Greeting all,
I hope you are doing well and enjoying our great hobby this month as we move toward spring here in the Northern Hemisphere as our fellow RCSB'ers south of the equator are getting ready for building season. This is one of my favorite times of the year because it means flying season is right around the corner. My only regret is I was unable to attend the Perry Swap Meet this year because of a death in the family, but I am looking forward to doing lots of flying this year.
1. Safety - With spring just around the corner, it's a good time to look over all your models and equipment and repair or replace anything that needs it. Safety is so very important in our hobby. I hope you all will take the time use our RCSB checklist to go over your models making sure they are safe and ready for a successful flying season. Please feel free to share this with your flying buddies or club members. You can view, save, and print it out by clicking the link below.
2. Sharing - Finally, I want to talk about the idea of sharing and how it relates to our community here at RCSB.
How many times have you been browsing a thread here on the site and though, "That's an interesting idea, I should write a reply." but didn't? Then like me, a lot of excuses fly though your head like "Lots of people have already covered this." or "I’m not an expert. Why would anyone care what I think?" sound familiar? I need to constantly remind myself to stop making excuses and that it’s important to share my ideas with the community. Maybe I can convince you to do the same?
The flaw in these kind of excuses is assuming your perspective isn’t valuable to others. It’s a convenient excuse to say your viewpoint isn’t unique, so why bother. But in reality, it’s the exact opposite. Your perspective is 100% unique, a composite of thousands of experiences of all types that nobody can replicate. Nothing that’s ever been previously shared has been through your words and shaped by your experiences. So don’t worry about being original. You already are.
You still might be thinking to yourself, why should I spend the time and effort to share? Well, here is why...
1. It Helps You Sharing teaches you how to order your thoughts and put a microscope on your ideas or techniques in a clear and concise manor. Don’t worry if you consider yourself a "beginner". If you make a mistake, the community will offer helpful tips on how you can improve. And most importantly don't take constructive criticism personally. They are just trying to help you. That’s free advice from a bunch of helpful, experienced people that you can learn from!
2. It Helps Others Whether you recognize it or not, you didn’t get to where you are alone in your modeling, you have learned and improved your skills with the influence of others. Any time you have read a thread, watched a "how-to" YouTube video, read a magazine article, or read a tutorial you were helped because someone else shared their experiences or ideas. So it only makes sense to give back to a community that’s helped you so much already (and will continue to do so). Don’t worry, it took me a while to realize this myself. I encourage you to really think about it. It could really serve as strong motivation for you to start putting your stuff out there too.
Hopefully by now I’ve convinced you that first, your perspective is valuable and secondly it’s worth your time to help others. So how should you get started?
1. Keep your eyes and ears open for inspiration. 2. Focus on topics that are important to you. 3. Go do it!
There are many members here on RCSB that share information on a regular basis, but the reality is out of over 10,000 members less than 10% actually participate. This site is here to give the scale r/c community a place to interact in a focused and clear way. So maybe if you feel like you have been a taker, it's time to become a giver in our hobby.
Until Next Month, Mike
__________________ Mike Chilson,
RCSB Owner/Founder
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My R/C Scale Aircraft Over The Years
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