Your Membership Chairman has a problem and is not doing a good job in solving it. So, all you readers pretend you are now the chairman and put your minds to work to find us a solution that will do what needs to be done.
When Naval Air Station Los Alamitos was a busy place flying airplanes about 50 years ago — it was the largest Naval Air base in the United States — there were lots of pilots and personnel involved in aviation to get together and form the Grampaw Pettibone Squadron and do things that were interesting and fun. And when the Association Of Naval Aviation was created, the Gramps group chose to join it as a chapter and have monthly lunch meetings with interesting speakers. We even hosted two national conventions for ANA in Anaheim in the 1980’s. Life was good. Camaraderie, good food, and interesting program speakers made our monthly meetings good attractions for our members and friends.
Now comes trouble: We used to have 100, or so, attendees come to our lunch programs. Now we have half of that.
It Takes a larger attendance to attract good speakers and support the awards we give to the Sailors Of The Quarter we honor at the lunches. Our Flight Surgeon, Dr. Bob Helton, does his best to keep us healthy and coming to our monthly meetings, but our aging is affecting our attendance number. That’s the problem. What do we do?
