On 20/01/2016 04:06, Michael Black wrote:

There was a time when many or most hams came into the hobby at a
relatively young age. IN more recent times, that's changed, probably a
ersult of the "dumbing down". They don't have to learn so much (at a
time when they might not be interested in learning) but their lure into
the hobby is quite different from in the old days, or when we were kids.

The 'national society' in the UK (I'm not a member) has been pursuing
the youngster approach for a decade or more. Resources were poured into
a touring 'Fun Bus' that was a mobile demo station - it's now rusting
away somewhere. The approach to schools failed too. Buildathons result
in kids recalling the Raspberry Pi instead of the PSK it was built to
decode. The house magazine is rammed with pictures of six-year-olds
waving certificates. But what has been the result of this blitz?

The membership of 'national society', as published in graphical form by
them in 2000 and again more than a decade later, shows the merest blip
in the under-20 group. The reports that carry this graph say the same
thing: the 'average amateur. in the UK is 60 years old, works CW, and
builds things. The greatest influx of new members is in the 40-year-old
bracket. Yet money and resources continue to be squandered in attracting
'the young'.

'The youth approach has failed - we need more youths' seems to be the
way forward. In the military, it's known as reinforcing failure, and it
never works.

--
Spike

"They thought that because they had power, they had wisdom"

- with apologies to Stephen Vincent Benet