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Local action, global reaction

As regular readers will know, I've had my run-ins with the organisation which was formed to represent model aircraft fliers in New Zealand.

Originally called "The New Zealand Model Aeronautical Association" (NZMAA), it has been in existence for decades and in the past has done a wonderful job of representing its members, promoting the hobby and providing some key bits of infrastructure -- such as insurance and support mechanisms for a network of affiliate clubs.

I was a member of this organisation (off and on) over many years during which time I benefited from its services and supported its goals.

A few years ago they decided to "update" the image of the Association by renaming it to "Model Flying New Zealand" (MFNZ) and introducing a stylish new logo to replace the somewhat more traditional "wings" emblem.

Clearly someone had joined the dots and realised that promotion is just another name for "marketing" and one of the most important aspects of marketing was to build and protect your brand.

So a lot of money was spent printing new stationery, stickers, badges and the like to promote the brand.

Now as most will know, when it comes to marketing and promotion, I'm no slouch.

I built 7am News from "nothing" to the world's most widely syndicated web-based news service in little over two years and in doing so, eclipsed the efforts of BBC and CNN when it came to key metrics such as visibility and traffic.

A few years ago I also took on the challenge of promoting my hobby -- with a passion.

I repeatedly lobbied MFNZ to start promoting the hobby to new generations of potential model fliers but was repeatedly knocked back with an endless stream of excuses as to why my suggestions were impractical and assurances that they were doing the job perfectly adequately.

Eventually I gave up banging my head against this wall and set out to do the job myself.

MFNZ has over $200K sitting in the bank -- all I had was a passion plus a heap of skill and experience in the area of promoting stuff, brand building and marketing. Remember, I'd offered myself (while still a member) to the organisation for this purpose and was repeatedly turned away.

It became very clear that MFNZ wasn't interested in promoting the hobby -- they were interested primarily in preserving the status quo.

So I started pouring my efforts into my YouTube channels and, as they say, the rest is history.

It is fair to say that I am now one of the leading proponents and promoters of the hobby you will find *anywhere* in the world. A combined total of over 72,000 subscribers and video views that exceed 40 million.

MFNZ's own YouTube channel looks rather poor by comparison, don't you think?

Last year MFNZ acted very disgracefully when they shut down the club of which I was President although their only admission was to tell members "we could have handled things better".

Shortly after that, I received a letter containing the affiliation fee I'd paid to the organisation and was effectively "resigned".

"No problems" I thought. I'll just carry on promoting the hobby, supporting those who fly RC models and eventually hoping to generate enough revenues from my videos to support my wife and myself.

Now plenty of people have suggested that I'm "raking it in" from my YouTube channels. These are people who obviously have never received any revenues from their own videos and therefore are unaware of how little each view generates. I suggest you watch this excellent presentation by Dave Jones of the EEVBlog which explains the extremely high threshold required to actually generate any sensible income from this source.

But back to me :-)

For the past six months, I have been head-down, arse up, working away to "do my thing" and I figured all was well.

I was religiously following CAA regulations and the diktats of the local council. I was still making videos that gave thousands of RC fliers all over the world entertainment, inspiration, information and support.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well never underestimate the depths that a few grumpy old men will go to in order to pursue their own personal agendas.

Last week I received a letter advising that MFNZ had taken the "unprecedented" move of withdrawing my "wings" -- the "Radio Control Proficiency Certificate" which I'd held for many years.

Allegedly, this certification is issued when a person has passed a test that verifies their ability to fly and their understanding of issues surrounding safety.

Never before in the history of the organisation have they withdrawn these wings from anyone -- hence even they describe their move as "unprecedented".

So what terrible thing did *I* do to trigger this action?

Have my flying abilities deteriorated?

No, of course not. My flying skills are beyond doubt, as can be seen in many of my videos.

Have I forgotten about how to ensure safety? No, in fact *I* regularly make safety videos and in over 50 years flying have never injured anyone, damaged third party property or put anyone's life in danger.

No, it would appear that my real crime was that I criticised the current executive of MFNZ and I did what they said couldn't be done -- by actively promoting and marketing the hobby to a new generation of RC fliers -- on a shoestring.

The move taken by MFNZ was solely political -- nothing more, nothing less.

I did email them and suggest, particularly in the wake of the fallout over their closure of the local club last year, that this was a very silly move on their part and that it would likely result in massive negative publicity that would produce huge damage to the MFNZ as an organisation and as a brand.

But no... these people (who understand nothing about marketing) feel it's better to expose the organisation and its brand to derision and scorn at a global level than to set aside their own personal vendettas.

Well so be it.

On the weekend I posted this video explaining the situation to my subscribers.

It has already been viewed over 10,000 times across my two channels and has attracted nearly a thousand comments of support and outrage at what MFNZ have done.

Copies of the video and links have been splashed all over Facebook. People are discussing it on Reddit and just about every RC discussion forum on the web has referred to it, with universal condemnation of MFNZ's actions.

MFNZ's brand has suffered immense damage as a result of their silliness and the willingness of a few grumpy old men to leverage their positions of power to extract personal payback.

One would have thought that one of the stated obligations of any officer in an organisation would be to protect the image of that organisation -- but I checked their constitution and rules -- and no. It seems that the officers of MFNZ are free to use and abuse their power as they see fit -- with impunity.

While the MFNZ executive might be feeling smug right now, the rest of the world are viewing them and their organisation with disgust and contempt. Why would the national representative body for a hobby set out so actively to destroy someone who is one of the most active promoters of that hobby and one of the single most active sources of help, support and information?

People are not stupid -- they can figure it out.

Of course all this negative publicity means nothing to the executive. They're prepared to hunker-down and sit out the storm -- regardless of the damage done to their brand and the organisation they've been elected to serve.

You see, I really believe that these people simply don't understand that this is the 21st century and that you can't ignore the rest of the world when you take local actions. Even the smallest action taken at the most local of scales can trigger a massive global response -- the internet has ensured that.

The flow-on effects go far beyond this hobby too.

I've received a surprising number of emails from people who were planning to come to NZ and fly RC models here while on holiday but who have now canceled those plans. Last summer almost a dozen people (plus partners) chose NZ as their holiday destination because they wanted to meet me and fly with me. It looks as if at least five times that number were planning to do the same thing next summer but have now changed their minds.

Does Tourism NZ know the effects of MFNZ's actions?

But I'm sure a lot of you are wondering "who gives a stuff? What's the importance of a piece of paper? Why not just keep flying?"

Well the answer is that CAA has granted MFNZ a monopoly power. Only MFNZ have the power to issue these "proficiency certificates" and in order to fly an RC model at (or within 4KM of) an airfield, you must hold this qualification. Pull my wings and I can't fly -- unless I work out some way to squeeze an RC model into a tiny 2-door Honda Prelude, find a friendly farmer and drive 4Km+ from my workshop.

Now given whats actually involved in making a decent video, there's no way I can fit all the required gear in my car -- which leaves me somewhat rooted.

In effect, the MFNZ executive have finally come up with a way to "shut me down" - simply because I chose to do what they've been paid $200K by their members to do and I criticised them for their poor performance.

They tried to shut me down by shutting down the club I was president of. That didn't work.

So then they shut me down by abusing the monopoly powers issued to them (and only them) by CAA.

And they wonder why many thousands of people from all over the globe hold them in contempt.

Why aren't MFNZ members rising up in outrage?

Well as part of their strategy, MFNZ have painted me as a villain. Although I've received many emails and phone calls of support from MFNZ members you have to remember that the average age of the current membership is probably hitting on 60 and they're also supporters of the status quo. Perhaps it becomes apparent why the represent executive is so opposed to bringing new blood into the membership -- it would require them to actually do something.

There was a time when almost everyone who flew model aircraft in this country belonged to a club and those clubs were invariably affiliated to MFNZ (then the NZMAA).

Today however, I would wager that there are as many people in this hobby who aren't MFNZ members as are. The organisation, through its unwillingness to change and market itself to new generations, is wholly unattractive to them. In fact its lack of marketing means that the vast majority of people who ring me from around NZ for support have never even heard of MFNZ.

Given the rapidly rising irrelevance of MFNZ to the hobby, one must ask whether CAA ought to continue supporting it by way of the monopoly it has been granted in respect to these RC proficiency certificates and their importance to where a person can fly their model plane.

Now go have your say in the forums ;-)

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