Several things came to mind when reading this thread.

(1) It seems to me that, in my own case for sure, many of us are capable of
being our own worst critics and simultaneously in denial that our skills
could, at least, use some "polishing up".

(2) As to the question of requiring periodic check rides for members that fly
club gliders, it seems to me that it truly is discriminatory to require that
only of pilots beyond some certain age. I do agree that there must be some way
to set and then monitor the standards of performance required to be PIC in a
club glider, but why not administer it to all pilots? I've been flying a while
and have seen some of the young ones get over confident, overly adventurous and
also develop bad habits. So..why not do a check on everybody? If the club
culture is developed carefully, this can be viewed in a positve way and as a
learning opportunity.

(3) I have had the pleasure of flying with many different people in gliders,
biz jets and helos and I do believe that this has made me a better pilot. The
reason for that is I get to see other peoples' ideas and techniques at work and
then cull through those ideas and techinques before either adopting each as
better than what I had been doing or discarding them as not desireable. If a
club can sort of "indoctrinate" its members to do this sort of "cross
pollination" I think that it helps to maintain standards, keep communications
open, and to make more people aware of any deterioration in a particular
pilots' skills.

My $.02 worth, for what its worth...