USHPA Refusing to Renew Torrey Hawks ...

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USHPA Refusing to Renew Torrey Hawks ...

Post by Bob Kuczewski »

"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor"

You may remember those words from Obama ... which turned out to be a lie.

I've posted the main page of the USHPA Chapter application from 2007 (the year the Torrey Hawks became a chapter). You'll find it here: http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php? ... 31&start=8

You'll notice - right at the top - they asked chapters to circle whether they were a hang gliding chapter or a paragliding chapter.

Now the Torrey Hawks club is being refused renewal because we stuck to our application ... and USHPA didn't.

USHPA: "If you like your hang gliding club, you can keep your hang gliding club."

Liars.
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Post by Bob Kuczewski »

Ken Andrews,

Can you tell everyone why USHPA still hasn't renewed the Torrey Hawks Chapter for 2016?

Can you cite the SOP that's being used to deny our renewal?
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Post by Loren »

Damn Obama! I bet he instructed the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate the USHPA!
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Post by Bob Kuczewski »

Ken,

I've asked a pretty reasonable question. The Torrey Hawks Hang Gliding Club has been standing up for the sport of hang gliding at Torrey Pines since 2007. Our club was chosen by the San Diego City Council (in a unanimous vote) to represent the sport of Hang Gliding on the Torrey Pines City Park Advisory Board.

We have renewed our Chapter status with USHPA for every year since 2007 including the current year (2016). Yet USHPA has simply failed to renew us this year. No reason has been given, No SOP has been cited.

Let me ask you again...

As a Region 3 Director in office during this denial, can you cite the USHPA SOP that's being used to deny the Torrey Hawks 2016 Chapter renewal?

Thanks in advance.
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Post by Bob Kuczewski »

Ken Andrews,

Once again, can you tell everyone why USHPA hasn't renewed the Torrey Hawks Chapter status for 2016?

We filled out all the paperwork just like every other club. We renewed just as we have every year since we became a chapter in 2007. This happened under your watch.

Could it be that USHPA knew that the RFP for the Torrey Pines Gliderport was coming out in 2016 and they didn't want the Torrey Hawks to submit a proposal for a club managed site with USHPA insurance?

Ken, this denial happened earlier this year under your watch as Regional Director. You don't need to wait for a Board meeting to state that this is outrageous. You don't need to wait for a Board meeting to publicly request - as a Region 3 Director - that USHPA renew the Torrey Hawks.

You know that the proposals for the RFP are due in November. If the Torrey Hawks were to put together a proposal, they'd need to be doing it now. Yet USHPA has conveniently failed to renew the Torrey Hawks just this year, and the USHPA Board meeting will be too late.

What say you?
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USHPA Explains

Post by gregangsten »

I think Ken is just getting tired of bouncing around at the end of your string.

Lots of discussion and answers to that from Mark Forbes on the HG.ORG forum. http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34745
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Post by Bob Kuczewski »

"The desperate need for humans to be liked within their peer group
is one of their most debilitating and exploitable characteristics."
Ken knows that the Torrey Hawks have been a USHPA Chapter since 2007. Ken knows that we've followed all the same procedures for renewal this year as we have every year since 2007 (Ken has been given a copy of our renewal paperwork). In fact, on May 27th, 2016, Ken Andrews sent this message to myself and our club President (Brian McMahon) and to several other witnesses:
Ken Andrews wrote:Date: Fri, 27 May 2016

Bob and all,

I expect that the USHPA office will process your chapter renewal without problem. If you encounter any further difficulty, let me know, and I’ll do what I can to help.

-Ken
But USHPA did not process our renewal, and they haven't to this day. I have let Ken know about the difficulty, and he has not done what he could to help.

Those are the facts. No strings involved.
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Post by Bob Kuczewski »

Note: This post was a duplicate of the one posted below, but the quotes weren't done properly. At that time, the forum was plagued with errors that would often lock or hide a topic that had been edited. So rather than risk that, I had simply duplicated this post below with the proper quoting marks. Now that the forum software appears to be working better, I have removed the duplicate, and replaced it with this note.
Last edited by Bob Kuczewski on Sun Sep 09, 2018 11:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Bob Kuczewski »

As I read backwards from Ken's false assurance posted above, I found this history of correspondence (posted here in chronological order):
February 27th, 2016, Bob Kuczewski wrote:From: Bob Kuczewski <bobkuczewski>
To: Ashley Miller <ashley>, USHPA: US Hang Gliding & Paragliding Assn. <info>
Cc: Brian <brian>
Subject: Re: Chapter 270 renewal
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 12:08:09 -0800

Hello Ashley and USHPA (cc Brian McMahon),

Thanks for sending the forms. I have attached the following documents which should complete our 2015 renewal for the Torrey Hawks Hang Gliding Club:

- Renewal_Form_2015.pdf
- RiskMgmt_front.pdf
- Flying_Sites.pdf
- Chp270Rpt.pdf
- Bylaws.pdf
- Roster.pdf
- MembApp2008.pdf

Since we do not have any insured sites, we have not included a late fee applicable to insured sites as we have discussed recently and in the past.

Please call both myself (858-204-7499) and our Club President Brian McMahon (phone number removed) immediately if we've missed any requirements for renewal.

Sincerely,
Bob Kuczewski
Club Secretary - Torrey Hawks Hang Gliding Club
That was February of 2016. USHPA refused to renew us and told us that we'd have to wait until the spring because of the "insurance problems". I followed up to be clear:
February 25th, 2016, Bob Kuczewski wrote:From: Bob Kuczewski
Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2016 10:59 AM
To: Ashley Miller <ashley>
Cc: USHPA Information <info>; Brian <brian>
Subject: Re: Chapter 270 renewal

Hello Ashely (cc Brian McMahon),

Thanks for your time on the phone this morning.

I'm just writing to include our Chapter President Brian McMahon in the discussion and to confirm that the 2016 Chapter renewal deadline for the Torrey Hawks (and all other Chapters) is currently extended until some time in June due to the changes in insurance.

As I mentioned on the phone, the Torrey Hawks does not currently purchase insurance, and we would be happy to renew before then, but we are also willing to wait along with other chapters as well.

Please keep us (both Brian and myself) informed as to when we might be able to renew our Chapter status.

Thanks,
Bob Kuczewski
Club Secretary - Torrey Hawks, USHPA Chapter #270
Eventually, I began to wonder about it, and I wrote to Ken.
May 25th, 2016, Bob Kuczewski wrote:From: Bob Kuczewski
To: Kenneth Andrews
Cc: Brian McMahon and others
Subject: Torrey Hawks Club Renewal Help Request
Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 10:40:03 -0700

Hello Ken (cc Torrey Hawks President Brian McMahon, and others),

The Torrey Hawks Hang Gliding Club has been a USHPA Chapter since the fall of 2007. We are USHPA Chapter #270. We have paid all of the fees to be a Chapter and we would like to continue to be a Chapter.

However, we have not yet received our Chapter renewal packet or any other renewal information this year. This is inconsistent with USHPA's process in the past, and I am concerned that USHPA may be trying to essentially remove our Chapter status by simply not giving us the access to renewal information.

Ken, can you let us know what we need to do to renew our Chapter status this year?

Thanks,
Bob Kuczewski
Club Secretary, Torrey Hawks Hang Gliding Club
858-204-7499
Ken wrote back:
May 25th, 2016 wrote:From: Kenneth Andrews
To: Bob Kuczewski
Cc: Brian McMahon and others
Subject: Re: Torrey Hawks Club Renewal Help Request
Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 14:18:47 -0700

Bob,

So far as I know, the Torrey Hawks officers should have received the following chapter renewal information on April 21, and the USHPA Chapter Newsletter on April 15. These provide the information needed for chapter renewal. If you did not get these email messages, I presume you could contact the USHPA office ([email protected]) to get that corrected.

-Ken
But there was no chapter renewal information from USHPA, and we had contacted the USHPA office several times. Both Brian and myself double checked our email and verified that we had not gotten anything from USHPA about our renewal.

I wrote to Ken and Brian:
May 26th, 2016, Bob Kuczewski wrote:On May 26, 2016, at 11:52 AM, Bob Kuczewski wrote:
Thanks Brian. I checked my deleted and junk items as well and didn't find anything.

Ken, it's quite possible that USHPA will try to avoid renewing our Chapter status out of spite. They got away with expelling me for no reason, and they may do the same with our club's renewal. If that ends up being the case, will you help us with our renewal?

Thanks,
Bob Kuczewski
That's when Ken replied with the message that I quoted in my previous post:
May 27th, 2016, Ken Andrews wrote:From: Kenneth Andrews
To: Bob Kuczewski
Cc: Brian and others
Subject: Re: Chapter 270 renewal (Torrey Hawks)
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 09:54:52 -0700

Bob and all,

I expect that the USHPA office will process your chapter renewal without problem. If you encounter any further difficulty, let me know, and I’ll do what I can to help.

-Ken
Ken wrote: "I'll do what I can to help".

Ken knows that this is being done to undermine our club's ability to propose an alternative to the ongoing the commercial dominance at Torrey. Yet Ken has done nothing to fix it.
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Post by Jim »

Has anyone tried hanging upside-down until their nose bleeds? It may be that the pressure on the brain causes the capillaries directly adjacent to the sinuses to expand beyond the capacity of one's normal hemostasis to prevent leakage. Good for Halloween as it would cause one to appear to be bleeding from their eyes, no make-up required. Let it coagulate and dry and you're good for Dia de los Muertos también.
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Post by JD »

Jim wrote:Has anyone tried hanging upside-down until their nose bleeds? It may be that the pressure on the brain causes the capillaries directly adjacent to the sinuses to expand beyond the capacity of one's normal hemostasis to prevent leakage. Good for Halloween as it would cause one to appear to be bleeding from their eyes, no make-up required. Let it coagulate and dry and you're good for Dia de los Muertos también.
Would it help to add prosthetic bat wings for the full blood-sucking vampire effect?
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Post by Bob Kuczewski »

Ahhh ... with such witty postings is there any doubt why the sport of hang gliding is in decline and has become uninsurable in the United States?

Keep at it fellows, maybe you can make things even worse yet.
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Post by Jim »

Hey, Jonathan! We should partner up. Together, our wittiness could, reputedly, decimate the sport of hang gliding. Let's bring those suckers to their knees! Maybe we should start attending local government meetings to publicly point out everything that's wrong with our sport, you know, become annoying gadflies for the sake of misguided anger. We could videotape everything that goes on at our sites and edit for the most disparaging moments to post for public posting. Then we could scan for litigation and testify against those 'scofflaw' pilots, win some real money for the plaintiffs to empty the insurance coffers. Yeah, we can do this! Wait, first, let's be so disruptive to our sport and clubs that they have no choice but to dump us. We can start by forming our own club to compete. I hear that if we manipulate the membership numbers enough we could even be sanctioned by the group we're trying to bring down... until they figure it out and kick our club out, too.

I'm in Jonathan. Let's get started! (You may have noticed, Jonathan, that in my quest for wit, I first posted this on the wrong thread. However, it matters not. It's all the same pile of offal, after all.)
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Post by JD »

Jim wrote:Hey, Jonathan! We should partner up. Together, our wittiness could, reputedly, decimate the sport of hang gliding. Let's bring those suckers to their knees! Maybe we should start attending local government meetings to publicly point out everything that's wrong with our sport, you know, become annoying gadflies for the sake of misguided anger. We could videotape everything that goes on at our sites and edit for the most disparaging moments to post for public posting. Then we could scan for litigation and testify against those 'scofflaw' pilots, win some real money for the plaintiffs to empty the insurance coffers. Yeah, we can do this! Wait, first, let's be so disruptive to our sport and clubs that they have no choice but to dump us. We can start by forming our own club to compete. I hear that if we manipulate the membership numbers enough we could even be sanctioned by the group we're trying to bring down... until they figure it out and kick our club out, too.

I'm in Jonathan. Let's get started! (You may have noticed, Jonathan, that in my quest for wit, I first posted this on the wrong thread. However, it matters not. It's all the same pile of offal, after all.)
You can count me in Jim. Given the combined power of our joint wittiness I think the sky's the limit and Hell's the floor. Now I regret failing to shoot video of the shedding of tears in the Dockweiller parking lot during the Otto event. "How could you publicly support USHPA's decision against me? I am deeply hurt inside. Boo, hoo, hoo. Weep, weep, weep." I really cannot stand to see a groaning man cry so I didn't stick around in spite of the rare confluence of pioneers in the revival of the sport of hang gliding. Maybe it was simply the smell of bat guano that drove me off?
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Post by Bob Kuczewski »

Jim, much of your post is opinion. But you used the phrase "manipulate the membership numbers". That's a serious allegation. Please provide either facts or your source of that faulty information. If you can't provide either, that will be implicit proof that you don't know what you're talking about. For anyone who hasn't read the USHPA SOP's, it takes 5 members to be a USHPA chapter. Heck, we've got 4 members on our Board alone. Does anyone claim we don't have 5 members?

For Jonathan, there's a special place in hell for pilots who unjustly ground other pilots or take delight in such injustices.
Jim wrote:Hey, Jonathan! We should partner up. Together, our wittiness could, reputedly, decimate the sport of hang gliding. Let's bring those suckers to their knees! Maybe we should start attending local government meetings to publicly point out everything that's wrong with our sport, you know, become annoying gadflies for the sake of misguided anger. We could videotape everything that goes on at our sites and edit for the most disparaging moments to post for public posting. Then we could scan for litigation and testify against those 'scofflaw' pilots, win some real money for the plaintiffs to empty the insurance coffers. Yeah, we can do this! Wait, first, let's be so disruptive to our sport and clubs that they have no choice but to dump us. We can start by forming our own club to compete. I hear that if we manipulate the membership numbers enough we could even be sanctioned by the group we're trying to bring down... until they figure it out and kick our club out, too.

I'm in Jonathan. Let's get started! (You may have noticed, Jonathan, that in my quest for wit, I first posted this on the wrong thread. However, it matters not. It's all the same pile of offal, after all.)
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Post by Jim »

Hey Jonathan, have you noticed that narcissists always think they're the one everyone is talking about?
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Post by JD »

Jim wrote:Hey Jonathan, have you noticed that narcissists always think they're the one everyone is talking about?
Well Jim, When someone hears little else beyond the disembodied voices within one's own personal headspace it's difficult to counter such a notion as those voices cannot be heard by anyone external and are therefore non-verifiable.
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Torrey Hawks as a USHPA chapter

Post by Ken Andrews »

Bob, and voting members of the Torrey Hawks, and the world,

Let me begin with a couple general comments. I think that solutions to most of your problems require both reasoned discussion and compromise. Online discussion forums are rather bad at both: discussions are notoriously prone to erupt into flame wars; and it’s human nature to defend one’s initial opinions after they’ve been published to the world, however misguided they may be upon reflection. Hence, I think a pilot forum is the wrong venue for this discussion, not to mention that this forum belongs to SHGA and not the Torrey Hawks. But since you’ve been attacking me here, I’ll respond here.

Early on in this thread, I responded to you by email:
From: Andrews, Kenneth S
Subject: Torrey Hawks and the Gliderport RFP
Date: September 27, 2016 at 8:21:59 PM PDT
To: Bob Kuczewski

Bob,

… I think the Torrey Hawks is probably an asset to the free flight community, and I don’t see that it poses any significant risks to USHPA. I have requested that USHPA renew chapter status for the Torrey Hawks both by email and by telephone, particularly citing a letter of support from John Heiney. People associate the Torrey Hawks with you though, and your reputation seems to be unassailable, so I fear my requests landed on deaf ears. At the fall board meeting in a couple weeks, I'll make another plea on behalf of the Torrey Hawks. Perhaps a face to face conversation will achieve more than I could by email or phone. …
Now, perhaps you can provide a little information to help me defend the Torrey Hawks at the board meeting next week. As you know, one of the concerns is over the definition of a member. Roughly speaking, I think the Torrey Hawks considers anyone who has ever expressed any interest to be a member, with no membership fees, no expectations, and no expiration date; and then you delete people from that list as needed to meet USHPA’s requirement that 70% of chapter members are USHPA members. That’s obviously a pretty meaningless way to define a member, and the Torrey Hawks evidently agrees, since they also have a class of “voting members�. If I recall right, the Torrey Hawks defines a “voting member� as any member who has a Hang-4 rating or above, and who has flown at Torrey Pines within the last three years.

USHPA’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) have some requirements that USHPA chapters must meet. As I understand those requirements, the intent is that USHPA chapters should largely consist of USHPA members with a commitment to similar goals. Given how the Torrey Hawks defines “member� and “voting member�, I think it makes more sense to use the latter class when applying the USHPA SOPs.
06-01.03 A. Chapters must have at least five members.
How many “voting members� does the Torrey Hawks have?
06-01.03 B. At least 70% of the Chapter members must be USHPA members. Chapters are required to provide USHPA with a membership roster annually...
What percentage of the Torrey Hawks “voting members" are USHPA members? I won’t ask for a list now, but may need it eventually to support the Torrey Hawks.
06-01.03 G.1. Chapters are required to hold annual elections for chapter officers.

06-01.03 G.3. Chapter members shall be entitled to hold office as officers of the chapter...
How do you solicit nominations for officers, and when are your annual elections? I’d welcome responses from any voting members of the Torrey Hawks about the annual election process, and whether the elections appear to be open and fair.

My apologies to the world for disrupting the peace, and my thanks to all voting members of the Torrey Hawks who choose to reply.
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Re: Torrey Hawks as a USHPA chapter

Post by JD »

Ken Andrews wrote:.....If I recall right, the Torrey Hawks defines a “voting member� as any member who has a Hang-4 rating or above, and who has flown at Torrey Pines within the last three years....
Ooh. I'm a USHPA H-4 and member of the Torrey Hawks but haven't flown there since 12/26/12 so I guess that eliminates one voting member from the calculations. If Bob puts some nice kosher lunch meat in his cooler, assists me in schlepping my glider back up the bluff (as I tend to bomb out a lot) and accepts my offer of free Kleenex to dry away his tears (undoubtedly of joy from seeing me again) then I'd be happy to drive the 100 miles each way from my home to Torrey on the next post-frontal day.
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Thanks for asking Ken ...

Post by Bob Kuczewski »

Ken Andrews wrote:I think that solutions to most of your problems require both reasoned discussion and compromise.
No. Absolutely no. The solutions to most of our problems require that USHPA simply follow their own rules and follow them fairly. There's no compromise. There's no need for compromise. They have rules, and we've followed them just like every other club in the nation. USHPA has no legitimacy in making "special" rules for clubs with members who they might not like. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue (borrowed from Barry Goldwater).
Ken Andrews wrote:... since you’ve been attacking me here, I’ll respond here.
Ken, it gives me no pleasure to be critical of you or Alan Crouse or Dan DeWeese or Bill Helliwell. I wanted to be proud of each of you. But the job of Regional Director sometimes requires the courage to stand up to the insiders at USHPA. When I became Director, Joe Greblo gave me the "go along to get along" speech. That's actually a fine approach when you're dealing with fine people. But that's not what we have at USHPA. You know there was no justification for my expulsion, and you know there was no justification for USHPA not renewing the Torrey Hawks. They took both of those actions out of spite and revenge. The Torrey Hawks club has 180+ members, and USHPA was willing to throw every one of them under the bus as revenge against me. What kind of an organization would do that?

OK, let me address the matter at hand. I'll start with a little history.

The Torrey Hawks club was founded on April 11th, 2007 by myself, John Heiney, and Dave Beardslee (members #1, #2, and #3). At the time, David Jebb was the dominant bully at Torrey, and many of our members joined with a request that I do my best not to let Jebb know who they were. They were afraid of retaliation. You don't understand that kind of fear at Sylmar, and you're very lucky you don't. Imagine being afraid to publicly be a member of the SHGA because you might be harassed or even banned from your flying site. That's what we've lived with for most of the history of our club ... even to this day.

For example, I've seen Jebb command his flock of para-guppies to do his bidding at the SDHGPA. In the spring of 2007, the SDHGPA was going to hold an advisory vote on who to appoint to the Torrey Pines Soaring Council for their club. The candidates were myself and Gabriel Jebb. A typical SDHGPA meeting is about 5 to 10 people. At that meeting David Jebb filled the room with his students who came to join the SDHGPA just to vote. I'll bet that was the biggest membership spike in the history of that club (a year later, they almost all expired without renewing). The pressure in that room was intense with David Jebb, Gabe Jebb, Maya Jebb, and all of Jebb's instructors glaring at anyone who might vote against Gabe. I asked for a secret ballot so people could vote their conscience, but the SDHPGA leadership refused my request and called for a show of hands. There were 4 of us with the courage to vote against Gabe Jebb, and I'll never forget the brave hands raised by John Heiney, Glen Phillips, and Ernie Casco.

After nearly 2 decades of the Jebbs pushing paragliding in San Diego, we've become a mostly paragliding town. I fly both (H4/P4), and I would surely like to see the sports get along. But the paragliding juggernaut at Torrey is crushing the sport of hang gliding at that site, and in much of San Diego. Just look at the new pilots every month in the magazine.

So when the Torrey Hawks became a USHPA Chatper (September of 2007) we needed a way to ensure that we could remain a hang gliding club. That's when we came up with our Membership bylaw that includes this statement:
"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."
I didn't know it at the time, but it turns out that the Fellow Feathers club (Fort Funston) has had a similar rule:
Fellow Feathers Bylaws wrote:ARTICLE V: MEMBERSHIP, Section 2: There shall be two classes of members, voting and non-voting. Voting members shall be pilots who have flown hang gliders at Fort Funston for more than 20 hours in the calendar year preceding the year in which they are entitled to vote. All members who are not voting members shall be non-voting members.
They have changed the number of hours from time to time, but I believe some form of that rule is still in place to this day. In their case, they're trying to keep paragliding pilots out. In our case, we're simply trying to survive in an environment where we would be taken over and eliminated. Paragliding is not an endangered sport at Torrey, but hang gliding is barely hanging on. Most hang glider pilots (and many fair-minded paraglider pilots) have recognized that, and that's the largest source of our membership.

I was not around when USHGA allowed paragliding into the association, but I'll bet that promises were made that "everything would be OK, nothing will change for hang gliding pilots". That has not been the case, and Torrey Pines has been "ground zero" for the paragliding take-over that we now see at USHPA itself (PG Presidents and Executive Directors for years now). The same has been true of the SDHGPA.

... continued in next post due to FastCGI Error ...
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