The
2007 AMA membership survey has been completed
and the results are in! Past projects of this
kind have included a general membership survey
using the consulting firm Axiom in the fall of
1999. A detailed reader survey for Model
Aviation was performed in March 2004, and in
late 2006 the Academy conducted a Web page
survey.
Of the more than 62,000 E-mails sent
to notify the membership of the most recent
survey, more than 8,100 members—or roughly
13%—responded. In the arena of polls and
surveys this is considered an excellent
response percentage.
(During renewal time we
ask permission to send E-mails to you. If you
opted not to receive E-mail communication from
AMA you would not have received the survey
notification. If you wish to receive future
E-mails from your organization, please contact
the Membership Department.)
To reward those
who took the time to fill out the survey, gift
certificates to the AMA Online Store (www.modelaircraft.org/site/default.aspx) for $100, $50,
and $25 were offered as incentives. I'm
pleased to announce that Krzysztof Szal of
Wheeling, Illinois, won the random drawing for
the $100 certificate.
Franklyn Perry of East
Aurora, New York, was the recipient of the $50
prize, and Marvin Weber of Alamogordo, New
Mexico, won the $25 certificate.
The Web and
ease of being able to compile information from
the membership is a real asset to AMA's
leadership. In times past, to conduct a survey
of this type cost thousands of dollars and
required hiring an outside firm to develop the
survey, test it, administer it, and compile
the results.
I hope to be coming to the
membership on an annual basis seeking their
thoughts on various aspects of the Academy.
Don't worry! We promise not to spam your
mailbox every month and we respect the time it
takes to complete these inquiries.
One of the
hardest parts of any survey is the development
of the "instrument," or the survey itself. It
is a balancing act to determine the questions
that will provide the answers or information
you are seeking and cover all the areas needed
without making it so time-consuming that
people won't take the time to fill it out.
A
few members contacted me about areas they felt
were ignored in the survey. In all cases they
were right. The omissions were not by plan or
intent. (I guarantee that the next time we
conduct a general membership survey, Soaring
will be mentioned.)
By setting time limits and
careful wording in the questions, we acquired
the information we needed. In a future issue
of MA we will publish highlights of the
survey, but I am including some items of
interest until the full report is published.
•
Over the past two years, 49% of respondents
have increased their participation in aeromodeling; 14.5% have decreased their level
of participation; and 36.5% have remained the
same.
• The greatest percentage of
respondents—32%—have been members for one to
five years; 24% have been members for 21 years
or more.
• A full 32% of respondents fly at least one
or two times a week; many indicated that their
flying was seasonal but with a higher
frequency during that time.
• The largest percentage of respondents fly at
AMA chartered club fields; private property
ranked second.
• The availability of suitable flying fields,
insurance, and membership growth were the
three most important issues to the
respondents.
MA
Jim Cherry, Executive Director
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