if the SAC can do this, why not the SSA?

Burt has a point that scanning in old issues of Soaring might take a
few days of volunteer effort. But I can't imagine why pdfs of newly
produced issues aren't archived on the website, possibly with a delay,
and in the members-only section. This would take only a few minutes.
Yes, I've suggested this a few times. Maybe if a few others suggest
it, it will happen.

John Cochrane

On Jul 26, 8:16 am, BB wrote:
Burt has a point that scanning in old issues of Soaring might take a
few days of volunteer effort. But I can't imagine why pdfs of newly
produced issues aren't archived on the website, possibly with a delay,
and in the members-only section. This would take only a few minutes.
Yes, I've suggested this a few times. Maybe if a few others suggest
it, it will happen.

John Cochrane

John,

I agree and

The SSA could start for virtually nothing. Start with all the
relatively current issues how many years???? that are already in an
electronic format and put them on the website.

But,

The SSA has been quietly drifting away from a service organization to
its members. If you look at the financials you can see that the
supposed money making functions that require SSA staff are actually
losing money. The short list:
SSA Convention - Give it back to the clubs.
SSA Merchandising- Get out of that business, soaring vendors will
gladly take the ball, most of the books and such are already sold by
Knauff & Grove, Bob Wanderer and Cumulus Soaring.

I woud guess 3 to 4 employess could be dropped from the payroll if the
SSA got out of these activities, accounting costs , CC fees etc.,
space required and many other items associated with these activities
could be saved and devoted to the Mission Statement activities.

Get the SSA back to being a member service organization that provide
what the MISSION Statement says minus the Convention Management.

MISSION
The Mission of the Soaring Society of America consists of the
following elements and programs:

PROVIDE MEMBER SERVICES, INCLUDING
a. Publications
b. Website
c. Educational Programs
d. Safety Programs
e. Information Dissemination
f. Record and Badge Homologation
g. Contest Rules and Sanction of Contests
h. Insurance
i. Membership Management

REPRESENT GLIDING TO
a. U. S. Federal (Congress and Executive Regulatory), State and Local
Governments
b. FAI, IGC, NAA
c. Sporting Aviation Groups


OFFER A SENSE OF COMMUNITY THROUGH
a. Promotion of the Sport
b. Convention Management
c. Chapter, Club, Division, Affiliate and Business Member Support
d. Availability of the SSA Foundation
e. Awards for Achievement and Service
f. Communication of the above to the members

Richard Pfiffner
www.craggyaero.com

But,

The SSA has been quietly drifting away from a service organization to
its members. ...
Richard Pfiffnerwww.craggyaero.com

The restructuring task force pages at ww.ssa.org give great hope that
most of these changes are already underway. See in particular the "ssa
services inventory." Another FRTF recommendation I especially like is,
return Soaring to being a great magazine.

John Cochrane