SAFA Skysailor Magazine

7 September | October 2021 SKY SAILOR NSW State Hang Gliding Championships 2021 at Manilla, NSW Photo: Bruce Wynne ably constant for many years. The SAFA Board is seeking to increase our membership over time. Greater numbers give us a stronger voice and can provide further opportuni- ties for our membership. But this also places a greater demand on existing site resources. Notwithstanding, all of this also highlights a significant weakness for our sport. Across the nation, we own almost no site infrastructure. In isolated cases where clubs have taken this step, the assets they own are mostly non-income producing. Our over-reliance on others for access to site assets denies us choices that we would otherwise have and denies us self-determi- nation over our future. We need our current landowner access arrangements, but these don’t provide true sustainability for our sport in the longer term. It’s essential, therefore, that we collectively develop the means to acquire sites, either directly or via some form of perpetual interest in suitable assets. SAFA has no desire to own site assets directly. SAFA’s role is to develop tools, information and processes that enable regional associations and clubs to develop the means to make this goal a reality. SAFA also has limited loan funds available, and details of our loan policy are in the member’s area of the SAFA website. I hope this starts and/or reinvigorates this essential conversation among our members. To further assist, I intend to provide some specific club case studies in future updates.