Quote:
Originally Posted by FliegerJG1
These photos of you swearing in new members to the AAC always make me smile.  I really love them! How many people eventually became members?
FliegerJG1 |
Hi FleigerJG1,
One Saturday, I was at an antique flea market in Zellwood, Florida while I was in the planning stages of my journey, and I bought a stack of brittle, old
Air Trails magazines dated from 1936 - 1952. I found within their pages, the "Air Adventurers Club" and became intrigued and charmed by the variety of members with their questions, news items and photos they sent to the club's "Flight Commander" and "Wing Commander." Readers could get a free membership card and a tin AAC wing pin for ten cents. It was a grassroots club of correspondents, the magazine's young and old readers.
I thought it would be fun to restart the club with the same ideals, so I wrote to my friend, A. Lee Spencer in Iola, Kansas and asked him to be the new "AAC Flight Commander." He agreed. I appointed myself as the "AAC Cadet Leader." Then I had 5,000 Air Adventurers Club membership cards printed with the original pledge.
The Air Adventurers Club Pledge
"To the best of my ability,
I pledge to support the ideals and principles
of Air Adventurers and will do all in my power
to further the advance of aviation."
The only membership requirement is that the person must love old aeroplanes. I haven't met very many people who don't qualify, so it's pretty easy to find new members.
And three more selling points are:
No age limits
No membership dues
No meetings! - but we have parties every once in a while
I managed to swear in one to several people at a time throughout my journey, handing out about half of the cards I had printed. Add to that number, around 1000 more people took the pledge in the three years afterwards when I was presenting the slide show and swearing in entire audiences at once. I still occasionally swear people in when I meet them if we get on the subject of old aeroplanes, so add another 500 over the last dozen years.
From 1988 - 1994, A. Lee Spencer printed columns for our new Air Adventurers Club on the pages of his "
Sportsman's Aviation Booster" quarterly newspaper, right up until he passed away. Lee had about 300 faithful subscribers across the USA to his wonderful aviation newspaper.
Also, I've encouraged members to do ceremonial Air Adventurers Club swear-ins with others, too, pointing out that they can read the oath right off their card. Over the years I've heard back from a number of the folks I met who told me that they swore in their airplane clubs, or their kids, or parents, or friends - even a few teachers who swore in their classes. And why not?! It's all in support of aviation and old fashioned fun.
So, to answer your original question, I would take a guess that around 5,000 people have taken the Air Adventurers Club pledge to become lifetime members - perhaps even more!
And to any of you readers out there who have yet to become Air Adventurers Club members, all you have to do is raise your right hand and read the above pledge out loud. Please, do it!
