Ian Cant wrote:
The SSA today is in the process of shedding some old
habits and becoming more responsive to the real needs
of the entire soaring community. The SSA needs the
support of the whole community, and the whole community
does benefit from the activities of the SSA - if it
didn't already exist we'd have to invent it.

Ian
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Mr. Cant:

First, a well done for pushing the rock back up the hill and getting a
display for gliders at the premier aviation event of OSH. I cannot
agree with your assessment of the current direction of the SSA given my
personal interactions for the past several years. I have found an
organization that appears wholly dedicated to the care and feeding of a
small rural office building and staff. And a directorate complicit
with that assessment.

Recently, I found an old cache of SOARING magazines and looked up my A,
B, and C badges. The names in that 25 year old magazine would be very
familiar to today's readers--same volunteers, same directors, same
concerns about membership only now we are 2/3 of the 1981 size.

SSA's problems are organizational. Any area with an ineffective
director has no means of change. Other areas are just as fossilized
and any attempts to offer aid or direction are ignored. Eventually one
just gives up. Remember what the SSA did NOT do once ADSB and other
equipment requirements finally kill our sport.

Terry Claussen
DPEG AZ