Club Class Nationals

On Sep 22, 5:19*pm, Westbender wrote:
getting more people to show up at contests, any contests!

How can the key to increasing participation be anything other than
this? The big question is "how". To understand the "how" you need to
know "why" folks are not already participating.

Has anyone considered a poll of some kind (letter? email?) to all SSA
members regarding their interest in contest flying? Ask them what's
keeping them from competing. Travel? Expense? Intimidation? Ask them
what type of event would get them to try an organized event. Regional
contest? Local club contest? Exhibition/training contest? Non-scored
fun fly?

If you look at the OLC, there's obviously a lot of pilots with some
semblance of a competitive spirit. Right now there are 1,153 pilots in
North America (923 in the US) with flights logged. Is there no way to
reach out and tap that? If you can interest even a few percent of
them, that's a nice increase in participation.

I'm one of those pilots. I'm a relative newb with two seasons of xc
under my belt. When I think about joining a regional contest, I can
tell you the intimidation factor is quite high. There's a level of
complexity with rules/procedures/traffic/etc that is magnitudes higher
than a typical xc flight from the home airport. It's a big step for
someone who hasn't flown a contest. Especially for those of us in
small clubs. I think maybe you experienced contest guys may have
forgotten what it's like to be in these shoes. Find a way to break
down some of these barriers with a more gradual "stepping-stone"
approach and I think you'll see some new blood.

As Tim said, growing participation (and the club class) has to be
looked at as a longer-term effort. You can't write it off after only a
half-hearted attempt.

How about a "rookie school" at your local regional? Would that help
get your feet wet?
It really is not that hard to get started. I've been teaching racing
beginner classes in Region 2, 3 and once in 5 for almost 20 years. One
of my rookies this year won a day(in a Club class glider) How cool is
that.?
Contact whoever is running your local regional and see if they would
provide. I bet they can find someone to mentor you.
Good Luck
UH

On Sep 22, 7:07*pm, wrote:

How about a "rookie school" at your local regional? Would that help
get your feet wet?

We started doing that in Ephrata, WA a couple of years ago. The "Dust-
up" is a 3-day contest specifically designed to introduce pilots to
tasking and the flow of competition days. We're still tweaking and
tuning the event, but we've had decent attendance the first two years
(although this year we only really got 1 flying day in - always a
danger with a 3-day event).

As "low-stress" as we try to make the Club/Sports class competition at
the Regional level, a lot of people are still intimidated by the
competition-aspect and the rules. Providing an unofficial event where
people can give it a try has helped lower some barriers...

--Noel

As "low-stress" as we try to make the Club/Sports class competition at
the Regional level, a lot of people are still intimidated by the
competition-aspect and the rules. *Providing an unofficial event where
people can give it a try has helped lower some barriers...


Well said.

Is there any way for the SSA and associated racing committee to try
and reach out with some nudging, encouragement and guidelines via
mailings? My club is small and has absolutely no experience putting on
such an event. Although there are a few individuals who would really
like to try it.

Does anyone know of some published instructions/guidelines for
organizing an informal, club-level contest that would be a reasonble
stepping-stone approach to preparing for other sanctioned events?
Noel, did your club document anything regarding the event you put on?

On Sep 23, 12:13*pm, Westbender wrote:
As "low-stress" as we try to make the Club/Sports class competition at
the Regional level, a lot of people are still intimidated by the
competition-aspect and the rules. *Providing an unofficial event where
people can give it a try has helped lower some barriers...

Well said.

Is there any way for the SSA and associated racing committee to try
and reach out with some nudging, encouragement and guidelines via
mailings? My club is small and has absolutely no experience putting on
such an event. Although there are a few individuals who would really
like to try it.

Does anyone know of some published instructions/guidelines for
organizing an informal, club-level contest that would be a reasonble
stepping-stone approach to preparing for other sanctioned events?
Noel, did your club document anything regarding the event you put on?

I am in the same club as Noel. Besides the Dust-up competition our
club also has encampments to "remote" airstrips where we do mountain
flying. These encampments typically have way more member attendance
than the Dust-up "informal" competition, where a majority of the
competing pilots are not club members.

Brad