Mark Newton wrote:
I think the population of people like that is understated. Terry Cubley is promoting the sports side of gliding quite a bit, but only about 2% of GFA members seem to front-up to competitions, so I reckon his priorities are a tad misguided there. I think the other 98% of GFA members are more interested in the social and recreational aspects of gliding than its sporting side.
I'm sorry but that statistic is simply innaccurate. 2% of 3000 (rounding the membership numbers) gives us 60 competition pilots.
At the recent Qld state comps, there were over 50 pilots flying, with 63 pilots at the recent NSW comps. Now there is certainly some overlap, between Qld and NSW (and Vic plots travel to both comps), but based on my experience last season I would suggest that the percentage of active competition pilots is well over 15% across the country. Given recent evidence in Qld (with two annual comps) and NSW, more and more people are finding that competitions can be fun (and with the introduction of FLARM, much safer too), so I suspect that this percentage will rise.
With the move to the online comp for the GFA decentralised comp, the number of pilots participating in competition flying is going to increase considerably. There are already 73 pilots listed in the GFA online comp and I suspect that number to rise during the summer - as clubs get more involved and people understand the technolgy. Even pilots who just like flying around can participate in the on line comp!
Furthermore, "sports" does not just mean competitions. Badge flights are also part of the sport scene and there are a fair few pilots involved there.
The interesting thing about competitions is that they can significantly raise the profile of our sport in a sports mad nation - helping to attract new members. The upcoing NZ grand prix has attracted $1million in sponsorship. The GFA is sending someone across from the MAD ctee to gather information and I hope that this will result in something happen to attract sponsoship to at least the two national comps and perhaps the introduction of a grand prix event here in Oz.
I see promoting the competition side of gliding as an important part of promoting the sport. After all, the ACB spends a fair amount of money promoting the elite level of the sport and this directly benefits even the 'village' level cricket clubs by creating the atmosphere in which the sport is on people's radar screens.
We should be doing the same in gliding - and it looks, finally, as if we are about to do so.
-- Robert Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] +61 (0)438 385 533 Brisbane, Australia http://www.hart.wattle.id.au _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
