Hi Dave.
Thanks to you, and your few, but dedicated, volunteers, for all you do for the hobby and PAMPA. I know, as Cunningham used to say, "We're all in it for the women, and the money".
I'm all in for bringing PAMPA into a collaboration with Stunt Hangar. It seems to be a good match up. It will probably take some extra effort from more than a few dedicated "Volunteers" to iron out the wrinkles. but it may very well make a real difference in the hobby-Sport. Pampa has had such moments in the past. One of the biggest, as I recall, was under the editorship of Tom Morris.
Time marches on, and changes are made, or dictated, to satisfy the times, abilities, and pressures, upon the membership and volunteers.
We seem to be at one of those moments in our history, where we have to make a few changes in direction to stay alive, and pertinent, in today's reality of our diminishing numbers.
May I be so brave as to suggest a few small, and not so small, changes that, IMO might make the marriage work better, smoother, and becoming a positive for both PAMPA, and Stunt Hangar?
[1] The layout that's posted under PAMPA is a good start, but, We need an editor, some one to glue it all together. This could be a new, separate person, or be part of the job description of the Pres. or V.Pres. I see this person having a space in the listings, and the job would be to review and call attention to features, and reports that would require, or be of interest, for the membership. The editor could set up the table of contents, listing all the features, on a regular basis, as an ongoing function.
[2] Another listing could be made for reports and articles, technical through general interest. I see this as a space that would become over time, a repository of all these types of postings, virtual publishing as it were. This is where the publishing of Design articles and plans would be found. This could become one of the most valuable benefits coming from PAMPA membership.
[3] Another listing could be made for "Ships Store". (Being an old PO3 Ships Serviceman, Navy guy, That's the type of name I would give it, but others might come up with a bettor one.) It's a space to list and sell all the neat PAMPA stuff, like Hats, Tee Shirts, Patches, Jackets, stickers, training sheets, and such. Modernizing to allow payment by Credit, Debit, and even PayPal would make the job easier. The person in charge of this space would have to store the bits and pieces, as well as package, and ship the merchandise. Helpers, if there were some to volunteer, could store some product, ship, upon confirmation of payment, and report shipping and resupply needs to the "Store Boss." No volunteers? That's why the name, "STORE BOSS."
[4] A list that can be searched for specific plans PAMPA has the rights to. A space where one can load a cart, go to the checkout and pay by credit, debit, or PayPal would be super.
The problem with physical plan sales is the cost of printing, and mailing out, either rolled in tubes, or folded in a large envelopes. It's true that mailing, folded, in large envelopes is less expensive than rolled in tubes. If you add in the time to get the masters, take them to the printer, get the prints made to correct scale, package them, and take them to the post office, one can easily see the costs in materials, time, and energy driving the costs up. Even printing with your own large scale printer can be expensive should you have one.
Additionally, storage of hard master copies can become an over-bearing problem. even more problematic is the possible loss to insects, vermin, humidity, mold, flooding, and, fire. Storing backups should be off-site, and mandatory. un-backed up drawings are lost forever.
Storage of drawings as files is simpler and takes almost no physical space. Multiple storage sites are possible. I currently have at least 500 to 1K of physical, and digital drawings, or files. I keep the digital files on a 256GB thumb drive. I back them up in at least 3 different ways. I have a 4TB external drive where everything on that computer is backed up. I use large (64GB-256GB) flash drives to store my files. I can have them physically at off sight locations or use them to update 2 other computers I sometimes use. Finally, at least once a month I will store all my drawings to disk. Just recently, a purchased space on the cloud, which should make it even easier to store and access the files. Of course it's still best to store at least 1 copy, physically at home, and at least one off-site location. Some of my offsite files are even stored on other continents. There's just too many hours of work to lose by messing storage up.
Previously, I was a little cavalier in this regard, and lost all the files on the 2 computers I was using. I was crushed until I discovered I did have all but a few days work stored on disks, hard drives, and thumb drives. The problem was they were not stored logically, I'm still working on setting up a smooth system on my main computer. All this teaches that good backup is essential.
I believe the members will be best served by using digital files. These files, in .PDF format, would be the best way, to get drawing files to the members currently. Easy downloading after payment, and the customer has them in minutes, and in a form that can be easily looked over on their computer. They can be printed, full sized, or scaled to other sizes, at many local area printers who can print large, full-sized drawings.
Sharing of revenues, helps PAMPA, Stunt Hangar, and authors and designers, thus is a help to inspire authors and designers to submit their work to be published in this PAMPA site.
What's the downside?
I'm searching for a limiter, for lack of a better name, something that would limit the number of prints, available from a file, after downloading. Without such ability, you could easily lose control of your product once it was received by the buyer. I can understand 2 prints for each download, but more allows the re-sale on sites such as we have now, and could eventually wipe out the demand for legitimate, under copyright, digital files-prints.
Setting up a marketing site may present some problems. I seem to remember a volunteer trying to get such a site going, when PAMPA was trying to take Credit/Debit cards to pay for memberships and renewals.
John Miller
Topic: PAMPA Plans (Read 2631 times)