Merging CHGA, MHGA and MAPA

by Matthew Graham

As most of you know, membership at both MHGA and CHGA has been declining steadily over the last five years and meeting attendance is often abysmal. Because of the cost of the $100 charge at Oregon Ridge to hold meetings there and the low turnout at meetings, MHGA is planning to have ad-hoc meetings at bars starting next year and forego any more meetings at Oregon Ridge. Without a presence at Oregon Ridge, it is feared that we may lose it as a training hill. If the clubs are out of the loop, we may go up there and find a telephone pole or cell phone tower or whatever right in the middle of the hill someday.

With fewer club members, it's also becoming increasingly more difficult to put out the two newsletters and staff two boards of directors.

We're also having problems in maintaining our mountain sites. We've been recently blessed with the opening of Highland and Manquin Airparks. These two training facilities have re-energized the sport and have helped to stem the tide of dwindling membership. But now that we have these two additional flying sites, we're spending less time at the mountains and launch areas are being overgrown. Site maintenance has fallen on the shoulders of a few steadfast individuals.

In addition, USHGA has been giving us grief about having two clubs listed as the site operators for the various sites we insure. For some illogical reason, they want each club to pay full site insurance for each site.

To counteract these problems, a proposal has been put forth to merge MHGA and CHGA to consolidate our resources and get USHGA off of our backs regarding the site insurance. And bring in the Mid-Atlantic Paragliding Association (MAPA) to form just one club. Due to the efforts of Dwayne McCourt at FlyWV, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of paragliding pilots in the region. However, most of our mountain sites are only marginally launchable for paragliders. Paraglider pilots need big open launch areas and paraglider pilots don't aero-tow. I've talked to the paraglider pilots and they think that merging the three clubs is a great idea and are willing to do whatever it takes to help open up our launch sites. Doing so would also make the launch sites safer for hang gliders.At the last CHGA meeting, the merger of the three clubs into one was met with a favorable response. Likewise, at the last MHGA meeting, the merger proposal was greeted with a favorable response.The current proposal calls for merging all three clubs and having four meeting/events at Oregon Ridge (one per quarter) each year and the remaining 8 meetings at Lasick's. To encourage people to make the drive out to Oregon Ridge, the meetings will not necessarily be on a weekday evening and will focus on a particular event, such as a parachute re-pack clinic, a glider inspection and cleaning day, an Octoberfest beer party, video and or lecture/seminar on other outdoor activities (climbing, diving, kayaking, etc.). Since low-meeting turnout is also a problem at Lasick's (much of this can also be attributed to the use of the list-server), many of the meetings at Lasick's will revolve around particular themes-safety meeting, XC meeting, glider performance, scheduling clean-ups, travel stories, etc.

Since CHGA is a tax-exempt 501 c(3) charitable organization, the plan is to change the name of CHGA to whatever the new name will be and then amend the bylaws to reflect the above changes. The Web Page will have to be re-done. Mark Cavanaugh made grumbling noises but is up to the challenge. The Pulpit Treasury will also now be handled by the club treasurer as a separate fund. With the influx of new members from the paragliding community and the savings from eliminating the joint membership category, we'll have more than enough extra money to cover the costs of holding the four meetings per year at Oregon Ridge. Currently, there's a five-dollar discount to joining both CHGA and MHGA with a joint membership. With the single membership cost of $25, we'll actually be bringing in more money to the club and saving club members from having to pay for joining two or three clubs. The club will include the current sites and the paragliding sites in WV, excluding the sites maintained by the Mountaineer Hang Gliding Club. The Pulpit Flying Permit of 15 dollars will remain in effect. The biggest issue seems to what to call the new club - The Mid-Atlantic Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (MAHGPA), The Mid-Atlantic Free Flight AssociationMAFFA), The Mid-Atlantic Gliding Association(MAGA)??? MASA (soaring in the middle) is already taken by the sailplane pilots. We'll also need to pick a night for the meetings at Lasick's. I favor a Thursday evening meeting since we'll have decent weather forecast for the weekend then and be able to make preliminary flying plans.

So what do you all think? Can we do this??? Do we want to do this??

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