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Why is Soaring declining



 
 
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  #1  
Old April 13th 04, 03:39 PM
f.blair
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Default Why is Soaring declining

This was copied from rec.outdoors.fishing.bass. It sounds like the very
same things that we talk about when we discuss the decline of our sport. I
am not saying it has answers, but it is interesting.
Fred


************************************************** **************************
***************************
Great read Bob.
Fishing license sales are declining which indicates a real decline in
fishing interest, i.e. less numbers of people are fishing. I suspect that
things are worse since our population is growing, the proportion of people
fishing is declining more rapidly than indicated by license sales decline.
Why is this so? A variety of possible reasons come to mind when combined,
could explain the decline..

1. Fishable water is being privatized - bought up, posted, acquired by
governmental agencies, restricted by land use rulings, dams being removed,
access fenced off, etc.
2. Competing demands for time - Soccer, GameBoy, offroading, skateboarding,
partying, RVing, home projects and a multitude of other in and outdoor
activities divert participation today from family and individual fishing.
3. Decline of the nuclear family - as divorce and separation disrupts
parent/child relationships, fishing is less of a priority on weekends or
other custody times.
4. Availability of more disposal income - Food needs drove fishing more in
the past than today.
5. Immigration - Illegal aliens cannot get fishing licenses and legal
immigrants probably have far less interest in fishing than other population
demographics..
6. Adversarial animal rightists - Are influencing the weak, timid and
non-iinterested into a non-fishing mentality.
7 Adversarial vegaterians - Translate their anti meat-pholosophy into a
non-fishing mentality.
8. Passing fad - The Yuppie infatuation with fly-fishng in the 1980's has
past us by.
9. No new rivers - God is not making any new rivers and environmentalists
and politicians are fighting adding dams and impoundments which limits new
water bodies with their rapid growth and abundance of fish in their early
years.
10.Waterbody management - Is NOT being managed to increase the number of
people fishng, but to reduce, constrict, limit and to conserve existing or
lower levels of people. Budget level maintenance is their primary goal.
Little funding exists for meaningful additional researh to stop decline in
fishing.
11. Fly in fishing is up - Since the demand for trophy and quality fishing
exceeds the supply of domestic US fishing, more people are not fishing
locally but flying out to exotic places around the world.
12. On water competition - Water skiers, kyakers, personal flotation
devicers, canoeists, hikers and many other types of on-the-water or
near-the-water people are degrading the solitiude many fishermen cherish and
running them off the water.

Bob, I'm sure there are other things which MAY contribute to the decline,
but these are suggestions for starters. You listed a number of things we
can do to slow the decline of fishing. They'll help. But I am convinced
fishing will continue to decline. I just hope there will be some quality
experiences left for my grandsons but I doubt it.

Good luck!
John






  #2  
Old April 13th 04, 04:04 PM
Tony Verhulst
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I was very dissapointed with an article in the latest _Soaring_
magazine. It was about the SSA membership decline and all about
attracting SSA *members* and retaining SSA *members* - nothing about
soaring. I humbly suggest that if the SSA focused more on promoting
soaring, much of the membership decline would be taken care of.

Tony V.

  #3  
Old April 13th 04, 05:06 PM
Bill Daniels
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"Tony Verhulst" wrote in message
...


I was very dissapointed with an article in the latest _Soaring_
magazine. It was about the SSA membership decline and all about
attracting SSA *members* and retaining SSA *members* - nothing about
soaring. I humbly suggest that if the SSA focused more on promoting
soaring, much of the membership decline would be taken care of.

Tony V.


Astute observation, Tony.

Bill Daniels

  #4  
Old April 13th 04, 06:17 PM
Tony Verhulst
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Tony Verhulst wrote:


..... It was about the SSA membership decline and all about
attracting SSA *members* and retaining SSA *members* - nothing about
soaring.....


"nothing about soaring" should have been "nothing about attacting and
retaining soaring *pilots*". But, you get the drift.

Tony V

  #5  
Old April 13th 04, 08:14 PM
Nyal Williams
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To give SSA its due; membership numbers are as good
a sampling as any to show the decline in the sport.
Changing a few nouns in the article would not make
much difference.

Soaring requires a lot of investment of time across
several years to make it more than a passing fancy.
(I've read that the average sailor owns a boat for
8 years, and then moves on to something else.)

Life has speeded up, both in the workplace and on the
domestic scene. Our society has opted for quick and
cheap in most of its pursuits; we want to be passively
entertained. Turn on the TV, do a backyard cookout,
and that's about it for a large portion of the populace.
Nobody does his own thing anymore; he wants someone
to do it for him.

The decline is not just in soaring but in all sorts
of non-income producing endeavors. We have become
passive and vicarious in our thrills. This shows in
the tremendous weight gain in the population.

On the other hand, maybe we need gliders that will
carry 325lbs. in each seat. ;-)


At 17:30 13 April 2004, Tony Verhulst wrote:
Tony Verhulst wrote:


..... It was about the SSA membership decline and
all about
attracting SSA *members* and retaining SSA *members*
- nothing about
soaring.....


'nothing about soaring' should have been 'nothing about
attacting and
retaining soaring *pilots*'. But, you get the drift.

Tony V





  #6  
Old April 13th 04, 08:37 PM
Tony Verhulst
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Nyal Williams wrote:
To give SSA its due; membership numbers are as good
a sampling as any to show the decline in the sport.
Changing a few nouns in the article would not make
much difference.


Agreed. But my intended point was that the vision was wrong. The focus
of the article was "how can we get the SSA to grow" where the focus
should have been "how can we get the sport to grow". The article is
bothersome because 1). it's the typical reaction of a bureaucracy
fighting for survival, and 2). the SSA forgot why it's there.

Tony V.


--

I [Huck Finn] asked Tom [Sawyer] if countries always apologized when
they had done wrong, and he says - "Yes; the little ones does."

Mark Twain

  #7  
Old April 14th 04, 04:02 AM
John H. Campbell
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Agreed. But my intended point was that the vision was wrong. The focus
of the article was "how can we get the SSA to grow" where the focus
should have been "how can we get the sport to grow".


Point taken, and I am among those constantly lobbying for SSA to shoulder
systematic PR for the sport (staff member, press room,...). However,
consider Bob Wander's point from years ago already that SSA membership is
the most convenient tool there is to draw people in! For a mere $64 (less
than the cost of a one-time ride at many operations) and a few clicks online
or moments filling out a card, new prospects get 12 months of propaganda.
Like the HYCBAGP tri-fold says (originally written back in 1978 or so IIRC)
"There's more, but there isn't room to say it here. What do you do next?
We suggest... you become a member of (SSA)..."



  #8  
Old April 14th 04, 04:33 AM
Bill Daniels
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Default


"John H. Campbell" wrote in message
...
Agreed. But my intended point was that the vision was wrong. The focus
of the article was "how can we get the SSA to grow" where the focus
should have been "how can we get the sport to grow".


Point taken, and I am among those constantly lobbying for SSA to shoulder
systematic PR for the sport (staff member, press room,...). However,
consider Bob Wander's point from years ago already that SSA membership is
the most convenient tool there is to draw people in! For a mere $64 (less
than the cost of a one-time ride at many operations) and a few clicks

online
or moments filling out a card, new prospects get 12 months of propaganda.
Like the HYCBAGP tri-fold says (originally written back in 1978 or so

IIRC)
"There's more, but there isn't room to say it here. What do you do next?
We suggest... you become a member of (SSA)..."




So, John, SSA membership causes soaring to grow? Isn't it the other way
around?

I don't think I have ever known of even one new glider pilot to come to the
sport through the SSA. On the other hand, hard working commercial soaring
operations promoting rides to the public are probably responsible for 90% of
the few new pilots we get. If they could get a little help with that
promotion from the SSA, they could do an even better job.

Bill Daniels

Bill Daniels

  #9  
Old April 14th 04, 06:02 AM
Ted Wagner
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Default

Speaking from the standpoint of someone relatively new to soaring (September
2003), I can offer these observations:

1. SSA had *nothing* to do with my becoming involved in soaring. Not only
that -- during my days as a student pilot (and newly licensed pilot), it was
never suggested me to join SSA. In fact, when I eventually did join SSA, it
was to become a member of the ASA, so I could fly their club Grob. Four
months later, I can testify that being an SSA (and ASA!) member has
important things to offer that I was not aware of before, and I now
encourage other student and new pilots to become a member because of the
critical functions SSA performs for the protection and furtherance of our
sport. (Can you say *airspace*? I knew you could.)

2. I *did* become involved in soaring after (a) witnessing a soaring
operation at Wiener-Neustadt, Austria while attending a skydiving
competition in summer 2002, and (commercial operations take note!) (b)
having an aerobatic glider ride given to me as a birthday gift in February
2003 by a friend who heard an advertisement by Turf Soaring in Arizona. I
had always had an interesting in soaring, but those two events stand out.

3. I recall reading somewhere, pardon for not remembering specifically, that
a large part of the popularity of soaring in the 1960s, '70s and '80s was
due to the large number of military-trained pilots, trained for WWII, Korea
and Vietnam, who after their service turned to soaring as an economic
alternative for getting in the air. Quite simply, these pilots have been
retiring while the military has been down-sizing. It's logical that this is
at least part of the current decline.

4. I also read this somewhere, and it made sense too: access and exposure to
general aviation (small-market airports) by the average middle-class family
is much less than it used to be. Many small airports have been closed or
blocked off to walk-up spectators. We are simply not being seen as much as
before, and being seen is key.

5. The litigious turn our society has taken since the 1970s, especially in
the aviation industry, has simply priced too many people out of it.

-tcw
H304CZ "2NO"


  #10  
Old April 14th 04, 06:43 AM
Lennie the Lurker
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Default

Nyal Williams wrote in message ...
To give SSA its due; membership numbers are as good
a sampling as any to show the decline in the sport.

As with any other hobby, membership in the central organization
indicates what is happening in the hobby, not the other way around.

Soaring requires a lot of investment of time across
several years to make it more than a passing fancy.


Look at this statement, soaring is another hobby, nothing more, a way
to entertaining ones inner child. It, like any other hobby, can
become obsessive, and the "one" the "all" when it's really only
important to the one that's doing it. When it becomes an obsession,
it ceases to be fun unless the reason one does it is satisfied.

As far as investment in time and money, I have 44 years as a
metalworker, and I'm still learning, I'll never know it all. In
money, I probably have as much invested in hobby type machines as I
had in that waste of money called a 1-26. (I _know_ I have, and
probably three times as much.)

Never before has so much been available to people that wanted to try
something but found it "just out of reach" for them, and with the
notable exception of soaring, never has there been so much serviceable
equipment available as cheaply as it is now.


So far, all of the arguments I've read here are, "sit back and hope
SSA does it for us." It ain't gonna happen. Every hobby that's now
flourishing is doing so because the materials and equipment are
readily and cheaply available. Interest in many, the ones that are a
continuous drain on resources, is declining, as is the amount of
disposable income. Look at the situation as it is, not as you want to
see it. Soaring doesn't need another $80k custom built hand made by
gnomes or trolls in der black forest, but anything that doesn't
measure up to some peoples wishes will be met with a blast of badmouth
right away. Almost every sailplane made today is made with the
competitor in mind, and the manufacturers aren't going to listen to
any suggestion that maybe something more pedestrian might sell. Which
suits the competitors quite well, and insures that the number of new
people will remain small, and declining.

Saying that people are "too lazy" to soar is like me saying soaring
people are too lazy to try metalworking. I just made a skid plate for
a 2-33 out of 1/4 inch AR plate, 3 1/2 hours pushing it through the
saw to cut to size. Call me lazy if you will, but I'd rather push the
steel than pay through the nose for what soaring costs, and it's just
as interesting.
 




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