[Keith Beebe]

Requirements ? Thanks Keith

[Bob Kuczewski]

Requirements ?

Any hang gliding club (including HG/PG clubs) can request to become a US Hawks chapter. There is no fee, and each chapter gets its own subforum in the US Hawks web site. Each chapter sets its own policies for its subforum and the US Hawks honors those policy decisions (styles, layouts, membership, posting rights, etc.). We ask each chapter to name one person (with a phone number) to be the point of contact for their chapter. That person represents the club to the US Hawks.

So far it's worked pretty well. But as we grow, I anticipate clubs joining with the purpose of undermining us. The US Hawks Board will deal with that as it comes.

Also, we can (and have) set up trial forums for clubs that are considering switching but aren't sure. A trial forum lets the club officers and members see how it works for them. Sometimes (most common case) clubs will ask for their forums to remain private until it's approved by their officers. Only certain members can see those forums. We have some in that state right now, but you can't see them.

We can also make certain parts of a club forum private to members or officers. Some clubs request that for more private topics.

In some cases, a club is given a special user name to represent "official" information by the club. I think both RGSA and FDGS have special user accounts for that purpose.

In conclusion, the US Hawks basically works for our chapters. If a chapter needs something, we do our best (within reason) to figure out a way to do it.

So far that's the basics. So far we've had a number of chapters that have been both USHPA chapters and US Hawks chapters. There should be no conflict. In fact, the Torrey Hawks (our first chapter) has been both USHPA and US Hawks since 2010. However, USHPA is now playing games with the Torrey Hawks and still hasn't renewed our 2016 paperwork that we submitted in February. That's how petty and vindictive they've become. It really makes the point that they're afraid of a real member-oriented competitor!!

[Keith Beebe]

Thanks Bob