[Rodger]

Congratulations US Hawks!

[Bob Kuczewski]

Congratulations US Hawks!

Thanks Rodger.

I think our longevity is due to our no money approach. No money means we're all here for the love of the sport. That's hard to kill.

Thanks for your continued membership.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Happy 11th Birthday to the U.S. Hawks!!

It was 11 years ago today that we started the U.S. Hawks Hang Gliding Association. That was during the "meltdown" of the HGAA (Hang Gliding Association of America) which a number of us had formed on hanggliding.org in the spring of 2010. At that time we were all relying on hanggliding.org for communication, and Jack Axaopoulos (sg) had begun banning anyone dissenting his own takeover of the HGAA. As Scott mentioned in his earlier post, our first attempt at mass communication after Jack's banning was through the Yahoo and Google groups that Scott and I had founded. Those groups were later documented here:

     http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=113

Our first few topics on the U.S. Hawks can be most easily found using topic numbers:

     http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1 Hello US Hawks!!
     http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2 What a day to begin! Yea!
     http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3 Aaahhhhh!
     http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4 Welcome to the Torrey Hawks Forum
     http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5 Second Sundays Fly Ins (August, 2010)

Thanks to Scott for helping to document this from his earlier post on our 8th birthday:

I believe that the following link leads to my first post here -

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3

  :

PS - If you want to check out very early US Hawks history, check out this link.

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=113

In it Bob transfers information from a Google Group and Yahoo Group that Bob and I respectively created and which predated the (then new) US Hawks web site.

Thanks for that documentation Scott.  

Also, on this 11th Birthday of the U.S. Hawks, I've taken the liberty of consolidating our "Hawks Birthday" topics and posts to make them easier to find. I hope it's not confusing for anyone.

Thanks to all members of the U.S. Hawks for an amazing 11 years!!

                                                      

[Bob Kuczewski]

Happy 12th Birthday to the U.S. Hawks!!

It was 12 years ago today that we started the U.S. Hawks Hang Gliding Association. And the rest is history.

Thanks again and again to all members of the U.S. Hawks for an amazing dozen years!!

                                          
                                          

Also, on this 12th birthday of the U.S. Hawks, I want to recognize the early vision of Scott Wise as shown in this August 19, 2006 post to the Oz Forum:

Scott_Wise_HGA_2006.jpg (128.39 KiB) Viewed 1235 times

You can still find Scott's post here: http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3777

Here's Scott's post as it appears today:

Scott_Wise_Post_2016.png (135.62 KiB) Viewed 1235 times

Here's the poll itself as it appears today:

Scott_Wise_Poll_2016.png (177.35 KiB) Viewed 1235 times

[Chris McKeon]

i Hope that the By-Lays, the way the Hawks Clubs General Legal Set-Up will sustain the Clubs Ability to remain what It is. That the HAWKS will be able to ward off an attack such as a n Attack USHGA was not able to fend off in the Nineteen Eighties, When We lost our Hang Glide Organization to Paragliders. Heck anyone could se back then That The ParaGliders needed as Club, so as to represent their interests. But it was Wrong, it was dead Wrong wrong of Paragliders to take Our organization from us. Heck, I remember writing a Letter that really foretold what indeed did happen. I said that due to their sheer numbers. That They would use Democracy against us. And They did just that. They stole our Club away from us.

[Bob Kuczewski]

They would use Democracy against us.

There's a very good saying:

      Democracy is 2 wolves and 1 sheep voting on what's for dinner.

Some people mistakenly believe that democracy ensures our rights. But democracy does not protect us from the tyranny of the majority. It's our "Bill of Rights" that has protected us here in the United States for the past couple of centuries. We will need something similar to protect our hang gliding association.

i Hope that the By-Lays, the way the Hawks Clubs General Legal Set-Up will sustain the Clubs Ability to remain what It is.

I don't think we've drafted bylaws for the U.S. Hawks yet. But here's what we have for the Torrey Hawks:

    https://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=34

• Article I - Name
  The name of the organization shall be the Torrey Hawks Hang Gliding Club. The club may also be known as the Torrey Pines Hawks Hang Gliding Club, Torrey Pines Hawks Hang Gliding Association, Torrey Pines Hang Gliding Association, or simply (and most commonly) the Torrey Hawks. The club web site shall be TorreyHawks.org.
   
• Article II - Purpose
  The Torrey Hawks Hang Gliding Club is dedicated to promoting and protecting the sport of Hang Gliding at the Torrey Pines Gliderport.
   
• Article III - Membership
  The membership of the Torrey Hawks Hang Gliding Club shall consist of individuals whose applications for membership have been accepted by the Association. Voting members must hold a USHPA rating of H4 or above and have flown a hang glider at the Torrey Pines Gliderport within the previous three years. Expired USHPA members may be placed on inactive status as needed to maintain compliance with USHPA membership requirements.
   
• Article IV - Officers
  The officers of the Torrey Hawks shall be a President, Vice-President, and Secretary. These officers are elected for a one year term by voting members of the Club at the annual meeting. Representatives of the club to other organizations shall be chosen by the President.
   
• Article V - Meetings
  The Torrey Hawks shall hold at least one annual meeting for the election of new officers. All other meetings are considered Special Meetings and will be scheduled as needed by a majority of the Torrey Hawks Officers. Meetings may be held electronically.
   
• Article VI - Minutes and Records
  The Torrey Hawks secretary will take notes at all meetings and distribute them electronically as requested by members.
   
• Article VII - Parlimentary Authority
  The Torrey Hawks meetings shall be governed by Robert's Rules of Order, Revised unless otherwise provided for in these By-Laws.
   
• Article VIII - Ammendments
  Ammendments to these By-Laws may be made during Annual or Special Meetings and require a two-thirds vote of the voting membership present at any such meeting.

They should probably be updated, but you can see that voting membership has specific hang gliding requirements.

As for the U.S. Hawks, here's a topic where we began working on bylaws nearly a decade ago ...

      Developing the US Hawks Bylaws

Thanks for reviving interest in our bylaws, and I just made a suggestion to that topic. Please feel free to join the discussion there. Thanks.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Happy 13 Years of the U.S. Hawks!!

It was 13 years ago today that several of us recognized the need for a hang gliding association dedicated to standing up for the rights of its members. So on August 13th, 2010, we founded the U.S. Hawks Hang Gliding Association.

For anyone interested in exploring our history, you can find our earliest topics by using a topic number as in the following URL:

      https://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1

That will take you to the first topic on the forum ("Hello U.S. Hawks!") from August 13th, 2010. You can substitute other topic numbers (such as "t=2" or "t=3") to explore other early topics from the forum.

Thanks to our founders and to everyone who has worked to build the U.S. Hawks.