Gift Kits

 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues...

Last entry I suggested signage to help direct new rocketeers to club launch sites.

And I got a very good response from someone who pointed out that not all clubs want to grow....

that some clubs have had problems with members or the general public trampling a landlord's field or property without any consideration or respect.  This is a very good point, and one that I hadn't taken into consideration.

Tenant-Landlord relations should be paramount in the equation, becaue if the club looses the field, the game is lost.

But here's another idea to help promote the growth of the hobby and ensure the continuation of your section or hobby.  Sow the seeds for the future now.

One thing that our club has fallen into is the gift kit.

By this, I mean a very simple low power kit that can be used as an introductory sample at any launch.

The idea is that if and when a family stops by, or a prospective member shows up at a launch, we ALWAYS try to have one or two low-cost simple kits on hand to give as a greeting.  This is smart because it can introduce a person to the hobby, give them a starting point, and almost always assure that they would be willing to return to fly the rocket that they've built.

Also, it helps to get a sample into the hands of the landlord, authorities or others to maintain a favorable relationship with the club.

In our instance, rather than have a plastic fin-can RTF kit, we opt for a simple wood fin or card fin kit that requires some assembly and some time invested into the project.  The hope is that the kit will also teach some simple skills to young hands and give them a sense of what goes into all rockets. 

Extending this idea further, we always have about 20 of these simple $5.50 kits on hand at any public display, available for sale for $5 to a family or kid who wants a memento. The thought is that after building, they could either set it up on the trophy shelf or hearth, or perhaps bring the finished rocket to one of our launches. 

Our price point of $5 is set so that we have no need to break a dollar down into change, and so that any transaction is a simple one. We lose a half a buck on the sale, but consider it an investment in our hobby's future.

Now, you may ask, "Why don't you also sell them a pack of motors at the same time?"

The answer to this quest is three-fold:  First, a pack of 3 or 4 motors may be overkill for one kid, who doesn't yet have a launch pad.  A better idea might be to split a pack up on provide a single motor and igniter to each kit sold.  Except this presents a problem of keeping the motor and igniter together, and not lost or dropped.

Second, our thinking is that a pack of motors, say a 4-pack for $10, breaks down to about $2.50 per motor.  Our feeling is that we'll sell two motors to a family AT THE LAUNCH, so that they'll get the idea and experience the thrill, for a minimal investment.

Third, our club doesn't want the liability of selling a black powder motor to a kid or family who has no track record in the hobby.  Therefore, we'll discuss the need for a motor to fly, and give them leads to various hobby stores, Hobby Lobby or other sources for a pack of motors, but will not sell it at the moment at a public appearance or display.

Now, we have made exceptions to this, where we'll be set up at a star gazing party or Yuri's night event, and for $10, will bundle the kit, the assembly and drying time, and then a motor to launch for each  family who has an interested kid.  This will not only give the kid some supervision when building the kit, allow them to leave it to dry while walking through the rest of the daytime exhibits, and then return late in the day for a pre-sunset launch event with us.  A small launch pad set up outside in a clearing or grass assembly lawn area will give the kid the experience of loading the igniter, inserting the motor, dropping it onto the launch rod, and then standing back with us to "press the button".  

It's our thought that the favorable launch and recovery may cement the positive experience for the kid under controlled conditions.

It's our thought that the slightly higher cost of this covers any losses we might incur when only selling the kit alone.

And finally, it is critical that in all the above situations, the club must have a hand-out sheet that not only welcomes them to the hobby, but identifies the critical components required to launch, and identifies where to find the motors and other kits commercially in the immediate area. 

This is important so that even if the family doesn't immediately return to our club events, they have the ability to find supplies locally and to continue on their own. It also helps to stoke the sales for rocket supplies at the local hobby shop, so that we are not in competition with them.

These are just a few of the ideas we have to promote the hobby and sow the seeds to the future. (In all honesty, I must admit that we have yet to have a family return after buying a "memento rocket kit" to one of our launches.  So we may be operating under a false assumption here that has not paid off yet.)

What ideas and promotions have you participated in?   The Thrifty Rocketeer wants to know.