Bob Hawk wrote:There's a well-known saying:
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner."Look at the magazine every month and ask how long it will be until hang gliding is inconsequential to USHPA's business. Ask how long it will be until it's impossible to elect a single hang gliding Director in any Region.
Of course, everything's fine and dandy if there are no conflicts at your local site. Crestline is my favorite example of that situation and I'm sure there are many others.
But then look at a site where one wing (PG in this case) is squeezing the other out of existence. Torrey is my favorite example of that situation. That's when you see just how useless a combined organization can be.
There are 4 aircraft types at Torrey: sailplanes, RCs, hang gliders and paragliders. The Torrey Pines Soaring Council is supposed to be made up of a "fair" proportion of each. Here's how that looks right now:
Rep #1 - AGCSC (sailplane pilot)
Rep #2 - SSA (sailplane pilot)
Rep #3 - AMA (RC pilot)
Rep #4 - Gulls (RC pilot)
Rep #5 - SSS (RC pilot)
Rep #6 - USHPA (mostly PG pilot)
Rep #7 - SDHGPA (PG pilot)
Where's the dedicated hang gliding pilot? There is none because both of the "HG/PG" clubs have chosen primarily paragliding pilots.
The RC clubs would fight tooth and nail to keep each of their 3 seats. They don't let any of them be "RC/HG" or "RC/PG" seats. They ensure that those seats vote for RC issues. The same is true of the sailplane seats.
But because we're a "combined" organization, hang gliding gets essentially ZERO representation on that Council.
Davis will likely remember the day (back in the spring of 2010) when the USHPA Board voted to pass my resolution to work to increase our representation on the Torrey Pines Soaring Council so we could get more representation for our sports (presumably both of them). What has been done in over 5 years? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Now imagine if USHPA had been two organizations all these years. The early makeup of the Soaring Council (before PG came along) was 2 HG, 2 RC, and 2 sailplane. If PG had stayed in their own organization, do you think an all hang gliding USHGA would have given up their two seats to share with the PGs? No way. Of course not. What would have happened is that the PGs would have argued for their own representation, and if all went well, they would have gotten
their own 2 seats. So the Council would have looked like this:
Rep #1 - AGCSC (sailplane pilot)
Rep #2 - SSA (sailplane pilot)
Rep #3 - AMA (RC pilot)
Rep #4 - Gulls (RC pilot)
Rep #5 - SSS (RC pilot)
Rep #6 - USHGA (HG pilot)
Rep #7 - SDHGA (HG pilot)
Rep #8 - USPGA (PG pilot)
Rep #9 - SDPGA (PG pilot)
Looky there. Our combined sports would have had twice the representation that we have now. Furthermore, we'd have had 2 representatives on the Council who would have cared exclusively about hang gliding. Instead, we have none.
Let's use round numbers and say that USHPA has about 10,000 members, and it's roughly 6,000 PG and 4,000 HG. The sport of hang gliding would be much much better off to have the resources of 4,000 members fully dedicated to hang gliding than having the resources of 10,000 members mostly dedicated to paragliding. Remember the 2 wolves and a sheep? The vote of 6.000 members will always defeat the vote of 4,000 members when an issue becomes contentious. That's why we've had ZERO support at Torrey. We haven't had 50%, or 45%, or 40%. We've gotten 0%.
And if that wasn't enough, imagine how important hang gliding would be in a combined national "hang gliding and scuba diving" organization - using Angelo's estimate of 1,000,000 to 10,000? That's why each sport (whether huge or tiny) tends to form its own organization. That's what hang gliding needs to do if we want to survive and thrive again.
Back to Mark Forbes:
Mgforbes wrote:Our sport has many facets, and we on the BOD think that it's good to be inclusive of all the diverse aspects of foot-launched flight. Some may disagree with that; if so, we have elections for regional directors and you can run for the position and make your argument that we're doing it all wrong.
Elections for Regional Directors? Remember the "two wolves and a sheep" analogy, and you'll see right through Mark's "solution" to this problem.
The bottom line is that hang gliding needs an organization that will
sink or swim on the survival of hang gliding alone. That's the only way we're going to get dedicated support and dedicated resources helping
our sport. With USHPA, all of your money is in the hands of an increasingly PG-centric Board and membership. Think about it.
By the way, for anyone who's forgotten, I'm an H4/P4 pilot, and I would be speaking up for fairness to PG pilots if things were reversed. I'm not a "PG hater" or "anti-PG". I just want fairness for both sports and right now HG is in deep trouble. I do believe there are PDMC-related problems with paragliding, and that might be another reason for separation. But I'm not even having to rely on that argument for the analysis I've presented here. This is just by the numbers.
Thanks Davis.
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