Al, I somewhat share your feelings about the current owner's club. In fact, I just got a renewal notice and I don't think I am going to renew the membership. >From my perspective, the only benefit that I see out of belonging to the club is the monthly newsletter, and to be honest, I can usually read everything in the newsletter that is of interest to me in about 3 minutes per copy. With all of the people restoring, rebuilding and upgrading these planes, I don't know why there isn't an article in there every month about a restoration, rebuild or upgrade project. I have sent in an article or two over the years, and they have been published, but it's pretty obvious that nobody is going out and soliciting any technical material for the newsletters. Lately there have been reprints of articles pertaining to insurance issues or legalities, that while useful, are not related specifically to the Ercoupe/Aircoupe. I consider these articles to be "filler material" in a type-specific newsletter, and they rate just about one step above the advertisements that usually fill about 4 pages of the newsletter. I can read all of that generic stuff online or in the EAA, AOPA, Flying, and Flight Training magazines that I get. (Of course, EAA has recently started taking up space in Sport Aviation (emphasis added) to let us know which new Very Light Jets are being brought to market, and how fast the top of the line Mooney's are. What either of these have to do with Sport Aviation is beyond me.) I would love to see the existing club, or a new club, publish a better newsletter, conduct fly-ins, promote the airplane, and be more proactive. I don't mean to slam the existing newsletter or club management. I've been involved in publishing a couple of newsletters for work, and it's not a trivial task. Twisting people's arms to get them to contribute articles can be a job in itself. It also takes lots of dedication and commitment to publish a newsletter month after month, especially after the novelty of it wears off. And to EOC's credit, Coupe Capers has been published for many, many years. It would be interesting to hear what the others on this mailing list think about the club and the newsletter. Make the old one better? Start from scratch? Leave it all as is? What do you think? Maybe what we really need is a really good Coupe website like the RV crowd has at _www.vansairforce.com_ (http://www.vansairforce.com) . This website has so much to offer that I read it weekly, and I don't even have an RV. Of course there are lots more RV's than Coupes out there. Best Regards,
Wayne DelRossi Alon N5618F Hours logged since restoration: 347.5 "Nobody has ever scientifically proven that life is supposed to be serious." **************************************See AOL's top rated recipes (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)
