Hi everyone,
If you're like many of us, you may belong to an EAA chapter that is filled with stories of "the way things used to be", "back when I was", "I remember when", and fairly short on activity. That's how the first few years of my local chapter experience was. And it got pretty boring pretty quickly. I've been the president of our chapter now going on my third term, and it's been a challenge to keep people engaged.
Over the past couple few years, I've been shaking things up a bit, and we try to go on field trips to different places, visiting people's projects, and things along those lines. We go to the Kermit Weeks hangar in Oshkosh once or twice a year (I live less than two hours from OSH), and that's always a good time. A majority of our chapter membership are beyond their flying ages and can't keep medicals, so non-flying activities are the what I strive for. But I tell you what, nothing has gotten the membership going as much as working on my airplane project.
Every Wednesday night, I host a "build night" at my house. Anyone who wants to come help cut metal, debur holes, or whatever is welcome to join in. Folks that rarely come to the chapter meetings are now showing up regularly, and of course, are at my house every week wondering what they can do to help. It's really helped to liven things up a bit, rather than sitting around BSing around the table.
For a number of reasons, this isn't a chapter-sanctioned event. But I certainly encourage the chapter members to come and help out. And it's great to see how excited that they are when participating. We gather around the plans, talk about the things we're building, and it always brings up lots of good questions. Learning is a great motivator for a lot of people, and it certainly works with this group! Our chapter's youngest member is 16yo high school student whose dream is to be an Aero Engineer, so I'm happy he can see how these fancy flying contraptions go together. We also have our share of retired folks in our midst, and they have great skills from past life experiences. It's great to have them on the team as well. You always learn something!
So, to make a long story longer, my airplane project is great,but not just for me. It makes other people happy, too! If you're in need of a hand doing anything on your plane, there's always a group of helping hands available closer than you think :-)
~Chris
If you're like many of us, you may belong to an EAA chapter that is filled with stories of "the way things used to be", "back when I was", "I remember when", and fairly short on activity. That's how the first few years of my local chapter experience was. And it got pretty boring pretty quickly. I've been the president of our chapter now going on my third term, and it's been a challenge to keep people engaged.
Over the past couple few years, I've been shaking things up a bit, and we try to go on field trips to different places, visiting people's projects, and things along those lines. We go to the Kermit Weeks hangar in Oshkosh once or twice a year (I live less than two hours from OSH), and that's always a good time. A majority of our chapter membership are beyond their flying ages and can't keep medicals, so non-flying activities are the what I strive for. But I tell you what, nothing has gotten the membership going as much as working on my airplane project.
Every Wednesday night, I host a "build night" at my house. Anyone who wants to come help cut metal, debur holes, or whatever is welcome to join in. Folks that rarely come to the chapter meetings are now showing up regularly, and of course, are at my house every week wondering what they can do to help. It's really helped to liven things up a bit, rather than sitting around BSing around the table.
For a number of reasons, this isn't a chapter-sanctioned event. But I certainly encourage the chapter members to come and help out. And it's great to see how excited that they are when participating. We gather around the plans, talk about the things we're building, and it always brings up lots of good questions. Learning is a great motivator for a lot of people, and it certainly works with this group! Our chapter's youngest member is 16yo high school student whose dream is to be an Aero Engineer, so I'm happy he can see how these fancy flying contraptions go together. We also have our share of retired folks in our midst, and they have great skills from past life experiences. It's great to have them on the team as well. You always learn something!
So, to make a long story longer, my airplane project is great,but not just for me. It makes other people happy, too! If you're in need of a hand doing anything on your plane, there's always a group of helping hands available closer than you think :-)
~Chris
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