This is not rocket science folks.
Gliding membership will always have a turnover, and all the indications
are that his will continue, and indeed increase as the cost of fuel just
to get to the airfield starts to bite even more deeply.
There is nothing to be gained from expecting or demanding that "GFA do
something" - The GFA executive are essentially powerless to seriously
assist in the essential basics of the recruitment / retention challenge.
The fact that they have made the job that little bit harder by causing
us all to increase the cost of our AE /passenger flights - in essence a
tax on exposing the sport to the public is puzzling - but then there
have been a few things happen in GFA in recent times which were a puzzle
at the time and continue so to be.
Furthermore I doubt if removing these people (presumably the "GFA") from
office - as was suggested early in the discussion - will make a scrap of
difference, because for the most part it isn't a marketing problem in
the first place and even if it was, what would or could we realistically
expect them to do about it? Exactly what would be achieved by
removing the state associations is not clear either, especially when -
in SA anyway - the State Association has set up numerous opportunities
for presenting gliding to the public at events where interested people
gather.
Comparisons with other sport aviation in the expectation we can do as
they do are interesting but probably futile. We wrestle with the
fundamental differences in our respective sports aviation pursuits - the
principal one here being that hang gliding machinery (as one mentioned)
is lower in cost by several orders of magnitude, and a second one being
that hang gliding is perceived as a sport in which you are essentially
in it for yourself, whereas our gliding of necessity involves the
assistance (both financially and usually operationally as well) of other
people. That's how it is - always has been. Expecting that we can
somehow compete on equal terms with hang gliding is to deny the very
significant differences in what we each offer, and comparisons between
the two are generally somewhat irrelevant because of this. Similarly
comparisons with RAA numbers - always with the implied expectation that
we should be able to match what they are doing - are also flawed.
Gliding has two obvious problems in this era:
1) It is expensive - firstly in terms of money. I have already referred
to the difference in the cost between a complete hang glider and one of
our beautiful, sophisticated, state of the science soaring machines.
However we have a similar problem in respect of making comparisons with
RAA aircraft. Compare if you will the cost of a new Jabiru with (say) a
new AS-K21. Add the extra for the self launching version if you wish,
but the point can be made quite adequately without it. There was a
time when gliding could cheerfully claim to offer a low cost entry into
sport aviation. We can no longer do that, and it's evident in the
market place. There isn't much that GFA or the clubs can do about
that. Learn to live with it.
2) It is expensive in terms of time. Gliding - as already mentioned -
invariably requires the assistance of others for it to happen. This
carries with it the sobering fact and inevitable realization that unless
you're very wealthy, you will almost certainly spend more time on the
ground helping and watching others fly that you will in the air
yourself. This does not appeal to the "Satisfaction Now!!" mentality
of today's youth. They get disillusioned with this, and usually end up
going somewhere else to get their kicks. The is nothing much that GFA
can do about this either, no matter how "democratic" we think we can
make it. And there is nothing much that most clubs can realistically
do about it either in the real world which will change this. Gliding
is like that.
Of all that has been written in this thread following its amazing switch
from a simple simple question about the best PDA for use in a glider,
Jenny Ganderton's comments earlier in this discussion summarize the
situation most realistically. Much of what has said by others is
interesting, challenging, even stimulating . But some of it is also pie
in the sky - reminiscent of the current hooha on lowering fuel prices
we see elsewhere in recent days. Market forces are in play in both
cases here. We can adapt in part to meet those forces but in the end
they - like gravity when we are flying - will ultimately prevail.
I'm sorry I can't offer a more optimistic outlook, but then again I've
never been able to change zero sink into a really useful thermal just by
wishing things were different from what they are (or blaming the GFA).
Terry
(Been there - done that - ever since 1966)
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
[email protected]
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
