[wingspan33]

What do you do when your local hang gliding Yahoo Group gets "taken over" by a separate (80 - 150 miles away) HG club?

This other club (Rochester Area Flyers) has gone and spent over $30,000 of their club's treasury (many years worth of member's dues) on an aerial tow set up. Now, to maximize their profits (replenish their treasury), they have invaded our club's email list in order, as best as I can figure, to reach the maximum pilot population in the course of promoting their new tow business.

However, almost all the pilots they are communicating at (and with) are already members of their club and very likely already able to receive messages from their own club's Google Group.

As an Elmira Club member, I don't have any interest in tow activities (too far to travel and too costly once you get there). Heck, I've got two mountain sites within 5 miles of my home. So, I posted a couple messages about this Rochester club flooding our Group with its own club's tow news (actually very obvious promotion) and I find myself deleted from the Yahoo Group. No reason given or even a message sent informing me I've been ousted. Whatever happened to the idea of freedom of speech?

Problem is, the "owner" of the Yahoo Group is a single individual, who hardly flies. And while he promotes his Yahoo Group as an Elmira/Binghampton HG Club communications tool, he does not and will not refer to any of the club's leadership in the course of managing the Yahoo Group. Club officials would rather allow him to exclude someone (me) from the list then confront him and have him possibly delete the whole Yahoo Group.

A good number of individual members of the Elmira/Binghampton Yahoo Group are also interested in towing and don't want to be identified as fighting to restore me to this email Group. Nobody wants their tow pilot to be pissed at them for siding with me. So, nary a one of my long time "flying buddies" have posted anything in my defense or to urge the Yahoo Group owner to allow me back on the email list.

I don't figure that anyone here will have an answer toward solving this problem. But having it available as a topic for the larger hang gliding community, at the very least, puts it "on the record". And if you want to see directly what's going on, do a search on Yahoo's Group home page for the "flyhg" Yahoo Group. The tow post invasion from the Rochester club should be obvious.

[JoeF]

Warming up to the issue:

[*] https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en& ... areaflyers

[*] http://www.rochesterareaflyers.com/

[*] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flyhg/messages

[*] Dave Ziegler started the Yahoo group. He has two other moderators.
zeiglerde David Zeigler ·; jack ; and steve houser

The $50 first contact ground intro might fly many bucks into the system.

Passages keep occurring in New York ...

Key post? https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en& ... LRbjCXf5JA

Join and post?
Controlled sites are stickers for org membership and currency for the private org USHPA ... without option, ugh.

Gem quote in some contrast:
I am not nearly as much of a Henny Penny as many in our sport. 
I used to tell my students "If you are willing to crash I am willing to watch." 
(No one actually took me up on it.) Not only do I think we should all have
 the freedom to fritter away our lives in any foolish manner we wish,
but I find generally most intelligent folk like you are little inclined 
to hurl yourself thoughtlessly into oblivion. And no, I do not advocate 
putting a site at risk. If you want to kill yourself please do it somewhere 
where it will have no adverse affect on others. If on the other hand 
you want to carefully evaluate some wing from the past in a methodical 
and careful manner, as I bet would be your inclination, then I can even 
suggest places where that can be done. I may have to have you sign a waiver though!     
~ Ken de Russy    (November 17, 2011)

RAF MonthlyMeeting
Tue, September 11, 6pm – 9pm
Where
785 Winton Road South, Rochester, NY 14618
map
Calendar
rochesterareaflyers@gmail.com
Created by
lonmcclure@gmail.com
Description
Monthly RAF Meeting
Parking available in the driveway and across the street on Maybrooke Road

[JoeF]

Geneseo Airport:
http://www.airnav.com/airport/D52

Jim Rooney's trip to Geneseo

Geneseo 8-7-2012

Geneseo 6-23-2012

[wingspan33]

Good info Joe. To fill in some, Dave Ziegler did start the list. However, he has retired from hang gliding and I've heard he's flying sailplanes now. He's seriously disconnected from the local hang gliding community.

Jack Slocum is (or was?) a moderator but he too has become inactive in the sport and on the email group.

That leaves Steve Houser. He's the effective "man in charge". I'm not entirely sure of his story, but he had some health problem that took him out of the sport for 3 - 4 years. I thought he was getting back into things but have yet to see the fellow at a flying site, much less fly.

The other thing about Mr. Houser (and Mr. Ziegler) is that he lives closest to Binghampton, NY. While I live on the western "cusp" between the Elmira/Binghampton club and the Rochester (RAF) club. This puts me in a unique position of directly experiencing the differences between the two clubs. Mr. Houser, on the other hand, gets a call from some prominent RAF member, gets an ego boost, and promises to fix their problem (which happens to be me posting something critical about RAF on an utterly different club's email list). Result? I'm booted from my own club's email list.

This essentially cuts me off from my fellow club members. And while I could pick up my phone and call 10 people to see if they are going flying, on every possible good flying day, that would cost me $ I can't afford to spend (I have an old fashioned land line phone with no special "service plan"). It would also cost me significant amounts of time - better spent in other ways.

But this action, by one person, has also cut my fellow club members off from communicating with me. Today was a prime example. It was nearly perfect conditions at one of the favorite local sites. On the list, that I've been booted off of, one guy asked effectively, "Is anyone going flying?". Someone else responded, "It sure looks good where I'm at."

All the while, I can't let them know that I am packing up to go flying at this site. And I'm 5 miles from the site so neither can any of my fellow club members ask me how things look "out my window". Ends up I flew alone and 1, 2, or 3 other pilots stayed home and missed a fine day of flying. Seems like just plain idiocy to me.

- My safety is threatened by more likely having to fly alone.
- Other pilots may not fly at all since they don't know I will be flying.

Does it seem like there's anything positive involved here? Oh, right, there's curtailing my freedom of speech - that's a positive.

[JoeF]

Hi Scott,
I am still looking into the matters in the two groups flyhg and the RAF Google group.
My first preliminary feelings opt for reinstatement of your id in flyhg for the purpose of pilot notices, weather, trip planning, and flight stories; it seems that group was aimed at a limited scope of posting.
The RAF situation seems to be going through a passage of evolution that will be tow heavy, maybe to the extent of forgetting foot launching eventually.

And a first blush wondering:
1. The curtailments thrusted for "differences" of opinion and style of communication seems to go too far too soon. Someone seems to have control-perfectionism bolted high while being afraid of differences in the body of members.
2. Maybe a new group dedicated to local-to-you footlaunching could be grown. Moderate pure spam, but leave things open for all kinds of communication styles, even styles of communicating with land owners. Forget perfectionism. Even working together won't be perfect or even samely understood by all members.

The call by one to strip master rating is sad. Trouble is, when there is only one game in nation, abuse is invited. Another reason for US Hawks, etc.

Still studying the matter,

PART of the study is the flyhg record of posts: HERE.
Lift,
JoeF

[JoeF]

1. Just sent a request to Dave Z. to refresh the membership in flyhg for seasoned member asert432
Hope that Dave Z does the right thing on the matter.

2. Posted a note in RAF Google group. Received reply and a long document.

3. Sent note to BobK to see if he is aware of the scene.

=================

[JoeF]

Flying in South Central NY? Check in at

socennyhg· South Central NY H G Pilots Group

[Bill Cummings]

Scott,
I think the exact same thing is happening at USHPA but on a grander scale.
Give your Buds the link to the US Hawks, start a post that your pilot friends can communicate with you.
They could still spam the heck out of the post but they couldn't reach the ban button.

[wingspan33]

First, I want to thank Joe F for his efforts in connection with this matter and on my behalf. I do wonder if those efforts will help. It would be very nice if they did.

And to Bill C, there could be some merit in letting some of my "friendly" hang gliding pals know about the US Hawks and that they can communicate with me here.

However, I can just about guarantee that that would lead to other negative and purposefully destructive (western NY) pilots showing up, as well. There's no doubt in my mind that they would not only spam threads I have initiated, but they would also spew all manner of invented, highly exaggerated and/or distorted information in regard to me and my character.

I happen to be very tired of back and forth "attack" threads. There are around 6 core people in the Rochester club who would make (have made) it their personal vendetta to overwhelm my efforts to explain my position and true intentions - by employing close to non-stop slanderous yammering.

Here's an example that should hit home here -

One thing that RAF member Mark Fruitiger has done on more than a couple occasions is state that my character can be defined in connection with being "thrown out of" the budding HGAA. Closely following that remark is the mention of me being thrown off of hang gliding dot org. The suggested conclusion to be drawn is that I get myself kicked out of every (HG related) place I go (including RAF).

Well, I will bet that there are more than a few members here who know exactly what went on with Jack Axaopoulos (SG) and his pals in connection with the early efforts to begin the HGAA. As the elected Interim Chairman of HGAA, I attempted to help, as best I could, to get that group started. But closet dictator Jack Axaopoulos was bent on having ultimate control of the new organization - in defiance of its original mission of being a fair, democratic, of and for hang glider pilots, representative group.

With the distorted and easily manipulated member voting system the Jack Axaopoulos was pushing down HGAA's throat, I no longer wanted to be part of what was going on. On the day I posted my departure notice, Jack Axaopoulos had already just begun a campaign to get rid of me.

In the end, I am happy that I was "booted out" out of Jack Axaopoulos' twisted little club. I was also happy to leave Jack Axaopoulos' "living room" - his nickname for HG . Org . I have missed the community of pilots there, but they have lost all the informational postings I would have made in connection with 37 years of flying experience. The shame of losing anybody with that degree of history in the sport is a SHAME upon Jack Axaopoulos.

Anyway, . . . I have certainly been "kicked" or "booted" out of one place or another, on one occasion or another. But I was typically already heading for the door in at least mild (or worse) disgust. And in more than one case, I have worked to repair a relationship and been welcomed back in the door once again. And the total times that this kind of thing has even happened are less than the fingers on one of my hands.

* * * *

Gee, that example went longer than I expected! lol But it describes one of the ways and methods used to intentionally distort the truth in order to make someone look bad. And it works best when most of your audience is ignorant of the Bigger Picture as well as the more Detailed Facts involved in the story being woven.

[wingspan33]

Oh, and Bill,

I have two Yahoo groups to which my flying friends have been invited to join. I'm favoring one of the groups a bit more at this time because I am committed to it being a friendly place to communicate with other local (central NY) pilots.

The first Yahoo group I formed was initially required as a place where I could post my side of the local story - without being trampled and drowned out by the RAF nay sayers. It was basically my "Soapbox". It has more of a political feel. Many pilots have an aversion to such topics - because hang gliding is only supposed to be about FUN.

Unfortunately, old habits die hard, and neither of my groups have many more than 10 members. The other two local more active HG/PG pilot email groups have a good bit over 100 members. More than one person has mentioned that they prefer to use the usual group because it holds the "history" of local flying activities.