A proposal to increase membership, cross-country pilots, competitors,and world champions (USA).

We all appear to agree on two points: First, we have a problem attracting new members to our sport.

There aren't many people in the general population who are interested in soaring, but I believe that those who are will seek us out. It is important that we are able to quickly satisfy their curiosity when they do. I think it's safe to assume that most people's first stop would be a search on the internet, and that first visit to our website needs to convince them to make further contact. When they do, we need to respond quickly, and get them to come for a visit. When they arrive, somebody should be there to make them feel welcome, and answer their questions. I would suggest that this 'greeter' be somebody other than the person giving the glider rides so that the conversation can remain fluid. This personal touch cannot be overemphasized. In addition, our facilities need to be attractive. My wish-list would include a well-groomed outdoor picnic area that is in the shade, a well-maintained comfortable club house with refreshments, and a clean toilet with a sink that is kept stocked with paper, soap and towels (very important to the ladies). But it's the glider ride that sells the membership. The glider itself should be the best glider in the fleet, but it MUST be well-maintained and clean, inside and out. And the pilot giving the ride shouldn't look like a bum.

The second point that we appear to agree upon is that we have a problem keeping the members that we already have.

We can retain many members by just making improvements to club policies, such as:

1. While many members can only come out to the club on weekends and holidays, there's no reason why the club itself should be open only on weekends and holidays.

2. Double the size of each flying day by training in the mornings; pattern tows don't require thermals.

3. Standardize initial training. There is more than one way to satisfactorily demonstrate a maneuver to the PTS, but students are easily frustrated by different instructors teaching different procedures.

4. People hate duty rosters. If your club has a difficult time staffing a position, offer the carrot and not the stick.

5. Don't discourage cross-country by putting a daily time limit on club gliders. If you only have a few gliders for several people to share, set one glider aside for some to share, but let the others fly their gliders all day.

6. Encourage cross-country by correlating badges to privileges. For example: flight privileges beyond immediate local would require a C badge, flights beyond extended local require a Bronze badge, access to the club's entry-level fiberglass glider would require a Silver badge, etc.

7. Instructors should introduce cross-country BEFORE they sign them off for their check ride. The SGS 2-33 and ASK 13 can easily fly Silver distance tasks.

Other necessary club improvements would require deeper commitments, such as:

1. The basic training gliders, like the SGS 2-33 and the ASK 13, fill an important role in our sport. But they live hard lives, and all too often they're in poor condition. This is unsafe and unacceptable. Gliders need to be maintained (not just inspected), and eventually they need to be torn apart, refurbished and rebuilt.

2. Club fleets must grow. We need classic ships for the beginners, fiberglass ships for the intermediate members, and high-performance ships for the advanced members. And we need a safe and reliable way to get them all in the air, quickly.

3. But high-performance gliders by themselves are useless without receiving the necessary training to extract their performance capabilities; instruction must continue beyond the initial check ride in high-performance bi-place gliders, far away from home.

4. And club facilities must grow. We need hangars, internet-equipped club houses, covered areas near the runway for members waiting to fly, golf carts, picnic areas for end-of-day beverage consumption and holiday barbeques, campgrounds for tents and RV's, playgrounds for the kids...

In short, we desperately need to improve our product. Many clubs focus on making the sport affordable, but by doing so they won't ever have enough money to make improvements like these. But even if we doubled our fees we wouldn't raise enough revenue to make the improvements our sport needs; we would only lose more members.

While money by itself won't fix anything, we won't be able to fix everything without money. For clubs in the USA, the best tool available to grow funds is the 501(c)(3) certification. The government created this program specifically to help organizations like ours grow, but too few are even aware of it. The core of my proposal is that the SSA has an opportunity (and I would even say a responsibility) to get the word out to every club about the benefits of 501(c)(3). The specifics of to what degree the SSA becomes involved with each club's process is open for debate.


Chris Fleming