declining membership

Well Bill I guess you shot from the hip and thought about it later :-)

I'm also from the UK and agree with just about everything both you and
Don had to say.

I would add to it in one small part.

Firstly - This is now an advertising based country, although we haven't
quite sunk to the depths of the States (sorry guys!) When did you last
see anything in a paper or on the TV about gliding.

When our club has spent a bit of cash in the local rag we often get a
good number of "punters" through the door for their 3 flights. The numbers
that stay on are probably 3%, even so the value to us in useful.

I am beginning to wonder why we don't get together and push for a short film
or a big advert. It might cost a bit but surely would bring in a new set of
people.
With the best part of 100 clubs in the UK it should make for an interesting
bit
of money.

Secondly - We have to attend to the time gliding takes. Every club I've
been to
has taken a couple of hours minimum to get you in the air. And we know how
long a circuit bash takes don't we. When we get a ridge day in North Wales
the effect of visitors is interesting. They think its wonderful to stay up
for 45 mins!

My 2 pence worth...

Malcolm...


"Bill Gribble" wrote in
message .. .
With respect, that's ********

Put on the spot I would argue that //my// generation are as eager and as
capable as yours ever were or will be of "going somewhere all day to help
other to have fun" for nothing more than the rewards of equal
participation. To say otherwise is nothing but ageist, bigoted conceit
talking, perhaps a little influenced by the charm of looking back over
your glorious golden age of days gone by through rose-tinted spectacles.

No offence intended.

But you do touch on part of the issue when you mention the competition we
suffer these days in terms of the availability of other adventurous
sports. White water rafting, riding around dune buggies, sky-diving,
aerobatics in an old biplane, the list is endless, adrenaline pumped,
accessible and for the most part very visually and energetically
advertised.

I think gliding will always be a minority sport. It is never going to
enjoy mass appeal. It either terrifies the average man in the street or it
simply fails to throw the necessary switch. The idea of flight is not to
him what it is to you and me, it's a means to an end, whereas here it is
the end in itself.

But beyond that, our principle problem is obscurity and inaccessibility.
Nobody knows we're here, and if they do, they've no idea how to access us.
That's certainly true here in the UK, and I'd guess no different over in
the States judging by some of the other posts in this thread.


-Bill

Don Johnstone writes
I think it has more to do with the perceptions of the new generations.
They are able to access 'fun' on tap. Go somewhere where their fun is
provided, have it, and then go on to something else. The concept of going
somewhere all day to help others have fun is alien to them, why would the
need to do that. My generation needed to do it, the current generation
don't and I think it is as simple as that, coupled with the choice of
adventurous sports now available giving much more opportunity. The 'access
fun provided by someone else' as opposed to 'make your own fun' ethos is
here. Gliding is one of the sports that needs people other than those
actually flying to take place at all.

--
Bill Gribble
| http://www.ingenuitytest.co.uk
| http://www.cotswoldgliding.co.uk
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