On Tuesday, 9 March 2021 at 09:24:52 UTC, wrote:
The issue of the decline of gliding has been debated to death in the UK and a few key issues have been identified, some of which have already been mentioned in this thread:

1. Ageing population within gliding caused in part by lack of recruitment of youngsters.

2. In the UK the majority (perhaps all?) of gliding operations use the member's club model. Another issue is that by and large the people who have positions on club committees are generally not the best people to enhance the club as they have little/no commercial prowess.

3. 1960's infrastructu people are no longer willing to spend an entire day on the airfield for a 20 min flight. We need to adopt self-launchers and slot booking.
(there has been some resistance to this in the UK as private owners have realised that if the gliding community move to self-launchers, the value of their glider will diminish).

Of course these issues are interlinked.

I'm not sure your suggestion is a solution either.

Just like the counterparts elsewhere, you rant about supposed lack of commercial experience (your opinion only), yet you haven't shown signs of much yourself, perhaps with examples that might support this radical theorem of getting rid of some participants to help recruit others.

I'm mystified why you keep going on about a 20 minute flight, and people who don't have time for more.

People have differing levels of motivation experience and their target for a day. Despite your assertion, people at all levels are happy to be there all or most of the day, sometimes just to help friends without gliding themselves. Fly the tug, instruct, early solo, cross-country, workshop, cut the grass, retrieves ...

Our club had only advance booking last year, due to the virus. Half day for two seaters and early single seaters, all day for Discus. One day I had a Discus booked, but the weather never quite tipped me into rigging. A band of lower cloud and slight drizzle came over, but eventually cleared about 3 pm. The CFI was saying he didn't think there was anyone left to fly. I said actually I think _ is still hoping to fly. Well, where is he? He's already on his way down there, to see if _ (an instructor) is still around.

We towed a glider back out to the launch point. There were 8 of us out there, ok not all necessary, just so one person could have 3 winch launch check flights. He'd been out there helping while they flew earlier, and they came back out for him, instead of clearing off home early.

Even at the summit of supposed self-centeredness, international competitions, there are far more people there than just the team pilots, and they don't all leave shortly after the flying is done for the day. It is also a social event. There and all round the world, some of these folk have been friends for years, some just starting.