At 16:51 13 March 2018, Papa3 wrote:

Mike's club (Nutmeg Soaring) moved out to a rural location a while
back,
bu=
t it's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that membership
levels
ha=
ve been hard/impossible to grow due to the distance from where
people
live.=
...

P3


Yes Erik, it has been a challenge. When we were tenants in CT close
to NYC, we had 85-90 members, but we kept having to move from
one airport to another for various reasons. After 47 years of being
gypsy nomads, a core group decided that it was time to get a place
of our own. Property values in CT were out of reach, so our search
landed us about a 2 hour drive away in the northern foothills of the
Catskills. The price was right, so we set up a deal so that we could
afford to buy it. The club fractured in half over this decision. The
half that didn't go to Freehold either stopped flying, or went to other
operations in the NYC metro area. Members bought RV's, and we
put in campsites with hook-ups along the creek so that the CT folks
could spend the weekends without driving back and forth. Now, ~15
years later, a lot of the old CT members are aging out, and Greene
County is the poorest county in all of NY State, so although we do
have some local members, getting more is a challenge. We do seem
to be attracting some folks from the NYC area who have vacation
homes in the vicinity. The field is paid for, and so is our fleet of 3
Twin Astirs, one G-102, a 1-26 and a Pawnee tug. Things could be a
lot worse. It is a beautiful location. The neighbors are friendly, (no
noise complaints) and nobody can kick us out. It's all ours. That's
the main part.

www.NutmegSoaring.org

Don't think that real estate values in Europe are cheap either. They
are very expensive, though a number of clubs have had government
help in acquiring the airports they operate out of. Where there is a
will, there is a way. Sometimes it takes a lot of time and teamwork
to get to the goal though.

RO