APA Volunteers Pull Through at the AOPA Prescott Fly-In!
By Stefanie Spencer
Last weekend’s AOPA regional fly-in at Prescott’s Earnest J Love Field was a record breaker with 6,300 visitors!
Hoping for this sort of turn out, the APA pulled out all stops, leasing two booths and setting up a display that rivaled the big name commercial exhibitors. Of course, hardware is just that, and without our volunteers that willingly and tirelessly manned the booth, we would have not had the success we did. In line with the show’s record breaking attendance, APA also experienced record sales and membership sign-ups.
Our large flat screen display and new video captured the attention of many passers by, but nothing gathered a bigger crowd than our new luggage tag lamination system.
Mary and Susan tirelessly repeated the process of producing roughly 200 luggage tags. Most of these folks had questions about our mission and accomplishments while waiting, and we are hopeful that the constant reminder of the APA, through use of their new luggage tags, will encourage many more to visits to our website, where they can learn more about Arizona’s voice of GA and join the team over the coming weeks.
If there was a surprise at the event, it was the number of people that said, “I never even knew there was an APA!” This one statement should cause each of us to ask the question, does my hangar neighbor or flying friend know of the APA?
We have often pointed out that if each APA member would just share our mission and accomplishments with one other pilot they know this week, we could virtually double in size overnight!
Remember, numbers count, especially when working in the political sphere where members of our state and federal legislature are swayed by the number of voters we represent! This simply cannot be over emphasized. Mark Spencer has sat in more than one meeting at the state capital where the question is asked, “How many members does APA have?” Please share the reasons you joined the APA team with a friend this week!
Photos by Jay Beckman / Crosswind Images www.crosswindimages.com