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I read the link below.
Seems that those who participate in gliding do
so before regular sex and after they can't remember what it was :-)
Now if anybody knows a marketer who can
convince the public that gliding is better than sex we've got it
made.
Seriously though, training 50yr+ people is a hard
slog. Ask EP or any instructor who has had a few. Our "Old Bomber" Eric Bates
was a breeze as he had learnt to ride the bike when he was young. I do not
derogate this market niche as there are many others who are chasing it in
this period of demographic change.
Also on oldies, I am retiree and will not
glide on the weekend unless it is for a special reason.
I am getting close to the top of my family
hierarchical pyramid and there is always something on like baptisms, birthdays
engagements, weddings etc. etc. which I am expected to attend and which I do
enjoy. Before I retired I was the "old fart" who never came to anything because
I was at the gliding club. I am lucky that my club can accomodate weekday
gliding as golf, bowling etc. clubs do for retirees. This is something that
needs to be taken into account if this market is pursued.
The airminded oldies could be one of the
saviours of our sport in the short term but in the long term I feel the
sport for "ordinary" people is doomed for reasons I won't discuss here. There
have been many activities, that have had their time and passed. As for
myself I intend to enjoy it unfettered and to the full as long as I
can.
Chris McDonnell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 6:02
PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] A NEW APPROACH
TO GFA PROMOTION & MEMBERSHIP??
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 1:09
PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] A NEW
APPROACH TO GFA PROMOTION & MEMBERSHIP??
Robert Hart wrote:
> Geoff Kidd wrote:
>
>> I would council the GFA to take (pay
for) professional advice on
>> key issues such as marketing
etc.
>
> Agreed - but only after some extensive consultation
in-house - ie with
> the members. It is the members' organisation and
they should have the
> major say in the direction their organisation
takes. Once the goals are
> known, expertise to help achieve those
goals can be paid for.
Don't agree, Robert. The goals are
already known; Extensive
consultation with the members is going to
deliver the same outcome
we're already talking about here, namely that
the sport needs to be
grown.
The particular ways in which it is
grown aren't (or shouldn't be)
important to the current members. We
all happen to fit in to a
culture that says lots of time and not much
money is an ok way to
learn how to fly, otherwise we wouldn't be
here. So our ideas about
the way to go about this, as shaped by our
personalities and
experiences are automatically incompatible with the
potential customer
base we're talking about here.
In short, if GFA
engaged in detailed consultation with the members,
and the members
recommended the particular direction to take, then
the members would
effectively sabotage the process by recommending
a direction which was
familiar and (for their demographic) "tried
and true." The safe
option is the one we already have, because (for
us) it has
worked.
Taking a new direction requires the organization's management
to
take a risk, to do some stuff which hasn't been done before
which
is targeted at growing the sport. Consultation with
outsiders, not
insiders, is necessary -- outsiders will have perspectives
that would
simply never occur to the likes of you and me, and (by
definition)
they're the kinds of people we need to appeal
to.
> but I would suggest that there is a heap of untapped
expertise
> amongst the GFA membership.
... and look where
it's managed to get us.
Forget it. Just pay someone who really
knows what they're doing,
instead of relying on volunteers who *say* they
know what they're
doing.
Frankly I don't give a rat's arse about
whether the strategies
employed by the GFA to grow the membership are
compatible with the
views I'd put forward if I was consulted, as long as
they work.
The end justifies the means.
> I am not suggesting
that the membership take
> on entirely the production of the business
plan (few members will have
> both the time and expertise available
to do that), but this is where we
> should start as the membership
will have a set of views that are bound
> to illuminate the issues in
interesting and useful ways (some of which
> will be negative - also
good to know).
Yeah, great, if we want the whole process to get
bogged down in
bureaucracy for five years while half the membership
argues about whether
they've been consulted enough and the other have
bitches about the
fact that their responses to consultation have been
ignored, then
that might be a good idea.
There are too many
prima-donnas in the gliding movement who will be
only too happy to
vociferously oppose anything that they, personally,
don't feel happy
about. When you have enough people like that with
opposing views,
it's always easier to blow them all off and just get
on with the
job. Who cares if there are a handful of seriously pissed
off
people who think they're being ignored if hundreds of new pilots
are
joining the sport every year? That's an acceptable price to pay,
in
my opinion. We don't *need* the entire existing membership to
be
happy if there are plenty of new members coming in to replace the
ones
who are upset enough to leave.
> Hmm - *I* do not want to
set the principles and aims - but *we* (the
> membership) should do
so.
We already know what the aims are: lots of new pilots,
enough new
money coming in to grow the fleet, everyone having fun without
having
to get emeshed in the day-to-day running of the national
body.
I doubt that there has been a single national exec in the last
ten
years who hasn't known what those goals are. They haven't
failed to
achieve those aims due to ignorance of what they are, they've
failed
to achieve them because the stuff they've tried hasn't
worked.
If you spend the next five years consulting, you'll have
arrived at the
same answer and wasted five years, and you'll *still* have
an exec who
knows the right answer but doesn't know how to implement
it.
So stop wasting time, hire someone who does, and make the problem
go away.
-
mark
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I
tried an internal
modem,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
but it hurt when I
walked.
Mark Newton
----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax:
+61-8-82231777
-----
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