Supporting young talent starts with joining a club!

I had my first flying experiences about a year and a half ago with my “Superzoom,” which I built myself. With practice on the simulator and then in instructor-student sessions with my colleague Stephane, the whole thing went quite smoothly… We used suitable forest edges, open meadows, and other spots as flying fields… The urge to build more models followed and is still quite strong today. When we each bought a Leki, it became clear to us that we needed to take action and that we only wanted to pursue this hobby at a proper flying field. We also missed the opportunity to share knowledge and socialize with like-minded people. So we began our search for a club...

So we started asking around at model shops—as everyone knows, that’s where you can get the latest news about the various clubs. However, from the contacts we made there, we received nothing but negative responses along the lines of:

• “The club only accepts people from the surrounding area.”
• “We already have too many members!”
• “We don’t accept members who fly helicopters.”

That was pretty disappointing, especially since it felt like new members weren’t welcome at all. Further attempts to contact clubs six months later, based on online research, painted a similarly disappointing picture.

We were quite surprised that they were apparently not interested in integrating us into the club’s regular flight operations—even just as a precaution—to prevent us from potentially interfering with radio frequencies! Was it perhaps because people today generally pursue multiple hobbies, and many are consequently less willing to not only “use” a club but also to get involved in it?

After all that frustration, we finally decided to “let off some steam” with the president of the SMV. He treated us very kindly nonetheless and referred us to Juan Moreno of the MSV Stetten. And

lo and behold: Today we pursue our hobby in a well-organized manner as part of a club, in which we’re happy to invest some time beyond just flying and socializing.

SMV/pg/rs

We’d like to encourage everyone who’s seriously interested in model flying within a club not to let repeated rejections discourage them. At the same time, we’d like to call on the clubs not to close their doors to genuinely interested members. It’s the next generation that will secure your finances and your future in the long run!