It sounds like the efforts to remove some dead wood
and inject new life into the convention worked well.

Thanks

Part 2 of my question...What sort of recruiting efforts
to attract new members? There was a simulator? Any
other efforts specifically targeting new members?

First we had to get them in the door.

Data derived from last year's Online Glider Pilot Survey nearly 1000 of
you participated in was used to determine which "cross over sport"
periodicals should get convention ads. They included Latitude 38
(freebie west coast monthly sailing magazine given out at all marine
supply stores, yacht clubs, etc), LA Sport and Fitness (freebie at all
health clubs, foot and bicycle races, etc), Model Aviation (Academy of
Model Aeronautics national journal), Pacific Flyer/Aviation Business
journal (power flying), and California Diving magazine (scuba). The
survey indicated glider pilots were frequently also involved in these
sports.

3X8" cards about the convention, as well as $10 discount coupons for all
Region 12 FBO's inside a trifold brochure explaining the basics of
soaring and listing all club and commercial places to soar in the region
were distributed at several large airshows in SoCal over the prior year
by many SSA members. A Sparrowhawk and an SSA booth was at the AMA
national show in Ontario that Bill describes below this note (he and
many other SSA members staffed this, Mike Reagan lent his ship). Every
person we talked to was told about our show.

Doug Easton (new SSA Director at Large, now chair of the SSA Growth and
Promo Comm) handled all of our brochures, cards, and print media
advertising. He also was able to get a local cable TV channel to
feature the convention on a Friday night broadcast,and placed listings
in the Calendar sections of several local newspapers.

Any walk-in attendee had to fill out a form and tell us if they were an
SSA member or had ever been soaring, and where they had heard about the
convention. Those in either category got a special registration packet
with a free issue of SOARING mag and SSA membership application, a
trifold, and a $10 discount coupon (we did a print overrun of 300 for
the Feb SOARING issue, specifically designed for new people - 5 pages of
happy solo pictures, no Safety Corner describing something bad).

We are still analyzing data derived from attendees to see what
advertising venues worked. We spent less than half the advertising
budget SSA made available to us.

Guided tours of the convention were given by Region 12 volunteers every
other hour, which began by showing folks Gavin Wills' 13 minute video
from NZ. Easton also put together an all-day "screening room" with many
other soaring videos. Instruction given to tour guides was "tell people
why you soar." Derek Lisoski spent weeks turning the Grobus fuselage
generously lent by AirSailing into the simulator. While it was tough to
get glider people out of it, the sim was really created for those with
no soaring experience.

As far as getting our own Region 12 SSA members to attend the
convention,(many of whom had never been to a convention, despite it
being in SoCal several times in the past), a printed version of our mid
January Region 12 newsletter,( Southern California Soaring,
http://www.socalsoaring.com ) was mailed to all R12 members, and in
this special case, due to proximity to LA, many region 11 members. It
took the previously unheard of step of listing the abstracts of all
speaker programs three weeks before the event. It was completely paid
for out of Region 12 funds, as a way of supporting the SSA. In every
past convention, no one knew what was going to be said until they got
there (and usually missed two days of talks they would have attended,
had they known about them).

And that is how you get 2027 people to an SSA convention, and hopefully
a few people interested in soaring. No rocket science (although Mike
Melvill's talk was frankly the best I have ever heard, by anyone, on any
topic).

Our convention is the best opportunity to market soaring.

Regards,
Jim Skydell