I'd just like to add my 2 cents in on this debate, especially in
regards to point number 3.
I began gliding almost exactly one year and 2 weeks and no one in my
family has ever had anything to do with gliding or aviation at all.
As a matter of fact, only one of the 6 juniors from SA had any family
gliding involvement at all, unfortunately only 2 of us competed but
this year thats all going to change - in fact I can name 5 definite
entries from SA so far for this years comp, and thats only in the
single seat section.
I found out about Joeyglide a few months into starting the sport and
immediately began to aim for it - I saw it as a chance to test my new
skills alongside other young and similar minded people, who would be
unprejudiced about how long i'd been in the sport. As a result of
having Joeyglide to aim for I competed in 2 competitions in my first
year of flying, and flew countless 3 and 4 hundred flights - without
this to aim for I'm sure I would have been lucky to go xc, got bored
of local soaring and gone off elsewhere on my weekends.
This has also been the case for a number of juniors in our club -
Joeyglide gives us something to aim for, its a reason to hang out at
dusty gliding fields every weekend and help our clubs, and the sport,
to grow.
So in closing - an absolutely massive thankyou to all those who have
and are supporting the junior movement and Joeyglide, your help and
support is very much appreciated!
Sarah Allen - a female junior glider pilot
On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:49:04 +1100, Nick Gilbert
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> For your information.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jason and Jemima Armistead" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <aus-soaring@lists.internode.on.net>
> Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 10:02 PM
> Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Targeting Youth
>
> > Hold on a minute people
> >
> > Let's deal with some basics, as viewed by a 37 year old who does not
> > consider himself at all old.
> >
> > 1. In many cases I am sure that Joeyglide would not have happened if not
> > for the OFITTH who actually *owned* the gliders that were used at
> > JoeyGlide. I know that my club made available our two top ships from the
> > club fleet, a DG-1000 and a Jantar 2, to be used at the event. And so did
> > a number of OFITTH individuals. If that is not a sign that OFITTH (well,
> > at least a committee with an average age of approx 45-ish) is trying to do
> > its part by the Junior movement, I feel sorry for the blinkers that people
> > on this list are wearing.
> >
> > 2. I *did* repeatedly look at www.joeyglide.com throughout the competition
> > period. I could barely find any results or details at all, most of the
> > pilot photos were missing ("coming soon"), the entries list shows only 8
> > pilots confirmed and so on. Basically, like almost every recent gliding
> > contest web site, it has failed to be current enough to actually tell the
> > true story of the competition. I note with some bemusement that the
> > Results page lists only 4 blue buttons supposedly signifying results are
> > available - across 21 days of flying and that does not convince me as an
> > interested party watching from afar that the event was a success at all.
> > When I click on the results buttons, some of the results do not mention
> > juniors names at all, but are filled with OFITTH names like Paul Matthews,
> > Ralph Henderson etc. Try clicking on the Blue Multiclass Day 1 results to
> > see what I mean.
> >
> > Let me make it perfectly clear this is not a mud-throwing exercise against
> > Nick Gilbert and others associated with the Joeyglide web site (I know
> > from past experience how much it takes to keep a web site up-to-date), but
> > just a general confirmation to me that right across the gliding spectrum
> > from YFITTH to OFITTH, no-one seems to have the time to support the
> > enormous effort required to maintain an active competition web site with
> > up-to-date scores and details (refer: 2004 Nationals at Dalby and 2004 NSW
> > State Comps at Temora for similar problems). Until we are able to address
> > that problem, how will anyone believe that gliding is a "cool" sport if we
> > can't get the results out to people in a timely fashion.
> >
> > 3. Joeyglide has not "managed to get heaps of kids into gliding" as Mark
> > Newton put it - it *has* managed to get those young people together in one
> > place for a Junior Nationals event, but, at the end of the day I doubt it
> > has contributed very much at all towards the ab-initio steps that started
> > off the juniors who competed there in the first place. It would be
> > interesting to get a profile of how long each of the JoeyGlide competitors
> > has been involved in soaring beforehand. I think most would have been
> > around for years thanks to a family or close friend's connection to
> > gliding somewhere along the way.
> >
> > 4. Adam Ianson implied that "In 2004 there has been a big step forward in
> > Junior movement, Bulk flying, Junior rates, Cheap memberships and so
> > forth." Not where I come from Ian (only the largest club in Australia at
> > present, mind you !). We have had Bulk Flying for the last 5 years (pay
> > for around 12 hours glider hire in a lump sum and the rest is effectively
> > free !), 50% discount on Junior rates compared to adults (for long before
> > I joined the club 7 years ago), the offer of Junior scholarships with 100%
> > of club fees and Bulk Flying paid for a year - effectively the Junior only
> > pays for their GFA, which itself has a discounted Student rate. We almost
> > never have more than 2 students under a scholarship at any one time, even
> > though the Committee would gladly offer up to 4 of them if there was the
> > interest.
> >
> > 5. Then there is Adam's statement that "It all starts with them (Juniors),
> > running wings, washing gliders and running ropes. Most of the time it is
> > younger people who get people in the air." If you define "younger" as
> > under 50 then at most gliding clubs this statement might be true. I do
> > not believe for a minute that gliding clubs expect or demand juniors do
> > any more than the average older club member on and around the airfield.
> > And, quite frankly a lot of juniors who do not yet have their own
> > transport to and from the airfield often turn up when the work has been
> > done by the older members (maybe they don't do a good job of educating
> > their parents about the "everyone's a volunteer" nature of a gliding club
> > ?)
> >
> > Juniors face all sort of time and money pressures that prevent them from
> > getting into or staying with the gliding movement. I was one of them -
> > first flight at 6 years old with my dad, then several passenger flights
> > and some basic ab-initio until the age of 14 when my parents separated.
> > Then nothing for the next 14 or so years while I finished high school to
> > year 12, then became a poor university student doing part-time university
> > and an engineering traineeship while and living away from home, got
> > married, had kids and finally bought a house only 15 minutes from the
> > airfield. Finally in 1998 I had the money to afford to spend a week at
> > Benalla with GCV getting to solo, then returned to Camden where I've been
> > loving the flying ever since.
> >
> > My story is not that uncommon, and indeed I've seen it from my 4 years as
> > club membership secretary. Some students have moved away, others have had
> > to concentrate on the HSC (and what's more important, gliding or getting
> > the marks to get into university and on the road to your dream career ?),
> > and some just didn't have the money, or there parents didn't have the
> > time, to keep them flying.
> >
> > All the while the club has done its level best to attract juniors, but
> > then you always run into problems with the competitors in that market
> > space. The NSW Scout Association offer gliding but in an old Blanik
> > until recently (now a DImona) and have restrictions on instructors having
> > to be a member of the Scout Association - given the large number of scout
> > / guide groups in the Sydney region, I've always been amazed at how
> > infrequently they have groups of kids out flying on the weekends. The Air
> > League / Cadets run camps over the mountains at Bathurst (approx 2 - 2 1/2
> > hours from Sydney) and for whatever reasons won't consider Camden as an
> > alternative (are they doing the junior movement a favour or a disservice I
> > wonder - how many parents would drive their kids that far on a regular
> > basis to go flying ?). How many pilots from these junior-oriented clubs
> > actually do much flying all year round when their organisation only offers
> > flying by way of week-long camps a few times a year (often over-subscribed
> > too) ? I don't know, but very few appear on our doorstep for so much as a
> > look-in, so are they being warned off by their organisation's staff under
> > some false pretences, or do they simply stop flying between camps and then
> > pick up where they left off ?
> >
> > Then again, I *have* seen many people return to gliding after one of those
> > "times and seasons" (see Ecclesiastes 3) in their lives previously where
> > gliding simply wasn't an option (much like me)
> >
> > Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see more Juniors and especially more
> > females involved in gliding. There are a lot of hurdles to overcome in
> > this world of ours before the "OFITTH factor" even gets a chance to
> > supposedly scare juniors away from gliding in droves.
> >
> > Just my $0.02 worth
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Jason Armistead
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
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