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OK OK Dave but we should still vet the +50s or give
them points like a bank account like, Skiing, motorbikes, sailing etc. No
other skills then they go to the wait list - our time is much better spent into
teaching the good ones Macca
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 8:09
PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] A NEW APPROACH
TO GFA PROMOTION & MEMBERSHIP??
Hey Macca,
Don't knock us 50+ lot. Some of us didn't
discover gliding quite as early as you did, and maybe we took a bit longer to
learn as the younger guys. But we can still become addicted, maybe more so.
With family left the nest us old guys can spend a bit more time at the Club -
both flying and helping. I'm doing everything I can to make up for lost time.
And I know a few others like me.
Dave
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 6:41
PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] A NEW
APPROACH TO GFA PROMOTION & MEMBERSHIP??
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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