Friday, October 5, 2012

It's gone strangely quiet...

I notice that Soaring Cafe http://soaringcafe.com/ hasn't posted much for 2 weeks now.
And the Cumulus Soaring site hasn't posted anything for a month. The regular newsletter produced by Paul was last regularly updated in November 2011...I guess if it's a yearly newsletter then that's regular on a geological scale.
However I edit the newsletter for my local club...I asked for content...I waited and waited...nothing. So it's not a only a local phenomenon.

Maybe gliding membership has finally dropped below a critical mass and it's all over folks???
However I did get around to reading an op-ed of the membership crisis in a soaring publication called Gliding International...it didn't add much to the pool of knowledge other than its a problem, someone should do something, but no one really knows what.

Maybe this might be of interest - I've been asked to facilitate a club discussion about;
- where members want the club to go?
- what to do about declining membership?
- how do we handle all these assets?
- what other things should the club be doing?
- how do we attract and hold onto younger potential members?

Sound vaguely familiar?
No, it's not a Gliding Club - it's the local Bay of Plenty Hunt Club. Not the hunting of deer, pigs or sheep, but that lot on horses with hounds, red jackets and funny trumpet thingy's.
It's  a great social day out, open air, new country, a bit of a challenge, no-one gets too badly hurt (except possibly a varmint or two), and it's a largely volunteer effort.
Hunt clubs have been around a while, have lots of assets from years of investment and bequeaths, and have a small pool of very keen volunteers.

I wonder if they view the possible challanges and outcomes any differently from what we do???


No comments:

Post a Comment