Thoughtful_Flyer: I dream of finding a farm strip with a handful of friends.
Suffolk Soaring Club, of which I'm a member, flies out of Rougham near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. We're all solo, XC-orientated pilots with our own gliders; all the club owns is a Rallye tug and a caravan for clubhouse. No training, no politics (we're too small for that, and what could we find to argue about apart from mowing the runway?), just rig, fly, derig, pub (or retrieve followed by pub).
If anyone here is local and wants to get back into gliding without the standard club experience, they could re-solo and gain their XC qualification at ChrisN's club (I've flown there, all very friendly and relaxed and no obvious agony meetings over club issues), buy a sub-£10k glider (lots of decent XC machines at that price) and do the "group of mates at a farm strip" kind of thing with us. PM me if you want more details - website is at
http://www.suffolksoaring.co.uk.
I guess I should introduce myself - 12 years in gliding, Sliver + Gold distance, former Basic Instructor, flying an Open Cirrus (the gentleman's conveyance - everywhere at 50kt, none of this unseemly rushing around the sky). My planned 500k is the Welsh borders O/R.