Or put another way...do we want youth in gliding?
We should be mindful of these questions as the outcomes of the considerable time, money and enthusiasm invested by clubs and individuals start to bear fruit...or not.
It would be easy for older generations to view the Youth glide movement as a not inconsiderable inconvenience with little to show at the other end.
Questions like..."Where did they all go??"
"Why didn't these youth gladly become Duty Pilots forever?"
"I can't get access to the club gliders I want because these spotty young people are using them?"
And so on...
Will they all slope-off into the wide world never to return...I not sure?
However I clearly remember half my university year heading overseas and the doomsayers predicting they would never return. All that taxpayers money invested in a 4 year degree only to benefit the London financial trading houses, or oil drillers in western Australia. Oddly enough many returned to NZ in later life...raising kids in inner London does have it's downsides, or you can only earn large amounts of cash, drink most of it and live in Kalgoorlie for so long.
Will all these teenagers we are training as glider pilots add to the sport in the future?? Think John Coutts, Ben Flewett, Dane Dickison perhaps. Or believe that some of these new pilots will return once time, money and family allow...I believe we won't have seen the back of them.
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