Re: Re: Indoor Housekeeping (with apologies to the innocent)

From: William Gowen <wdgowen_at_gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:19:03 -0400

There's maybe more that needs to be said about this. Different people do
things in different ways. When I'm at a contest I don't make a practice
of seeking out people who are having trouble to see if I can help. But
if anyone asks for my opinion or my help I will always try to give them
as much as possible - even to the point in Colorado this year of losing
track of the time I had to fly LPP on Saturday. This is my way of
"growing the sport" - trying to keep people interested who might be
feeling overwhelmed or discouraged or just inquisitive.

Kang and I have both written extensively on HPA about indoor flying
which is another way to get people interested or keep them interested. I
can't say this has been an overwhelming success but it has produced a
number of people who have given indoor a try or who intend to do so.

When I started flying indoor one of the things that was a major problem
for me was getting yelled at about something almost every time I flew.
Unfortunately I saw this happening several times at USIC this year to
people who had put out considerable time and money to be there for the
first time. This is REALLY not the way to grow the sport and in the
cases I saw it was the people running the contest who did the yelling.

On 7/2/2012 2:02 PM, John Kagan wrote:
>
> --- In Indoor_Construction_at_yahoogroups.com
> <mailto:Indoor_Construction%40yahoogroups.com>, "Randy Reynolds"
> <rreyno_at_...> wrote:
> >
> > ...my observation is that dedicated indoorists are pretty
> introspective folks who aren't likely to lend themselves to the act of
> growing the sport.
> >
>
> Hi Randy,
>
> Based on my experience, I disagree. There are plenty of Indoorists who
> are spending a significant amount of their time on projects to promote
> Indoor.
>
> Introspection isn't a bad thing, either. One of the best ways to prove
> to a newcomer that an activity is fun is to actually have fun doing it.
>
> Conversely, a great way to scare people off is to endlessly talk about
> how Indoor is dying off (which it isn't), how it needs to be more fun
> (which it doesn't), or how the participants are out-of-touch elitists
> with unnatural abilities who don't care if anyone else joins (which
> they aren't).
>
> Certainly we will benefit by more participation. And the way to get it
> is through exposure, and through health local activity.
>
> There is no need to panic, and change who we are and what we do.
>
>
Received on Mon Jul 02 2012 - 12:19:08 CEST