On Jul 10, 12:32 am, Scott wrote:
Ouch...a bit harsh

Yes, it was! However it was this part:

On Jul 9, 5:29 am, Nyal Williams
wrote:
snip
But maybe some people just like to pick up another
experience for two years, drop it and move on to something
else. It comes down to deep interest or shallow diversion.

That riled me somewhat. My interest in gliding is something that I
don't care to explain to people because they'd think I was a spaced-
out hippie and, by and large, I'm not. So I felt slightly insulted by
the suggestion that those who cannot invest all their daylight hours
on a weekend cannot have a "deep interest" in gliding, but are in fact
"shallow". Yup, some people do indeed leave after two years - in total
frustration at the lack of support given to them while they struggle
to progress.

I have known at least a dozen people come and go from gliding over the
last two years at our club because eight hours in winter for twenty
minutes flying (and sometimes none) is not an acceptable balance for
them. Yes those days are quickly forgotten once you're a summer aero-
tow taker who never comes in winter and never helps out (a good half,
being conservative, of our club membership would fit that
description). (We're a flat-land thermal-only site.) Personally I turn
up about once a fortnight in winter *purely* to winch drive, retrieve
drive, and generally help out. I do that because I want to help people
are entering our sport, and am acutely aware of crappy it can be for
them when they were sold tales of summer soaring and are faced with
the grim reality of a wet and muddy field. I might take a launch, but
only when I really need to do it to keep current.

A lot of people seem to regard the cold days for little flying thing
as a rite-of-passage; perhaps an "intiation test". Others seem to
think that because they had to do it, so should everyone else. With
gliding contracting at an alarming rate, I don't think the sport can
survive those points of view in the long term.


Dan