[Bob Kuczewski]

There's an old saying in politics:

    "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen."

No one has forced Alan Crouse to be a Regional Director or to run for Regional Director. In his term he's participated in some very bad decisions. He's looked the other way on the problems at Torrey until now they've threatened our ability to get insurance on the national level.

Now he's looked the other way while someone (yet to be determined) has run amuck with their moderator privileges on the Crestline forum. So far, three people have been banned without any reason or justification. Even worse, their posts were defaced giving the impression that they've written things that they did not write.

Crestline club, don't cover this up. It's important that we all find out who was taking these actions on the Crestline forum.

As for Alan Crouse ... a few years ago I would have been surprised by his actions. Sadly, I am no longer surprised today.

[Bob Kuczewski]

I've just sent an email message to the Board members of the CSS:

Hello CSS Board Members and Friends,

I'm writing to request the restoration of posting privileges on the Crestline Forum
for myself, Phil Sergent, and Joe Faust who were all recently banned in the forum's
"kerfuffle" (quoting Ken's thoughtful remarks).

Politics is politics, and people who run for office must understand that they will
surely face criticism from one corner or another. I know that as well as anyone,
and you may recall that I never enlisted the power of censorship to silence any
of my critics. Alan and his supporters should endeavor to understand that. The
process of getting at the truth is messy, but the alternative is surely worse.

I have often cited the CSS as one of the best run clubs in the world, and I've held
Crestline up as a model of what I would like to see at Torrey Pines. I am hopeful
that wisdom will prevail, and the requested accounts will be restored as soon as
possible. If not, then I would like to request the following information:

   1. What specific rules were broken by the banned parties?
   2. Where were such rules made publicly available to people posting?
   3. What process was used to determine whether posts violated any rules?
   4. How were members warned or made aware of any violations?
   5. Please provide exact quotes from any posts that show such violations.

Thanks again for a long history of a fine club, and I hope this "kerfuffle" will
quickly disappear as something we can look back on and joke about some day.

Sincerely,
Bob Kuczewski
Proud CSS Member
858-204-7499 ... please feel free to call any time

[Bob Kuczewski]

I just got this email message:

Bob:

In no way did I ask, advise, request, recruit, influence, enlist, or
take any action to affect your posts on the CSS Forum.

Suggestions to the contrary are entirely without fact or substance and I
request you withdraw them from all public and private postings, e-mail
and correspondence.

Alan Crouse

I replied:

Alan,

Please cite the actual postings that you find to be inaccurate.
Please provide links and I will be happy to review them.

Thanks,
Bob Kuczewski

[JoeF]

Ken begins some healing movement. BobK also has initiated some healing effort.

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[Bob Kuczewski]

Thanks Joe,

This is my second request that I just sent earlier this morning.

Hello Again Members of the Crestline Board and other Friends,

I'm again writing to request the restoration of posting privileges on the Crestline Forum for myself, Phil Sergent, and Joe Faust. I have already asked for the following information and gotten no response:

   1. What specific rules were broken by the banned parties?
   2. Where were such rules made publicly available to people posting?
   3. What process was used to determine whether posts violated any rules?
   4. How were members warned or made aware of any violations?
   5. Please provide exact quotes from any posts that show such violations.

If you are finding a difficult time expressing answers to those questions it's probably because there are no good answers. That should be telling you that these actions were not justified, and they were made in political haste.

Everyone can understand that decisions made under time pressure are not always the best. It's now been a few days and the Board has hopefully had a chance to examine the actual record and content of the posts to determine if they actually contained any violations of any posted rules of the Crestline forum. I believe such a review will reveal that no such rules were broken. As a result, I am asking for the accounts to be restored as soon as possible. Please feel free to call me directly if you'd like to discuss the matter.

Sincerely,
Bob Kuczewski
858-204-7499

There was a time when the Crestine Board was made up of some very good people. I don't believe this would have happened under their leadership. I feel that the Board has changed quite a bit since that time, but that's only a feeling since I don't recognize many of the names, and I don't know them personally. Time will tell if that feeling is justified or not.

[JoeF]

Still up are words in the body of the shown post that were not written by the poster's name person.
Such sits injuring the poster, hang gliding communications, CSS Forum, CSS, and more. Someone behind the scene put the body text into the message. Such false presentation should be taken down as it empties the meaning of "forum" and honesty. Hopefully the CSS and its webmastering system will erase the matter. The actual content of the message was deleted; substituted by an unknown CSS backroom edito was the sentence starting out with "Good ..."

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[JoeF]

Shown is a clip about actual hang gliding that started a new topic:

Screen Shot 2015-11-13 at 2.38.43 PM.png (341.76 KiB) Viewed 3819 times

==============
Then the moderator let Bille put forward a strong off-topic personal attack as he disrupted the topic.
Something in Bille could not face politely the topic on actual hang gliding.

For the record, here is how Billie faced the topic on actual hang gliding:

Screen Shot 2015-11-13 at 2.42.51 PM.png (70.55 KiB) Viewed 3819 times

The moderator there also allowed someone to change the body of another post with the result that the sentence in the post was not that of the poster's identity. Fundamentally, the moderator permitted a thread on actual hang gliding to be destroyed by an unknown editor that was abusing the powers of editing, and by Bille, as shown.

[Bob Kuczewski]

There seems to be a concerted effort by some of the Crestline leadership to ensure that Alan Crouse gets re-elected for USHPA Regional Director this year. This is one of the posts that was deleted from the Crestline forum.

Please read this and ask yourself what was so controversial that it had to be removed from the forum and the person posting it (me) had to be banned from posting.

I attended the annual Crestline meeting last weekend, and I happened to see USHPA Regional Director Alan Crouse there.

Now Alan and I had been on friendly terms years ago, and I endorsed him very strongly when he first ran for Director.

So I asked him - fairly politely - why he didn't oppose my expulsion from USHPA. I pointed out that I hadn't committed any flying violations. I pointed out that I hadn't violated any SOPs or bylaws. So I wanted to know the basis for his decision.

But before I give you his answer, I'd like you to take a guess.

Remember that flying has been a big part of my life. I got my private pilot's license and a seaplane rating in the late 70's. I first flew a hang glider in 1978 and my senior project for my Aeronautical Engineering degree was a model hang glider that I tested in the university wind tunnel. I made my first paragliding flights around 1990, and I've been flying very regularly for the past dozen years. I've joined clubs. I've helped start clubs. I've devoted time to outreach. I've mentored pilots, and I even served on the USHPA Board. In the last 12 years I've invested uncounted thousands of dollars on lessons, travel, and equipment in the sports of hang gliding and paragliding, and I've earned an advanced rating in both sports. In all that time, I never took a dime for my efforts. I didn't even ask for the customary travel reimbursement for attending USHPA Board meetings because I didn't want to take a dime from the pilots.

So with all that I've invested, you might expect that USHPA would have a very very very good reason to expel me and effectively remove my ability to fly. Have you guessed it yet?

Here's what Alan Crouse said with a straight face:

     "We didn't want you to be able to tell people that you were a USHPA member."

Did you get that? Was that what you had guessed?

In other words all the lies that they sent out accusing me of doing things I didn't do was all a smoke screen to get rid of me because ... they didn't want me to be able to say that I was a USHPA member.

What kind of an organization has this become?
Are these the people we should be trusting with our "freedom" to fly?

That's the kind of information that the current Crestline leadership is suppressing.

Perhaps more importantly, the CSS is also suppressing any discussion of alternatives to USHPA's RRG scheme.