I can tell you one of the aggravating things about being a chapter: USHPA/RRRG endlessly nitpicked language on the site guidelines part of the website.
There wasn’t acceptable boilerplate language supplied by them, it was just a stream of “you shouldn’t say that”, often without any suggestion as to what *would* be acceptable.

I’d like to point out that those wishing to go away from the status quo have not presented a comprehensive alternative plan.

The big feature seems to be: We’ll stop spending this money.
If that’s all that happens, the LZ goes back to rocks. That is pretty much guaranteed.

There’s a bit of handwaving about artificial turf fabric being available for some nominal amount per square foot.

The price I got for artificial turf, installed by a local company, to cover the 3 acres of LZ, was $1.4 million. Even dividing that down several times for factors of “That’s a high quote”, and “We’re not going to cover the whole LZ” and possibly even “we’ll put it in a little at a time” it’s still going to be a chunk of money.

Who is going to install this inexpensive artificial turf fabric, and on what timetable? What do the advocates believe is necessary for installation? Just rolling it out as we have next to the shade structure is not proper installation.

The argument against natural grass seems to be that we don’t have the volunteer labor to maintain it to their standards. It seems to me they’re going to need volunteer labor to prepare the LZ surface and install it, or they’re going to have to pay someone else to do it. Either way could work, but what’s the actual plan? And if the actual plan is for volunteer labor, is that volunteer labor already lined up and committed?

I’d also like to point out that even artificial turf companies don’t try to sell artificial turf as no maintenance. “Less” maintenance is as far as they go. Is there a candidate for site coordinator lined up that wants to acquire the skills to maintain it?

Then there’s the potable water, electricity, and trash to be considered.
There are, of course, solutions for all of these.
We can put in a tank and truck water in. Granted it’s a one-time cost for the tank and plumbing, but what is it going to cost, and who is going to do it, how soon, and what do we do in the interim?
The same with going off-grid for electricity. Again, it’s a one time cost, but what exactly is that cost, who is going to do it, and how soon will the lights be back on?

I’m not saying the status quo needs to be maintained at any cost, but those who want to abandon it should present a more detailed plan.

Must be a negative. The glider’s orange and the pilot isn’t.

As near as I can tell, the alternate plan to continuing the agreement with the Ranch is to use money saved to cover the LZ in artificial turf. There doesn’t seem to be a transition. We drop the agreement first, then as we accumulate cash, put in a potable water tank, solar and batteries, and turf.

I put out feelers for turf quotes on the internet. Oasis Turf and Hardscaping called me back, and I eventually wound up talking to the owner, Nate.
I got him to look at the satellite view on Google maps to get a ballpark estimate on the cost to do the entire LZ. His answer was 1.2 to 1.4 million dollars. I was up front with him that I was looking for feasibility rather than a job that was going to be issued in a couple of weeks. He was pretty upfront that his business model was to do things right rather than necessarily have the lowest bid. So that quote may be more like an upper bound on costs.

I have other feelers out, and I may get other responses. Even at half that quote, that’s a big project.

My view is that for that amount of money, I would far prefer to investigate the club buying the Ranch.

I don’t like the idea of letting all the grass die on the off-chance we could buy used artificial turf and do some kind of half-assed install ourselves for a fraction of the price.

There may be some more optimum use of the club’s money than the status quo. But I’d really like to follow the wingwalker’s rule: “Don’t turn loose of what you have until you have a firm grip on something better.”

Whether it’s optimum or not, the status quo has been do-able for a number of years, and I don’t see why it’s imperative that it be immediately changed.

That would be Gene Embre.

I liked Stan. I first met him right after Debbie Renshaw signed off his H2.
He told me while he was in training to be a crew specialist on the Space Shuttle that he broke his arm riding a mountain bike and got bumped off his flight. Still later, he told me that actually, he’d blown a landing, taking out a downtube and his arm. The ‘mountain bike’ story was because he wasn’t supposed to be hang gliding while in the program. Oops.

Beatles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_awAH-JJx1k

Written by Berry Gordy, though.