Of course, I support Joe Faust as an Advisory Director of the US Hawks.
YESJoe, we are not real directors at this time.
We are just a group offering formal opinions in private.
There's been a lot of discussion about making the Hawks 501c3.
It may not be the best route.
A visionary (not me) had a brilliant idea I'd like to toss into the ring.
I recently captured the domain USHGA.AERO and temporarily redirected it to USHGRS.ORG.
This could stand for the U.S. Hang Glider Association in honor of Joe's original concept, which I believe would survive any challange as "prior art."
USHGA.AERO could serve as a new Free Flight Foundation for hang gliding.
The Free Flight Foundation used to serve hang gliding, but when paragliding came along I was stunned to find that funds were prohibited from being dispensed to dedicated hang gliding endeavors.
Some weird form of political correctness got in there and required hang glider folks to support zero-negative-loading aircraft to share in any funding.
What to do? After nearly 1,800 needless paragliding deaths since 1986, we may have come upon the answer.
The suggestion is that USHGA.AERO become a 501c3 to serve as a gateway to all things hang gliding and dispense donated funds to pure hang gliding causes.
This could be a big boost to the desperately needed separation of the sports and a resurgence of hang gliding.
It solves the thorny problem of making the Hawks a 501c3 - we don't need it. We don't need the headache.
Let USHGA.AERO serve that purpose.
The trick is to do it is through public charity sponsorship.
An example is the Edward Charles Foundation
https://edwardcharlesfoundation.org/aboutNo Hawks directors are exposed to liability.
The Hawks don't even run USHGA.AERO.
USHGA.AERO doesn't even need to be a 501c3 and everything is run by top-notch professionals who know exactly what they are doing.
They take a chunk from the donations. That's okay. The rest would come to USHGA.AERO and be dispensed to worthy hang gliding proposals.
So the Hawks remain a discussion group without liability, if it chooses, or it can launch a nationwide hang gliding association.
USHGA.AERO will serve a gateway to the Hawks and all things hang gliding.
In fact, USHGA.AERO has a high-dollar website, yet to be built, with unlimited subdomains, each with unlimited bandwidth.
Complete subdomains will be offered to all participants for free. USHGA.AERO will provide credentials to the webmaster of each subdomain.
The start page for USHGA.AERO explains the effort to reinvigorate hang gliding and presents logos of clubs, businesses and individual projects,with links to the subdomains.
The subdomains have to be public and hang-gliding oriented.
Each participant will build his subdomain. He can use simple WordPress or complex code. Everything is available.
Existing websites can mirror, hotlink or expand with their subdomains.
Since everyone will be building their own subdomains, the website might spring into being without much centralized effort.
The only money taken in by USHGA.AERO will be through the donation button or routed through the 501c3 sponsor.
Businesses with subdomains will direct any payments or sales of goods to their businesses, not USHGA.AERO.
There will be no billing or requests for payment for any services, nor any legal association with any group other than the 501c3 sponsor.
I have already been promised the first year of web funding by hang gliding enthusiasts.
This is the first time I've brought up the sponsorship idea.