I posted this on our website after out last meeting...
Seems like it might be time to talk about the elephant in the room...
Dick Ober read a prepared statement today about a controversial issue for our club. As issues go its not a major one so his trepidation wasn't about the issue, it was about the reaction. He was worried about the one thing the surely kills most clubs across the world. Egos. It went better, but there was still gnashing of teeth, and people walking out.
Since I joined this club I have found the waters are beautiful, the beaches wonderful, but the sharks unpredictable. A word, a gesture, a written thought, a silence, where someone sits or doesn't sit, the way someone looks or talks, a sticker given as a chuckle that you are one of us... any number of things can set the sharks into a frenzy making people leave the water and then the beach. The sharks are just milling about, waiting for an offense to set them off. Sometimes this makes the other fish nervous and jumpy, and they too get triggered easily. In time this nervous energy makes for an empty beach... and a bunch of unhapppy fish.
This club is not about who has the best toys, the most toys, the shiniest or the most expensive. Its not about who is the best pilot, the best instructor, the worst pilot, the best or the worst member. Its about flying RC, learning from one another, hearing funny stories, stories of crashes and successes, and sometimes just stories. Its about becoming friends around a shared interest. Its not about finding insult or supporting egos.We come together to enjoy one another's company, to welcome the diversity, or not, but to never let the sharks scare away the fish, especially the new small ones.Here the little fish should never be afraid of the bigger fish, or the sharks.
Please, keep the sharks away, let go of our egos, have fun and enjoy one another and our great hobby. Stop chumming the waters.... Or maybe I have made a big mistake and have it all wrong.
Fair winds and following seas. Keep the lifties under the wings, and may your landings equal your takeoffs. And remember the Four Agreements.
I can still fly at BMF. The field, pits and clubhouse are open to all Harrison County residents with an AMA license. I'll still be there. When it comes time to renew my membership, I will think long and hard about what I get from being a member of the club when I can fly without being a member. What is the benefit of paying to be a member of this flying club? 12 Angry Men who want everyone to be miserable as they are? This club is not what I thought at first. I may decide to drive half the distance to Ocean Springs instead, but I like a lot of the guys who fly at BMF, and I like the facilities (though the field, a source of ginormous friction in the club, could use a lot of work). Somehow I'm not sure the grass is greener over there... No one will take the joy and peace of flying RC (okay, and masochistic annoyance of crashing) away from me. I can still be with the guys and the hobby I so enjoy, without the drama.
I'm happier already... yup, soooo happy.... Happy me... Woo whoo...
EDIT (8/19/11): 12 Angry Men, a film by Sidney Lumet, starring Henry Fonda, 1957
This post has become my most popular post!
ReplyDeleteAnd just what does an old movie have anything to do with flying RC planes? Explain please???
ReplyDeleteHere you go, Nathan...
ReplyDeleteThe film is an allegory about consensus building among a heterogenous group of people who are detemrined to carry out their own disparate agendas which have nothing to do with their unified purpose, to the exclusion of the other's agendas and undestanding of that unifying purpse. They don't give a crap why the others are there or what they think of why they are there, its all about them. There are bullies, troublemakers, narcissists, good people who are afraid of the others, persons who can think and persons who are childish in their ignorance, and just plain stupid people. They are rich, poor, unemployed... They are people who just want to finish and go about their lives regardlesss of the consequences. They all bring their baggage into the room. Some want to hide, some want to be ignored, some want to be the focus of attention. They all express themselves to fulfill their own needs, at the cost of their common, more noble and far more important purpose. They are us, eh? But they have a responisibility that is greater than their needs or wants. In the end they are brought together by one of the more reasonable men who has to stand his ground despite the blustering and childishness of the others, because he refuses to be cowed no matter what they call him, how they treat him or how they try to change the focus. He knows what is at stake. They have to come to terms with their own demons, kicking and screaming, painfully being forced to see what they are in the eyes of the others. In the end they come to see the light and they do the right thing. And they are better for it. For all of them this means giving up their own agendas for the good of the group. Its a wicked good movie. And a perfect analogy to our issues.
Do you understand what is at stake and what each of us needs to do for the group as a whole, Nathan? Or is that whooshing sound this notion going over your head again?