The following is the text of an article sent to the BMFA News today.

THE SHROPSHIRE MODEL FLYING CLUB FLYING SCHOLARSHIP SCHEME

IF YOU SURROUND YOURSELF WITH YOUNG PEOPLE, YOU CAN PRETEND YOU ARE ONE YOURSELF

It may be a shock to aeromodellers but we are an aging community. A recent survey by a leading RC magazine concluded that our average age is 58. Well stop my vitals! I thought we were even older than that. Certainly look at the pages of any RC publication and it will register that most of us are members of the balding blue rinse brigade.

Here in Shropshire we recognise that youth is the future. With that idea in sight we set out to attract more junior members. We already knew that other nearby model flying clubs had no junior members at all, so what could we do that was different to attract them?

The answer came quickly with our Flying Scholarship Scheme. If any other club has difficulty in recruiting junior members then please read on. There is no patent on our scheme and we welcome any copying or improvement of our idea.

Junior Membership of the BMFA is only £16 per annum. Membership of our club is free for everyone under the age of 18 or in full-time education. It struck us that £16 was a very good investment to gain a junior member with all the potential a young person joining the club implies. For our first year, we decided to invite 3 junior members to accept Flying Scholarships. Even this was at no cost to the club because 2 of the club officers, who were previously provided with honorariums equal to the annual senior membership fee, saw no reason why they should not pay for membership in 2012.

There is also the very valuable resource in all Model Flying Clubs of the membership itself. Those old grey heads didn’t get that way before accruing tremendous knowledge of aerodynamics, model engineering and flying skill. Furthermore in all flying clubs there is the willingness and enthusiasm to teach and offer advice. Admittedly, there does come a point in every newcomer’s advancement where he inevitably has to request “No further advice please!”

So we had the money and the sets of skills we needed to attract new juniors. We issued a Press Release. It went to the local media, the Air Training Corps, Scouting Association and all the secondary schools in our catchment area. BBC Radio Shropshire was interested and came to our flying field to record a really professional interview session for a Saturday morning show aimed at young listeners.[1] We set an essay competition; boys and girls who were interested were invited to write an essay chosen from 2 aviation subjects. It was not a competition of skill in English. We were looking for enthusiasm and interest. We were also looking for commitment from the parents. Our flying field was remote enough to demand a car journey and not a trip on a bike after a paper round. We asked all entrants’ parents to sign the essay and agree later that they would support their child’s Scholarship bid. We set a closing date for entrants.

Well, you can probably guess what happened next. The deadline approached and there was not a single entrant. We had forgotten the capacity for young boys not to hand their homework in until the last minute. All of a sudden like busses, three 13-14 year old boys came along at the same time. It was just the number we needed. No essay judging was required!

There are several advantages in a Flying Scholarship Scheme.

a.       The club reduces its average age.

b.      The students come with fathers who can be seen as further membership recruits.

c.       It attracts other young people outside of the Scholarship Scheme.

d.      It fulfils a commitment to community and earns points in advance of noise or other complaints.

e.      It attracts sponsorship and empathy.

On this last point, our local model shop owner was delighted to provide a complimentary electric trainer with a battery pack and receiver to match our club Spektrum transmitters. He also joined our club for 2012. We were cooking on gas!

In the interests of ambidexterity, we set a club transmitter to Mode 1. We had a small queue of members, some of our best flyers, who wanted to teach this mode. One of our Scholarship winners, 13 year old Aled Lees is now a Mode 1 learner. Fourteen year old Jack Freeman and 13 year old Guy Sheldon are learning with Mode 2. The flying does not stop on the airfield. Guy Sheldon has already started on the slope and is so enthused that he purchased his first flying wing with money he makes in the school tuck shop. He is already almost as good at slope soaring as he obviously is at selling tuck.

We set targets for everyone; BMFA ‘A’ pilots by half-term. It would have been a realistic prospect because boys of this age have fantastic eye-to-hand coordination and tremendous learning ability. But the weather has been against us so far in 2012 and schoolboys can only fly at weekends in the winter. Let us just say we expect our first new ‘A’ pilots very soon.

The aftermath of the Scholarship Scheme has been a surge in junior membership. From a current total of 76 members, we now have 10 juniors. That is nearly 8 per cent! Eight year old Jake Howells is planning to be an ‘A’ pilot before he is 9 in November.

So what are we aiming for in 2013?

Girls!

Kit Davidson

Honorary Secretary

Shropshire Model Flying Club