Richmond Boogie

[wildblue 4]

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I just think it could even be better if the local DZs could get along, and promote it together.

My #1 suggestion for making this happen: Have on a weekend other than Labor Day. It's not a conspiracy people - it's the last big three day weekend of the season around here. Any DZO with mouths to feed isn't going to close up shop to send money someplace else. Cessna DZs might be a different story, but it's got to be hard to leave your turbine aircraft sitting on the ground for three days to go support someone else. Does CSC close up shop all week to go to SummerFest? If SGC made their "Memorial Day Boogie" bigger, I wouldn't expect SWC or SS to close up for the weekend and go support it. I just think your expectations are out of whack a little.

As for Jim W. threatening to fire staff for going to Richmond - put it in context: Busy tandem (labor day) weekend, no staff to spare. It was "show up for work tomorrow or don't bother coming back" I don't think he was that bent on making sure Richmond didn't get the $100 that jumper might have spent there, he needed his employees there doing their job. I'm not trying to defend him, just putting it in context for everyone. I honestly don't think he cares that much. I could be wrong, but I don't the motives in that case were malicious.

If you want to argue about how RDs should show up, I'll listen to that one. My first question would then be "Did anyone invite him?" Maybe he didn't think he was welcome or that it wouldn't be beneficial at all.

If you want to argue training methods, probably another thread of forum would be better

it's like incest - you're substituting convenience for quality

[ChrisG 0]

That is a good suggestion, worth discussion. My personal view is it needs to be a 3 day weekend, as that makes it worth the drive for the many people that can't take an extra day off work.

I made a silly response to a sarcastic question which was-- SO, you think everybody should just close down, huh? And I said Yea, I'll vote for that. I know thats stupid, and will never happen.
I've heard stories from other DZs about DZOs making their instructors stick around,-or else! Well, I think thats OK, its their business and they can run it however they want, the good side of it is the instructor has the freedom to quit if he doesnt like it. I've had more than one boss order me to show up for overtime- or else, and I either showed or quit. I mostly showed, but once, I had to quit a job to go to the boogie for some pre-planned big-ways.
DZOs have complained forever that they make little or no money from us fun jumpers. That still seems to be the case because you often hear things like; "You guys wouldn't be jumpin these fancy turbins if it wasn't for tandems"
And that brings me to my point. Local DZOs should encourage their fun jumpers to go, rather than induce peer pressure and freebies to get them to stay. Its good for skydiving as a whole for everyone to get together, and a hell of a lot of fun. They dont make much from us anyway, right? So whats the big deal?
They can still run the money making part (tandems and AFF) of their business as they please, and their planes wont sit around much more than normal. Theres always some left hanging around, that for some odd reason, just dont like to go to boggies.

[UDSkyJunkie 0]

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Local DZOs should encourage their fun jumpers to go, rather than induce peer pressure and freebies to get them to stay.

DZO's pressuring people to stay is inappropriate. Threats are downright out of line.

There are three 3 day weekends during the season, Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day. Who decides which DZ gets which weekend? Let's say you magically got an agreement... say SGC gets memorial day, SS gets the 4th, and SWC gets Labor Day. What happens if the weather goes to crap on Memorial day? Does SGC just say "oh, well" and not have any boogies that year?

SS' "boogie" had the following:
- jump prices at $19
- exactly 1 free keg
- 1 free dinner we didn't find out about until it arrived
- a raffle we didn't know about until the day it happened
- a free band that was really one of our jumpers bands that he plays drums for
- the same 13-slot plane we have every day
- the same organizers we have every weekend

Believe me, if I wanted to go to a boogie and party it up, I'd have gone to Richmond! We didn't have a fire, and mostly everyone went home or to the campground by 11:00.

I do believe the Richmond boogie will continue, and I actually hope it's attendance increases. Even though I didn't intend to go, I was disappointed that Rantoul was cancelled this year... it's truly a loss to the sport.

But I think we all need to remember that great boogies are never "made"... they just happen. Quincy is a classic example: the first time around, i don't think anyone expected it to be as big as it was, with 5,000 people showing up. It was the Woodstock of skydiving, and it will never happen again on purpose. From there it got smaller and smaller, and eventually ended pitifully.

Richmond isn't all that different... it was huge, and it's been slowly getting smaller. Maybe it'll come back and maybe not, but I can tell you this: If SWC wants the Richmond boogie to be what it once was, they'll have to change something. Maybe it means changing the weekend, maybe it means making it a week-long mega-event, maybe it means bringing in exotic aircraft, maybe it means skygod organizers, or record attempts, or something really unconventional like hooking up with a college (or several) and having 500 tandem/AFF/static line students (and lots of non-40+ year-old co-eds) to get the youth energized.

I don't know the solution. But hoping people will come back because of tradition or because they had a great time and got laid by the hottest chick on the DZ at the richmond boogie 10 years ago isn't going to work. And expecting other DZ's, local or not, to back off isn't going to work either.

To restore the glory, it has to be a truly great event. One that everyone wants to go to because somehow they KNOW it's going to be awesome. If you build it, they will come.

"Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

[chuck411 0]

Anychance we could go back to not bashing the Military folks? It's really getting old. Argue the facts involved with the individuals not where they came from as not everyone in the military or served in the military is as mindless as you are trying to point out.

Let go of Old Shit and Move the Fuck on already!

[slotperfect 7]

Wow! Is this a busy thread or what?!?!? This web is woven so tightly it's about impossible to break any of the new subjects out into their own threads!

I echo Phree's comments about DZ politics . . . please keep it civil and above board - there have been some pretty sharp random darts zinging around in here.

Phree also listed the off-topic subjects very well . . . some of those conversations might prove to be fairly interesting with threads of their own

At least there isn't any major stereotyping or generalizing going on in here. [/sarcasm]

Now - I'm off to take care of some more ex-golden wheenie military lifer stuff.

Arrive Safely

John

[amattsso 1]

ChrisG wrote: ” How about you local DZOs out there getting together, resolving your differences, and joining forces to to make The Boogie great again. The location is unbeatable.”
That’s a worthy cause; I wish you the best of luck, I don’t want to see The Richmond Boogie go away.

What I fail to see is how you figure that posting stuff like:
“It probably didn't help that our new corporate mega-buck DZ 30 miles away, with a below the belt sucker punch, offered discounted jumps, free dinner, free band, free SUPER-SKYGOD organizers and other goodies with NO registration fee.
On top of that, the person running said DZ happens to be our conference director. Way to go guys, your stab at the Richmond boogie, the longest running tradition in skydiving, is contrary to the words you are speaking.”
will serve the purpose of getting the DZOs together. Care to elaborate?

Along the same line of thought, this posting : “Remind me to vote next election, we dont need that kind of conference director. One who didnt even take the time to visit the largest event in his conference, only 40 minutes away. Too busy I guess.”,
just might not give the regional director a warm fuzzy feeling about going to Richmond. And probably will not help in getting the local DZOs to work together. Maybe you know something about team building that I don’t know?

The “decreased nudity” at Richmond is, I suppose, due to the Christian Rockband at Start Skydive. What devious methods with Start Skydive come up with next to lure away people?

I also find it amusing that you complain about the jumps being – of all things – to cheap at Start Skydive “..offered discounted jumps..”. Funny given your opinion about AFF being too expensive.

Seriously, seems to me that instead of being for The Richmond Boogie, you end up -in a sad way- being against all the other DZs as well as the regional director.

Anders Mattsson

[juggalo 1]

There is a lot of stuff going on here.
Let’s see where to start
The Boogie
I started in 79 and really remember when the boogie re-started in 87.
Back then it was a restart of the 1st boogie, Freak Brothers was the big one up to Richmond starting up again. (FB1897) Richmond was also home to the nationals for a while until a bunch of BOD members trashed a hotel and the city ran jumpers out.

But it was for the Waynesville staff to have a chance to get away and play for 3 days. The other DZ’s n the area did the same. I know this cause I worked for all of them, at one time or another and flew over on their planes to go.
Some where along the line this changed not sure when. Got into demos and competition and lost sight of area happenings.

The boogie also gave area people a chance to meet, jump together and get to know one another

UDSkyjunkie The dz’s did not have a formal lawyer agreement like we need now days but everyone in the region came to play.

Wild blue, History repeats itself ask the French about? Diem bien Pu? or something like that as well as WWll . You’ll have to look these up maybe.

Training today We rely way too much on technology. The emphasis to excel at every level or moment of a training jump is off the chart. So people need something to remind them not to smack the big green ball while they are lost in the middle of a coordinated turn on jump 9 or so. Don’t EVEN go there I know what the training requirements are.!!
After I was a student and an experienced jumper we we did not wear AAD’s audibles or hell a lot did not wear a helmet. Helmets cut off your senses. Can you smell earth? Yes you can! Blue umbrella /Green bowl anyone know this? In the first 10 years that cypresses were around we had 200 fires. That equates to 200 dead people!! Add that to the fatality reports. I remember reading in one of the “saves by a rigger or shop” that packed a lot of reserves a letter by a guy that in short , couldn’t find the main handle or the reserve one either, his solution was to lay flat and stable till the cypress fired. What mindset is this??

I know of a guy that had totals on main/reserve in the day. Did he wait for an AAD? no he ripped the reserve container open!! Never give up and don’t trust anything mechanical. Cept your chute and hopefully you did not date your riggers wife.

Jump training should teach personal survival skills situational awareness
a lot better than we do now.

Chris G. I agree that S/L was and still should be a more used training method. Its cheaper per jump, there is less to know and perform on each jump and you can go a little longer between jumps and still learn skills, stay current and be safe. AFF compared to S/L is like doing math with a calculator or pencil and paper. You will get the same results, one is just faster. With the new ISP all students will learn the same skills over time. For those of you that think S/l is archaic or dangerous I disagree. It all falls back to having a good instructor / Teacher (john A). a lot of people worry about S/L students landing off or poorly. I helped some friends start a DZ down south some years ago and in their 7 or 8 years they never had a student land off and had 1 sprained ankle. AND they did not use radios!! TRAINING was good.

Mike A. 2800’hop n pop exits SWEET!! I’ll be the fly next to you.

For the military guys I’m sorry but it only takes a few bad ones to sour people to the whole. I respect that you served, but look at bikers images over the years. And see above about history repeating.

This kind of rambles and I apologize but there are so many views and topics and people that don’t know the areas history that I tried to touch on a little of each.
Have questions let me know I’ll try to answer them.
Peace
Brew

waving off is to tell people to get out of my landing area

[ChrisG 0]

Good post Brew, its OK, you always ramble like that.
"waving off is to tell people to get out of my landing area"

Got a good laugh on that one.

[ChrisG 0]

Hi Anders,
" The “decreased nudity” at Richmond is, I suppose, due to the Christian Rockband at Start Skydive."

NO, that probably increased the nudity. No girl that liked to show off her titties would show for the christian band.

In reply to:
"What I fail to see is how you figure that posting stuff like:"
and
"Seriously, seems to me that instead of being for The Richmond Boogie, you end up -in a sad way- being against all the other DZs as well as the regional director."

I'm suspicious you dont understand the background of my comments, so I understand that you "fail to see". And whats that "in a sad way" crap, you _______? (fill in the blank)
You dont seem to have caught on that a lot of us speaking here about the boogie know each other on a first name basis, so just let us duke it out , OK?

I jump at all the DZs mentioned (or plan too), and a fact is that if DZOs got too pissed off at anybody that criticised them, a lot of us would have nowhere to jump.
And so what if I criticise the RD, what the hells wrong with that? He aint my captain. I'm allowed to speak out.

[johnA123 0]

"As for Jim W. threatening to fire staff for going to Richmond - put it in context: Busy tandem (labor day) weekend, no staff to spare. It was "show up for work tomorrow or don't bother coming back"

They were not instructional staff

"been around, seen some things, slept in dumpsters got high with kings
KR

[ChrisG 0]

Yes, Jared, very good. You have added greatly to this discussion. As you may have noticed, my original provocative comments have evolved to produce some very honest opinions and sometimes firey discussion, Its an old 3 stage tactic- everybody vents, the conservation becomes civil (sorta) ), then solutions arise. (hopefully)
So as this about the boogie winds down I would like to use one of your quotes

"To restore the glory, it has to be a truly great event. One that everyone wants to go to because somehow they KNOW it's going to be awesome. If you build it, they will come."

Imagine this:

THE RICHMOND BOOGIE!
Brought to you by: (in no particular order) SWC, Green County skydiving, Start Skydiving, Skydive Greensburg, ETC, ETC. (I know some wounds are deep, but even old rock bands finially get back together)
We could have cooler planes, like maybe even a CASA! Think how cool it would be if Team Fastrax was there and jumped with us turkeys and did one of their fancy demos. That in itself would attract a lot of jumpers, wuffos, tandems, and recruits.
The possibilities are endless- especially now that the WFFC is gone.

Will this happen?- probably not. Could it happen? Yes.
Wouldn't that be FUN!

Chris

[UDSkyJunkie 0]

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THE RICHMOND BOOGIE!
Brought to you by: (in no particular order) SWC, Green County skydiving, Start Skydiving, Skydive Greensburg, ETC, ETC. (I know some wounds are deep, but even old rock bands finially get back together)
We could have cooler planes, like maybe even a CASA! Think how cool it would be if Team Fastrax was there and jumped with us turkeys and did one of their fancy demos. That in itself would attract a lot of jumpers, wuffos, tandems, and recruits.
The possibilities are endless- especially now that the WFFC is gone.

That would indeed be very cool.

In order for that to work, the DZO's would have to start talking early in the season to coordinate, and profits would have to be shared in some manner. Aircraft-wise, if SGC brought their otter, Start brought their caravan, ect, and maybe a casa or skyvan was brought in, you could create a pretty awesome mega-boogie without having to lease a ton of aircraft for the weekend (or, perhaps week... something that large would be better done as a week-long boogie I think). If it was coordinated with the OSU skydiving class (we had almost *200* tandems and AFF students over 2 weekends in mayish this year), it'd be even better and help bring in new blood. Bring in Fastrax guys to do some organizing, and some gear dealers to have demos and such, and you really could have a boogie to rival the WFFC, or at least summerfest.

Perhaps it should be suggested to Jamie, and her, Jim, Kip, and whatever other DZO's could start thinking about logistics over winter.

"Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

[skydance1954 0]

Could happen, maybe, it's a good idea. However, there's still one factor that's not been discussed here.

With the (legitimate) focus on how to get the various DZOs to perhaps co-operate in such a venture, no one has thought to consider the average skydiver. You're all assuming that all fun jumpers are willing to automatically come to the Boogie that weekend.

Well, what if that's not the case? I submit that there is possibly a significant percentage of the fun jumpers that would not want to come out to the boogie at any given year. Now you're suggesting we set up an environment where they have no choice.

These jumpers should be taken into account when making any plans.

Mike Ashley
D-18460
Canadian A-666

[butturnuts 0]

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You really should stop shitting on people you don't know anything about.

Yea right, Chris has known most all the players in the region for about 34 years now, and has a tad bit of a clue what his is talking about. And the fact that you Chris B. would make such a post just shows how much you really don't have a clue what your talking about.

Maybe you should spend some time learning your regional history and not just swollowing the line of bullshit your were spoon fed up the street.

Then again, I'm sure you "know it all" now just like you did when you were a student @ SWC, only worse now that you have a few hundred jumps and 4 or 5 years in the sport now.

While I understand Mr. Grinners point and reason for his post, I tend to agree with him, but that is because I know the regional history and know why Chris has said, what he said in his post. While I wouldn't have picked that "battle" myself to post about, I support his (Mr. Grinner's) right to say as he pleases about the current RD's actions and local politics.

So are we done with this pissing contest already or what!

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[butturnuts 0]

***Yea right, Chris has known most all the players in the region for about 34 years now, and has a tad bit of a clue what his is talking about. And the fact that you Chris B. would make such a post just shows how much you really don't have a clue what your talking about.

Maybe you should spend some time learning your regional history and not just swollowing the line of bullshit your were spoon fed up the street.

Then again, I'm sure you "know it all" now just like you did when you were a student @ SWC, only worse now that you have a few hundred jumps and 4 or 5 years in the sport now.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I can agree with saying "You should stop shitting on people you don't know was foolish. I have no idea what the history is on Kip. What I do know is I agree with Jared in regards to Kip at SS. I see him as an individual who works hard to train students, encourages continued learning in the sport and seems to have a genuine love for the sport. This is my perception of Kip. I have heard so many different stories about the rivalries between DZ's and staff members that I doubt I will ever know the truth.
I'm not understanding where the "know it all" thing is coming from. I was a "know it all" when I was a student
and i'm a "know it all" now? I sure wish I knew who I was addressing here, seems like you don't like me very much. What the hell did I ever do to you?

As for the "spoon fed bandwagon rider" thing ........
I just don't know what to say except GROW UP!
I jump at SS because it's close to my house, they offer bulk rates on lift tickets and I have friends there. Xenia is cool too but it's farther for me since I moved.

There has not been a single soul "spoon feeding" me anything about Kip, the Hart family or anyone else affiliated with SS. My conclusions are based upon what I have witnessed at SS and my past experiences with other DZ's and staff.
Chris.

I

[ChrisG 0]

Well, Mike, to be honest- besides you and your son, I don't know many fun jumpers that WOULDNT like to attend a boogie.
My definition of a fun jumper is someone that makes no money from the sport, and is not on a serious team.
I know you like to do fun jumps too and by your skills you obviously have many under your belt, but from what I've seen, most of your jumps now are paid for doing video. Jared, I think, has his sights set on bigger things in this sport, and I understand (sorta) why you and others just dont like boogies.
The idea here is to create a plan of co-operation amoungst local DZs to revive the boogie in a way that everyone could benefit from. I'm not advocating anybody closing their business down.

[skydance1954 0]

Please don't misunderstand, I never meant to indicate that I don't like boogies. Far from it. It's just been a very long time since I've had the opportunity to actually take advantage of one. As you're well aware, boogies are expensive to do right. Heck, just going out to the DZ on weekends and jumping can be expensive.

I've found a way to keep jumping in spite of having a family, mortgage, car, etc., etc.. That's why I do what I do. What would I like to do? Something other than video most of the time. However, I'd rather be at the DZ doing video dives than somewhere else being a wuffo.

So - would I go to the Richmond Boogie if I had the opportunity? Probably. Would I go every year? No. Because if I had the resources to do one boogie a year, I'd like to try a different one each time. Couch Freaks, Turkey Meet, WFFC, and others.

Which brings me back to the right of the individual skydiver to choose. There is merit in having several DZ's co-operate to bring resources to the Richmond Boogie, and to have them help it along by whatever means, provided the DZO's agree.

However, it must be an effort to bring the DZOs AND the general fun jumping population on board together.

Co-operation and concensus, not a mandate.

Mike Ashley
D-18460
Canadian A-666

[Auryn 0]

[reply

I know most of them and the RD too. The biggest problem is they are ex military but not really. They have never really got out. That’s ok too, cause without people like that the army would not have people to brainwash.

Your attitude regarding this is simply incorrect. I've seen military style training during my time at Raeford NC where they launched a good number of military sorties. Above mentioned people at above mentioned drop zone handle things differently. They handle them as ANY professionals would handle them. I was a corporate trainer for a fortune 500 company for several years, I know what professional is. This DZ and these people do exactly that- they're true professionals. Not just by our (skydivers') standards, but by the rest of the world's standards. Since they are our customers that keep the plane flying, why not cater to them?