I think there is something that each of us could do in increasing the conversion rate of new XC and racing pilots.

In New Zealand, we're seeing the same decline as pretty much everywhere but there are a couple of programmes in place which might (just might) turn things around. Off-topic slightly, getting the kids re-engaged is about getting them to form their own gliding-and-social organisation (youthglide.org.nz) and that seems to be working quite well. I think Abby Delore gave a talk about Youthglide at the SSA conference a couple of years ago.

Back on-topic. After much head-scratching, a bunch of pilots decided that the key to retaining pilots was to get as many as possible into X Country - not denying that there's always a place for the pilots who just like to fly locally but it's the ones who go further who don't tend to drop out of the sport.

The next question was how to do get people into XC. One answer is to lower the (perceived) barriers to flying contest tasks. Most club members have access to club gliders but it's the whole mountain of "there's no way I could fly that far" that seemed to pose the biggest hurdle.

As a consequence, the Racing Committee have made a major revamp to the rules this season, to the effect that contest classes aren't so much based on "Std/15m", "Club", "18/20m" etc. but more "Beginner", "Intermediate" and "Advanced", i.e. based on pilot ability rather than glider performance. You can still fly with the big boys if you want (and get the points and prizes), but you can also turn up in a 18m glider and enter the "beginner" contest. We trialled the scheme informally last season and got a good number of new pilots to come along to contests and fly 75 - 150km tasks. Unsurprisingly, they had a blast! It'll be interesting to see the results this season.

Another thing that may help the decline is the sort of coaching programme that Australia is using for its cross-country pilots, which came out of a whole bunch of work that the Australian Institute of Sport developed, completely unrelated to gliding.

Interesting times. Watch this space.

DH