On Monday, March 24, 2014 1:13:17 PM UTC-4, wrote:
The Soaring Club of Houston is considering some changes in our operations to create more of a club atmosphere with ownership for the club equipment. Currently we have a scheduling system where a member can show up, fly the glider, and leave. It is the daily crews responsibility to get the glider ready and on the line, plus put it away at the end of the day. This does not create any ownership in the gliders and as such they are not cared for as they should. In fact some of us call it the rental car mentality.



I suspect that your club's problems go deeper.

My club uses a similar 'daily crew' approach to maintaining an efficient launch schedule, but we have a very high level of volunteerism. Unscheduled people often help the 'daily crew' complete their tasks. Members volunteer for significant non-daily tasks like repainting runway lines and cutting many many acres of grass. We have 5 star gliders, tow planes, and airport.

The ability to schedule a specific launch time (and a prior commitment from a CFI-G if needed) worked much better for me than the 'spend the whole day at the airport' approach. This might have something to do with my being an older student and an especially slow learner that needed a very high number of training flights.

Sam Deeks has a whole podcast series that documents how he ultimately fails to solo under the common 'spend entire day at the airport' system. See http://ukglider.com/your-host/ Listen to the last episode to see how he finally gives up. That system can be problematic for adults who have other commitments. We enjoy volunteering, but we don't want to spend the entire day hanging out at the airport in eager anticipation.