On Tuesday, April 11, 2017 at 4:49:34 PM UTC-6, Frank Whiteley wrote:
Several years ago, a person very dear to me, engaged me in the idea of supporting youth and juniors in soaring. Dr. John Campbell had organized the Collegiate Soaring Association to promote soaring as a collegiate sport. He also supported CAP glider activities and national encampments. John actually received his glider and power ratings as a CAP member and performed as a CFI-G at the local chapters while attending Georgetown, University of Michigan, and during his post-doc at Princeton. When the European Junior Gliding Championships started in 1991, John felt the USA should be represented. He used the Collegiate Soaring Association to appeal to vendors and members to help fund this involvement through raffles and donations.
I was able to find a report and a post from John on RAS.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...ng/0j3S9aGnnOc
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.aviation.soaring/european$20junior$20gliding$20championships/rec.aviation.soaring/fh0ZxeGW7WQ/lBGvJaCTXiEJ
It wasn't long before John was working to fund the team for the Junior World's.
The US Team Committee took over responsibility for the US Junior Soaring Team during the committee reorganization in 2001.
Dr. John Campbell is no longer with us and he is missed. He left me with more SSA engagement than I ever imagined possible. Thanks John. Much of what I do is a result of what John shared with me and involved me with, and a big chunk was SSA youth, which has now grown to SSA youth and juniors.
This year we SSA members have a VERY promising Junior Team to send to the 10th FAI Junior World Gliding Championships in Pociunai, Lithuania. Unfortunately, the team is not yet fully funded and time is growing short. There have been fund raising efforts and progress has been made, but I'm not sure they've reached our soaring community at large. So I thought I make a personal appeal to 120 of my soaring friends and associates to do what I just did. Donate a $100.00 to the US Junior Team. The SSA has posted a link from the SSA home page news rotation to the General News and listed an item in the SSA Store. Couldn't be easier, almost. There's a slight glitch in that the login isn't work quite right when it comes to payment, so use the first option rather than your account login. Just means you'll have to complete the payment option. Either that or write a check payable to SSA/US Junior Team and send it in.
Oh by the way, here's direct link.
http://store.ssa.org/cgi/display.cgi...r-Soaring-Team
Thanks for contributing,
Frank Whiteley
I'd like to thank those who acted on my appeal. We made a sizable dent in the needed funds. As a result of some generous gifts and matches at Perry, the full US Junior Team is funded for the Juniors World Gliding Championships.
Go Juniors!
Frank Whiteley