To give SSA its due; membership numbers are as good
a sampling as any to show the decline in the sport.
Changing a few nouns in the article would not make
much difference.

Soaring requires a lot of investment of time across
several years to make it more than a passing fancy.
(I've read that the average sailor owns a boat for
8 years, and then moves on to something else.)

Life has speeded up, both in the workplace and on the
domestic scene. Our society has opted for quick and
cheap in most of its pursuits; we want to be passively
entertained. Turn on the TV, do a backyard cookout,
and that's about it for a large portion of the populace.
Nobody does his own thing anymore; he wants someone
to do it for him.

The decline is not just in soaring but in all sorts
of non-income producing endeavors. We have become
passive and vicarious in our thrills. This shows in
the tremendous weight gain in the population.

On the other hand, maybe we need gliders that will
carry 325lbs. in each seat. ;-)


At 17:30 13 April 2004, Tony Verhulst wrote:
Tony Verhulst wrote:


..... It was about the SSA membership decline and
all about
attracting SSA *members* and retaining SSA *members*
- nothing about
soaring.....

'nothing about soaring' should have been 'nothing about
attacting and
retaining soaring *pilots*'. But, you get the drift.

Tony V