[Frank Colver]

These questions are why we need a member or interested party, knowledgeable in the subjects, that would be willing to put in some time (free) to determine the answers. So far, none have stepped forward, so we don't know if there is (are) such knowledgeable person(s) on the forum.

FC

[Rick Masters]

For now, I like the idea of a bunch of pilots talking about an organization more than a bunch of pilots being responsible for an organization.
This was Bob's idea and it was good.
The trigger point comes when hundreds of voices are demanding action be taken and that action is described in detail.
This means three things have happened.
1) Our argument has gained traction.
2) People are getting off the fence.
3) The easy part is over.
Well, at least I can tell the easy part isn't over yet.
I'm having too much fun.    

[Bill Cummings]

Users online last 60 minutes.JPG (21.97 KiB) Viewed 6826 times

(4/19/2019 @ 2pm)

[wingspan33]

Curious how I was just on the phone with a U$hPa RD and he mentioned that the US Hawks isn't even on the Nat Org's radar. 243 people is not a small number. Are they all newbies? Probably not. Some percentage are Nat Org hang glider pilot members.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Curious how I was just on the phone with a U$hPa RD and he mentioned that the US Hawks isn't even on the Nat Org's radar.

That's curious indeed. In the spring of 2015 I was expelled from USHPA by a nationally broadcast vote of their Board of Directors. What was at the top of their list of reasons?

The behavior upon which the board has determined that you should be expelled from the association falls into the following categories:

1. Creation of at least two national hang gliding organizations with the stated purpose of competing with USHPA, one of which you currently control;

So I was expelled from USHPA by a vote of their Directors with the number 1 written reason being the creation of the U.S. Hawks, and yet a USHPA Director told you that "the US Hawks isn't even on the Nat Org's radar"? Did that Director even read the charges against me in the expulsion notice before he voted? Or did he lie to you when he said "the US Hawks isn't even on the Nat Org's radar"? Either way, it doesn't reflect well on the USHPA Board.

[Bob Kuczewski]

The U.S. Hawks 100+ List as of July 4th, 2019:

Hundred_Plus_20190704.png (63.29 KiB) Viewed 6509 times

[Bob Kuczewski]

Post Counts on U.S. Hawks, hanggliding.org, and Oz Forum

I decided to count the recent posts on the three largest hang gliding forums to see how we're doing. I took out a sheet of paper and went through the Oz Forum, then the U.S. Hawks, and then hanggliding.org. The paper I started with had 22 lines available, so I went back 22 days from today. The results really surprised me:

Oz Forum	92 posts
U.S. Hawks	98 posts
HG.org	98 posts

Now in all fairness, there are a few differences worth noting. First, there were some subforums on HG.org (such as "Accident Reports") which I could not see because they were "members only". Second, it's fair to say that of the three forum moderators (Jack, Davis, and myself), I make more posts than either of the other two, and I also made an unusually high number of posts (28) on October 7th. Davis similarly makes a high percentage of posts himself since he seems to start most Oz topics and also participates frequently. But I suspect my percentage is still higher. As for Jack, he almost never posts anymore (except to ban people or lock topics). In fact, I'm not even sure if he's still flying at all.

But even with those caveats, I have to say that we came out much better in that comparison than I expected.

In case anyone wants to check the numbers (please do), I've included the data I used below. The left column shows the day of the month (October, 2019), then the next three columns show the number of posts that I counted on that day for each of the three forums.

Date (Oct, 2019)	Oz Forum	U.S. Hawks	HG.org
27	1	8	2
26	1	7	0
25	6	2	4
24	18	3	2
23	7	8	0
22	3	6	4
21	2	9	8
20	3	0	8
19	2	1	0
18	1	1	9
17	4	1	4
16	5	2	12
15	2	1	6
14	1	1	5
13	6	2	6
12	3	2	2
11	7	2	5
10	4	2	2
9	3	3	5
8	10	6	4
7	0	28	3
6	3	3	7
Total	92	98	98

[SamKellner]

[Bob Kuczewski]

Today marks another little milestone in the history of the U.S. Hawks.

We started the U.S. Hawks Advisory Board of Directors in January of 2015. That's almost 5 years ago.

Since that time, we've had many votes on many issues, and most have been unanimous. I think they've been unanimous because most of our Board members share a love of hang gliding and a love of fairness. So I am very happy that we have a largely harmonious Board of Directors.

But what makes me even happier (believe it or not) is when our Board proves that they are truly independent spirits who can vote their own consciences regardless of whether they agree with me or not. That happened again today, and I am very proud to say that I found myself (for the second time) on the losing side of a vote.

Thanks to all U.S. Hawks Advisory Board members for helping to make the U.S. Hawks what we've always envisioned it to be. I salute each of you!

  Bill
  Joe
  Sam
  Scott

[Frank Colver]

Any thanks for past board members who voted on important matters when they were on the board?

How soon we forget.

FC