicing etc.
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Post by Captain America »

We held our first unsanctioned open c sort of contest last summer. We had club meetings over the winter and took on some spad projects and some ugly foam planes for our first club venture. Aaron passed out 7 or so planes to club pilots and we all flew one plane. great fun and interest. We built more planes and had another event. Ric Wyse came down and tore us up pretty good with his b ships and got us looking at faster better equiptment.

Late last fall we held and open c unsactioned event after havoc. I think we had something like 22 pilots. About half were local guys from the surrounding clubs. All had a great time flying, some did pretty well even. We were extremly happy with the participation. It was recomended that we hold a sanctioned event for 06 and start getting our locals set up for B combat. We did and had our first B events this year. Local participation droped by more than half. We still had a great turnout from the RCCA guys but lost most of the locals.

The fall event Aaron has decided to go for an unsanctioned event again this fall to see if we can draw in the local group once again. It will be interesting to see how it works. The event was great last year. The new greater #s for ohio are a showing from our club as well, Aaron and I joined 05 and 06. Corey probably will for 07.

I just came in from the hanger where im building 9 planes for the Nats. I really like the idea of limited amounts of planes per event. Just ordered another $500 worth of recievers and servos not to mention additional engines to get this stuff going.

Someone also hit it square on the head earlier. Corey and I are racers. This is cheap fun compasred to the big block blower motors we play with. Problem is time. Rounds flown per hour spent in the Hanger. Once the race car is redy it usually lasts a season or two.

My .02

Sean
jj
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Post by jj »

The important thing is having fun wit a lot of people and that measn keeping it interesting for newbys as well as veterans.

Looks like you've got some godd things going back East/Midwest (never figured out which of those Ohio belonged to).

Keep up the good work and have some fun.
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Post by AIM »

This topic raises all kinds of issues and opinions. I've sat here and typed 2 previous replys and deleted them both. I have an opinion on this that I would like to share but I really am not sure exactly what my opinion is.
My first thought that do believe that I have right is that "combat will never be a HUGE deal". MOST people will turn away from the damage. Lets face it. No matter what we do, be it new armor, new classes, etc, we go through ALOT of gear and newbies see this.

My second thought, and this is where I'm not sure I'm right is SANCTIONING. Why all the hype about sanctioning? Sure I understand it for NPS and all but you can't expect to entice local newbies into this aspect of RC if your telling them what they have to fly/build. If you have a nonsanctioned fly what ya bring kind of deal you will have a better turnout of locals. We held our first sanctioned event a few weeks back and lost exactly half of our local crowd. Our first nonsanctioned fly what ya bring had 14 locals. Second event, sanctioned had 7. Our next event is going to be a nonsantioned fly what ya bring. We'll see what happens.

Next thought is that combat to me is kind of a "burnout" hobby. By this I mean that I see guys going strong for a few seasons then dropping out due to being burned out on the intense building time and cost. Sean/Captain is a good friend of mine and he has been building like crazy for the nats and I can tell he is getting pretty frustrated with it. My hat is off to the guys that can build for all the classes and do events every other weekend.

My last thought (for now) is the RCCA itself. I/we need to better understand and promote the value of the RCCA. Ed's chart showing participation really doesn't show the true interest in COMBAT. It shows the current interest in NPS which is what many people percieve to be the ONLY reason to join the RCCA. Right now in my club we have 5 avid combat pilots. Sean and I are the only 2 that are members of the RCCA so Ed's charts really don't show true level of activity here. I'll be the first to admit that I have not promoted joining the RCCA and sitting here right now I can't think of any other reason to join other than getting into the NPS and giving the $15 so the website will stay up and running. (which is more important to me than NPS)
By the way. Just to back up this opinion. One of the 5 guys that I fly with locally USED to be a member of the RCCA. He let his membership go this year. His responce when I asked him why he didn't rejoin this year was "I don't have the time this year to worry about NPS"
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boiler
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Post by boiler »

Aron, you can sanction a combat fun-fly that doesn't use rcca/ama rules. It would not be elegible for NPS but it would provide what I would call necessary insurance for the event. The $20 sanction fee is cheap insurance since it has $2,500,000 coverage.[B)]
Jimbo
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Post by Jimbo »

Lou is right. Thats why everyone in my club quit. Now I ONLY fly club combat.
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