Sloping Off - June 2005
Editorial
by Mike Roach
I expect you know that not all the publicity the Club gets is favourable. One or two of the replies we got to a recent “why haven’t you rejoined” email were quite definite - we didn’t offer what the ex-member wanted, and the thing they most wanted was a regular flying school where they could learn to fly their I/C Spitfire (or whatever). Now other than teaching beginners to fly indoors (perfectly possible, of course and certainly worth pursuing) we simply have not got the weather, flying sites, instructors or resources to run a school, especially for I/C fliers. So it’s nice to hear from a new member who did get what he wanted:
Hi Mike, as a new member of the club (about 2 months) I would like to thank Brian Brockway and Alan Parker for all their help and support in teaching me how to fly gliders on the slopes. Making the effort to go to these soaring sites is very well worth it as you get lots of practice at just guiding the model about, you don't have to make repeat landings for a recharge etc . Using a Zagi, as reccomended for initial training, or my floater I can now take off, fly around and land with a reasonable chance of a good landing most times, even on a car mat during one of our spot landing comps! I am writing to you in the hope that you could include something to say thank you in Sloping Off. PS thanks to Nick too for letting me use his X-ite on a buddy lead while I waited for my Kit to come in to the shop. (from Martin Burr).
Now that’s the sort of club/member relationship that any club could be proud of. Perhaps one answer is to tailor our advertising more closely to what we can achieve. Any suggestions?
Many thanks to all of you who contributed to this issue - so many that you’ve only got a page or two of my efforts, but at least you can read about them before subscribers to AMI or FSM (but don’t tell Tony Dowdeswell).
