I think IMAGE is the key. When I was sailing a dingy, sailing clubs were
having the same problem attracting and keeping young sailors**. On the
other hand, the old salts were ignoring the board sailors whose numbers were
exploding. The sight of a flying board going 25 kts has SEX, and the sex
attracted lots of young men and women.

It may be that gliding clubs and sailing clubs need to expand there
memberships to include board sailors and pargliders. This is because board
sailors and paragliders who reach their mid-20's or 30's (having survived
and/or their knees give out) may want the increased comfort, competition,
and performance of the soaring glider. This would a natural path of
transition from young paraglider to mature glider pilot as well as provide
the key to revitalizing declining club membership rosters.

John in Burke, VA
On the ground.
**The $75K+ boats never seemed to have any problem attracting lots of
pretty young people; however, most $25K+ sailplanes only hold one person,
and there's no overnight parties on board either.

"Chris Davison" wrote in message
...
Chaps...you're missing the point. Gliding is not in
decline because it is expensive, nor is it the British
weather. Paragliding in the UK costs £125 a day to
learn, and after about 10 days you have your 'club
pilot' rating and can fly solo..you then spend about
£3,000 on harness, wing, reserve and vario etc, and
maybe on average £1000 a year upgrading that kit as
it wears out or becomes unfashionable. The costs above
are easily in line with gliding. This year, despite
the worst weather on record, PG schools are turning
new pupils away. There is only one factor which stops
gliding being as successful as Paragliding....IMAGE.

The image of the average UK gliding club is being full
of old people in wooden gliders...the image of paragliding
is young, daredevils jumping off hills. Neither image
is correct...but it's perception that matters.

If you want gliding to prosper (and I would suggest
many pilots don't actually want the sport to go through
the transformation required) then we need a Red Bull
or Nike or Sky Sports to take gliding, tear up the
reality and change the image...and then we need clubs
to sell that image to the public.

Until people grasp this, all the talk of 'better World
Class gliders' and 'cheap winch launches' is meaningless.


Me? My kids (10, 14 and 18) have no desire to go gliding,
it's what their dad does...but wow, do they want to
do the stuff they see on TV.

Nuff said.

Chris




At 22:00 03 December 2004, Peter Seddon wrote:

'Kilo Charlie' wrote in message
news:yB2sd.19804$KO5.10476@fed1read02...
Interesting argument. Also interesting responses
some of which have
nothing
to do with your original post. Must just be the grumpy
winter lurkers.

Sorry but the origional post said that the lack of
cheap gliders was
responsible for the decline in gliding. Not so, in
the UK the bad flying
weather over the past three years has put paid to more
of our members than
anything else.

I agree with you. Soaring has to be 'cool' again
in order to have it
survive. I'm not sure that reducing the costs somewhat
wouldn't help but
nevertheless that alone will not save it.

Come fly with us, no waiting time to join just pay
us £130 for a years
membership, £2 /min aerotow and 20p /min hire, how
cheap do you want it to
be.

It is an instant gratification world out there. Why
should a kid spend
countless hours learning how to do something and paying
the dues by
watching
others do it in front of them when they can get out
the X-box or Gameboy
and
go at it with minimal instruction, cost or delay?

I can agree with that!!! But I had great fun throwing
my B4 about the sky
trying to loose the last 5k feet. You dont get that
with an XBox.

Peter.