I would like to maybe start a club in ceneral wisconsin, or in the green bay area, but if i would, would definatly need alot of propaganda to get it going, so any sugestions?
well, contactuing people in your area already started on the hobby cant hurt. If not, newspaper articles, websites, friends, family, anything
At one time there was nobody into the hobby near anybody else. Every club that's now in existence started out from nothing. I thought there was a major topic about starting a club, but I'll be darned if I can find it. I could probably write a small book, & I know plenty of others could weigh in, but I'd rather not repeat what I'm sure is already documented somewhere. If not, "Starting A Club" is probably worthy of a topic of its own, maybe under "General" or "Local Clubs". JM
Work with your local hobby shop. They will help you as you will help his business when people start building and buying supplies. See if you can make up a flyer and leave it at the shop.
Family and friends are good people to recruit, My son was drafted by me and I was drafted by my brother who was drafted by his father-in-law who started after seeing a article in a magazine. I think it was like 3 years from the time Marty started building until I was in the hobby so don't expect it to happen over night. Just running a boat on a pond without working guns (safety) around a crowd of people can get a few prospects. We had a open house at the Marty Hayes Shipyard and got a couple prospects. As Bobosan stated Hobby stores are probably the best start. None of them had a issue with us putting a flyer in their store for recruiting purpose. The one I took flyers to even made extra copies for people. Danny
Are there any hobby and or trade shows in your area or say in Milwaukee? Go and talk with people there. Have contact cards with you to give. If you have model boat clubs in your area and they have say manuvering events enter. Go to model airplane fields. I have found disgruntled modelers there looking for something else. Flyers in hobby shops is a good idea. Also to display a model with it is more attractive. Side note I came from Racine, Wisconsin, Moved to California. Have not lost my roots. GO PACKERS.
Minn and Wis has a very active MWC group, the Port Polar Bears. Visit this site Give Bob H a email, he will answer right away.
few ideas mainly rehashing. get a mate into it seeing two ships shoot eachother on a local lake would surely spur some intrest. if there is a club closeish to you eg within 2-3 hours im sure they would love to help you out. send them an e-mail and ask if they would be willing to do a field trip organise to have them come to your town and spur some intrest, you may need to offer them some food and lodgings but im sure they will come. the aim would be to find another 2 people to go to battle with you and it will grow from there. start with 3 monthly battles and some nice build days bit of grog and a bbq generally work well in AUS. hobby stores are you biggest friend here, if they will help you out by putting a stand or an ad in their store everyone going into the store looking for a new hobby might be swayed your way. the biggest advantage of this style hobby is that it has a very social aspect. spend 2000 dollars and spend a weekend a month with friends having fun destroying eachothers hard work. and any other time in build days drinking and trying to rebuild it. i first remember seeing the hobby in my town in a trade expo when it was just starting up and i was a little kid, it only had a hull plans and a basic cannon in a store with a guy who had the gift of the gab. he managed to get a few people interested in it and boom its now the center of the hobby in the country. a guy with enough push can start a very successful club. a few conserns however you need a pond/lake with basically no waves dams work well, and you need to make sure that you are allowed to use this i dont know what council approvements are like in USA or if you even have them. but make sure you can clear that. and gun laws come into play in AUS but i dont think that is an issue in the states. but you can contact your closest clubs for more infomation on this. anyway enough of my rambleing i hope it spurred some thoughts
Cpt JR. i am from la cross wi. Its a little bit of a drive but if you want I can help you out. I battle with the Port polar Bear group. Let me know what you need an I will see what I can do. I may beable to drive over and show you what we have and what it is like. There is also a member in the middle of the state some where and knowing the guys from the cities a road trip is not out of question. Steve D
I had almost forgotten about this so sorry if I'm slow to responding. I know it will take a long time before i can start a club, but i was planning for the future. I was wondering on the plausibility on the use of colleges as a source for a club. It might just work, being that the hobby includes electronics, hydrodynamics, pneumatics, history, plus a lot of other stuff that i cannot think of right know. I know MSOE and several other colledges have all sourts of groups and competitions including catapults with watermelons. SO i wonder if this idea would work.? And rowboat thanks for the most kind and generous offer, but I think i will take a rain check on it. I am particulary interested in biggun, because it is more historically accurate, however i have developed a way (i think) that will cut the cost of a ship in at least half.
looking to colleges is definately a good way to go. However, i would like you to explain to me how you plan to cut the cost of a big gun ship, in half?
No kidding! A lot of people would love to see that, not just newbies! Best advice I can offer for somebody who wants to start a new club: Keep after it. Don't expect anything to happen immediately; you've got to be patient. I was lucky. When I started out, another guy moved into the area who had already been involved. I didn't even plan on starting a club, but that was his idea so we did. For probably 5 years, it was just the 2 of us. We had a regular schedule of meetings & battles, & (this is most important) we stuck to our schedule religiously, so that if anybody did come looking for us, we'd be there. We made sure we acted like a "real" club & looked like a club, doing all the things that one would expect a club to do, even when there were only 2 of us. We had meetings, battles, & build days. We put up a web site, visited hobby shops, & passed out flyers. Eventually, other people started showing up & getting involved. One of our greatest milestones was when the "founders" were able to completely turn the club over to the "new guys". JM
Interesting idea - with it being a college club. If your campus has a pond, or there is a local one - you might have a good start. Colleges give alot of funding to student groups - even the non educational ones, so if you spin this right as a science thing (physics, electronics, engineering... etc) you might actually get enough money to do it. I helped start a film club a few years back, and for being a VERY small college we still get around $2,000 a year for equipment (and we still haven't made any real films). So something like this may work out right... just depends on paranoid your campus is of "guns" and "violence."
Hi All, I Live in France and Im trying hard to get folk into this too, ... Problems... 1, modelling clubs- its diificult with these types of people coz they spend years making beutiful models and dont want to risk sinking them. In general they like to make big impressionable ships which sit on the telly or in the the lounge, they often wont even float! 2 . those who have technical knowledge who do it all in some kind of virtual reality. 3 . (The worst) the dreamers! after 2 years of trying to get the whole of france into this hobby (and it aint for pussies) ive got 6 people building or maybe I too need ideas, and badly, I cant keep on fighting the same person evey couple of months coz ive finished and the others are having problems mahing cannons. Being Irish myself and a great rugby fan, Im a fighter. Maybe that could be a hint? warships are like rugby? maybe big guys with a certain discipline.
I live in the US, have a active club with members and still have trouble getting people involved also. (even some of the members at times). There are a couple of things which help...(not cure) the problems. I have a active backup ship to offer. That guarantees at least one battler and offers a chance to try it out. Build/battle sessions regularly also help. Work together to build ship systems like guns or pumps so everybody makes one. Having a source for parts helps because it takes the guesswork out of where to find the stuff. Buy in bulk and split the cost/materials Finally , have enough detail added to make it look like a ship. The people that want to battle will like it and the modelers will add to it.
I'd say you are on track with what we have experienced. It will get easier when you have a couple of ships running on the water. The building of a ship will motivate the captains to participate. If it was easy, folks wouldn't stay with it. Where are you located?
Sorry, I just found this thread. I Live in central Wisconsin, Wisconsin Rapids to be exact. I battle with the Port Polar Bears. So if you have any questions feel free to ask me and I will try to answer. Kim
