On Monday, March 8, 2021 at 5:27:43 PM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:
The new elephant in the room is the still_to_be_understood ramifications of Covid. For example:

People may retire from soaring rather than make the effort to regain proficiency that they lost from inactivity in 2020.

Students who had their training interrupted in 2020 may have lost all/most of their proficiency. They may not want to start over, and may have found other things to do.

That may be true, but the decline in SSA membership and overall soaring activity was already ongoing well before the pandemic.
Soaring competes with other less strenuous activities for a finite number of leisure time hours. Why would a 14yo want to hang out at a dusty and remote glider strip with a bunch of old geezers for a season, if they can sit in an a/c'ed room and play a video game, which you can become a master in in a weekend?
Also, gliders don't go 'vroom - vroom', which I was told by a 16yo does not make them exactly 'chick-magnets'.
There are operations in the US which have a thriving youth group - Caesar Creek or Harris Hill for example. The one thing these operations have in common is that they own their facility and have a lot of members.
It's a tough situation soaring in the US is in!

Uli
'AS'