On May 29, 12:50*pm, Steve Freeman wrote:
Our club noticed a significant drop in the number of tows in 2011. It was a bit over 25% less than the average of the previous three years with no corresponding decrease in the number of members. The reduction was especially apparent in the 1K tows. I am curious if other clubs (100+ members) noticed the same drop or if it is local to our club. Please let me know how your data compares and the number of members you have. Thanks

Steve -

Our club (near Seattle, WA) peaked in 2009 and has declined about 10%
each year in both 2010 and 2011. For us, its pretty clear that what
happened was we had a surge of members in 2008 and 2009, but far too
many of them were not progressing as students and got frustrated and
dropped out. So member-retention has been a major factor in our
finances & tow numbers (especially as more and more of our local
pilots either age-out or become nomadic retirees).

On a related note (although a bit off-topic from your main question):
In our club, we have volunteer instructors that rotate weekend duties
and essentially students can show up on any day to fly with whatever
CFIG is on-duty; so you can imagine how messy our training process
is. In response, I'm working on my CFIG to help be a part of the
solution ( - I should get the written tests done just after I fly in
the Std Class Nationals). Like Scott Manley, I expect to include a
lot of simulator training with my students to try to help them
practice more often and get more out of their real flights. I'm also
going to refuse to participate in our club's rotating instructional
duties - I don't believe in the value of random stick-and-rudder
sessions with no pre-flight or post-flight briefing, or continuity of
instruction. Instead I'll take on ~2 students at a time and focus on
*making pilots* out of them, before taking on any more.

--Noel