Flying club 'welcomes'.
Hi Guys,
I can't speak about other countries, but I still can't imagine people being treated in other countries of the English speaking world as they are here.
I definitely think it must be a UK thing and affects many spare-time, activity clubs, not just those engaged in costly activities like flying.
It does make a difference if the place you visit has a reception desk. If it has, then the receptionists will usually ask you to sit down while they find someone to come and talk to you, which they then do quite promptly.
If there is no reception desk, however, then you can be left standing there looking like a spare part, while people mill around you going about their individual concerns, but ignoring your presence completely.
This can be partly due to a misplaced form of politeness; (i.e. not wishing to poke their noses in where it may not be wanted), but is more usually just plain unconcern.
Occasionally, you will be confronted with outright rudeness. I always remember going to have a look at a (then) new gliding club near Kidlington in the late sixties. I asked to see the CFI and was then confronted with a ferocious character who had all the charm of an Alsatian in a scrap metal yard who 'welcomed' me with the statement that he wanted 'genuine club members', not 'customers'. He didn't explain how the two differed. It was clear from his demeanour, however, that even before having spoken to me he had decided I was definitely a 'customer' and must be sent away with a flea in my ear.
In 2005, I joined a flying club at a certain aerodrome not a million miles from Woking. I attended one of their committee meetings to be interviewed and for my membership application to be vetted and I was welcomed into the club with the comment that they were 'so pleased to have another lady member'.
A few weeks later I went to their summer barbeque. I was a little late arriving and the barbeque was already in progress. All the existing members, (none of whom I knew,) were standing around in groups talking. I sat down and waited for someone at least to ask who I was and what I was doing there or else for payment of my barbeque entrance money. Not a soul came near. After half an hour I got up and left. I left the club shortly afterwards.
I have long believed that if a number of Brits were forced to share a lifeboat, the first thing they would do would be for half of the occupants of the boat to start a club with the express purpose of denying membership to the other half. That's what we're like.
Regards,
Broomstick.