Hi Chris,
You are exactly correct (and I'd suggest that yours is the type of substantive input that comes from someone who has knowledge and experience with what Indoor really is, so thanks for that).
There has been a lot of discussion over the years about how to obtain flying sites (search through this forum's archives to see a lot of it). There has also been a lot of effort by a much smaller set of people to actually get our community into sites, resulting in what is currently available. I can name most of these special people one hand - and their efforts are more appreciated than they probably know.
When I was leading the NFFS Indoor Committee efforts, I broke the flying sites into "local", "regional", and "national" level categories, because there felt like tangible difference between them. "Local" sites tended to be smaller, more frequently available, and have a local draw. "National" level sites tended to be annual, special, more expensive, and drew participants from long distances. "Regional" level sites were in between. Almost all of them seem to have been obtained through an inside contact.
There's a bit of a chicken and egg syndrome involved, since flying sites are required if we want to draw new participants, but a certain number of participants are required to fund the larger sites.
Therefore, the committee had a project to help support "local" level sites as a grassroots way to build participation and subsequently make the "national" level sites feasible. There have been some good achievements from the project, but there is still much more that can be accomplished.
It would be great if you could share your local site acquisition knowledge with the committee - and possibly even participate in flying site project.
It is good that certain topics keep coming up - flying sites, participation, beginner models, etc. - as this is evidence that they are important. We should educate ourselves on the historical discussions (lest we doom ourselves to repeat them), and advance the conversation - or better yet, generate some new action.
Received on Mon Feb 15 2016 - 11:21:57 CET
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:48 CET