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It is a problem teaching the 50+ group - think they
should have a tax to rebate young peoples flying. I learnt as a teenager and we
got money back thru "Royal Aero Clubs" for when we earnt our C or was it our
clubs got the rebate. I am getting a young kid who earnt points
through "work for the dole" and the government are paying an intro course of
$600 - another kid Coles-myres paid for his flying thru working at Bilo.
They are better kids to teach than the ones whos parents throw the money at
gliding. Actually we have a "wait list" of currently 4 people who want to
learn - we want to look after the student we already have rather than overload
the system - and let the new lot start in say 6 weeks
Ian McPhee
--- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 9:10
PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] A NEW APPROACH
TO GFA PROMOTION & MEMBERSHIP??
I read the link below.
Seems that those who participate in gliding
do so before regular sex and after they can't remember what it was
:-)
Now if anybody knows a marketer who can
convince the public that gliding is better than sex we've got it
made.
Seriously though, training 50yr+ people is a hard
slog. Ask EP or any instructor who has had a few. Our "Old Bomber" Eric Bates
was a breeze as he had learnt to ride the bike when he was young. I do
not derogate this market niche as there are many others who are chasing
it in this period of demographic change.
Also on oldies, I am retiree and will not
glide on the weekend unless it is for a special reason.
I am getting close to the top of my family
hierarchical pyramid and there is always something on like baptisms, birthdays
engagements, weddings etc. etc. which I am expected to attend and which I do
enjoy. Before I retired I was the "old fart" who never came to anything
because I was at the gliding club. I am lucky that my club can
accomodate weekday gliding as golf, bowling etc. clubs do for retirees. This
is something that needs to be taken into account if this market is
pursued.
The airminded oldies could be one
of the saviours of our sport in the short term but in the long term
I feel the sport for "ordinary" people is doomed for reasons I won't discuss
here. There have been many activities, that have had their time and
passed. As for myself I intend to enjoy it unfettered and to the full as
long as I can.
Chris McDonnell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 6:02
PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] A NEW
APPROACH TO GFA PROMOTION & MEMBERSHIP??
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 1:09
PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] A NEW
APPROACH TO GFA PROMOTION & MEMBERSHIP??
Robert Hart wrote:
> Geoff Kidd wrote:
>
>> I would council the GFA to take (pay
for) professional advice on
>> key issues such as marketing
etc.
>
> Agreed - but only after some extensive consultation
in-house - ie with
> the members. It is the members' organisation
and they should have the
> major say in the direction their
organisation takes. Once the goals are
> known, expertise to help
achieve those goals can be paid for.
Don't agree, Robert. The
goals are already known; Extensive
consultation with the members
is going to deliver the same outcome
we're already talking about here,
namely that the sport needs to be
grown.
The particular ways in
which it is grown aren't (or shouldn't be)
important to the current
members. We all happen to fit in to a
culture that says lots of
time and not much money is an ok way to
learn how to fly, otherwise we
wouldn't be here. So our ideas about
the way to go about this, as
shaped by our personalities and
experiences are automatically
incompatible with the potential customer
base we're talking about
here.
In short, if GFA engaged in detailed consultation with the
members,
and the members recommended the particular direction to take,
then
the members would effectively sabotage the process by
recommending
a direction which was familiar and (for their demographic)
"tried
and true." The safe option is the one we already have,
because (for
us) it has worked.
Taking a new direction requires
the organization's management to
take a risk, to do some stuff which
hasn't been done before which
is targeted at growing the sport.
Consultation with outsiders, not
insiders, is necessary -- outsiders
will have perspectives that would
simply never occur to the likes of
you and me, and (by definition)
they're the kinds of people we need to
appeal to.
> but I would suggest that there is a heap of
untapped expertise
> amongst the GFA membership.
... and
look where it's managed to get us.
Forget it. Just pay
someone who really knows what they're doing,
instead of relying on
volunteers who *say* they know what they're
doing.
Frankly I
don't give a rat's arse about whether the strategies
employed by the
GFA to grow the membership are compatible with the
views I'd put
forward if I was consulted, as long as they work.
The end justifies the
means.
> I am not suggesting that the membership take
>
on entirely the production of the business plan (few members will have
> both the time and expertise available to do that), but this is
where we
> should start as the membership will have a set of views
that are bound
> to illuminate the issues in interesting and useful
ways (some of which
> will be negative - also good to
know).
Yeah, great, if we want the whole process to get bogged down
in
bureaucracy for five years while half the membership argues about
whether
they've been consulted enough and the other have bitches about
the
fact that their responses to consultation have been ignored,
then
that might be a good idea.
There are too many prima-donnas
in the gliding movement who will be
only too happy to vociferously
oppose anything that they, personally,
don't feel happy about.
When you have enough people like that with
opposing views, it's always
easier to blow them all off and just get
on with the job. Who
cares if there are a handful of seriously pissed
off people who think
they're being ignored if hundreds of new pilots
are joining the sport
every year? That's an acceptable price to pay,
in my
opinion. We don't *need* the entire existing membership to
be
happy if there are plenty of new members coming in to replace the
ones
who are upset enough to leave.
> Hmm - *I* do not want
to set the principles and aims - but *we* (the
> membership) should
do so.
We already know what the aims are: lots of new pilots,
enough new
money coming in to grow the fleet, everyone having fun
without having
to get emeshed in the day-to-day running of the national
body.
I doubt that there has been a single national exec in the
last ten
years who hasn't known what those goals are. They
haven't failed to
achieve those aims due to ignorance of what they are,
they've failed
to achieve them because the stuff they've tried hasn't
worked.
If you spend the next five years consulting, you'll have
arrived at the
same answer and wasted five years, and you'll *still*
have an exec who
knows the right answer but doesn't know how to
implement it.
So stop wasting time, hire someone who does, and make
the problem go away.
-
mark
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I
tried an internal
modem,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
but it hurt when I
walked.
Mark Newton
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+61-8-82231777
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