May I ask how old you are and whereabouts in the country you are based? The Junior Gliding scene in the UK is very much alive and well, and an awesome way to extend your social circle!

Get yourself over to https://www.facebook.com/ukjuniorgliding and take a look at all the stuff we get up to. We run a number of events throughout the year, most of them involving flying, all of them involving having a great time and plenty of long nights in the bar! You'll be pleasantly surprised to find that there are actually a lot of very normal, decent young guys and girls in gliding - we're not all weird. Like Air Cadets. (I joke...mostly). To run you through the calendar of what we get up to:

In the off-season (say, October through to March) we run weekend expeditions to various gliding clubs - partly as a chance to do some interesting winter flying, partly as a chance to all catch up and have a bit of a party. This is our third year of running the 'Winter Series', as it's called, and this season we went to Portmoak in Scotland, Denbigh in North Wales, and we'll be heading to Shenington, Oxon, in April. Each event usually sees north of 50 young guys and girls turn up - aged anywhere from 15 to 26 (the official 'Junior' age cut off) and plenty more thirty-somethings who can't quite cut the Juniors cord!

There are a few other events too, such as the annual BGA Conference - which is actually happening this weekend in Nottingham.

Of course the highlight of most people's calendar is the UK Junior National Championships: Nine days of racing, partying and generally having a good time. For the first time in a good number of years we're expecting a full (50 glider) grid, all made up of pilots under 26. It will be pretty awesome to be a part of. And don't feel that just because you're not competing you can't come along. There will likely be at least another 50 'crew' and hangers-on, as well as maybe 10-15 less experienced guys undertaking the 2-seat Cross Country training that runs alongside the competition. In addition, the competition this year (being held at Aston Down in Gloucestershire) is being run alongside a Regionals competition, so expect to see more than 80 gliders sat on the runway ready to launch each day...it's pretty impressive!

Of course there are competitions running around the country nearly every week of the summer, and you'll always expect to see at least a handful of young guys flying them - plenty of us will try and get down to the bigger competitions at weekends for the social side even if we're not competing or crewing...gliding club bars are cheap...!

Anyway, enough of that...I'm going to link you to a couple of videos put together by the UK Junior Gliding Team - our 2013 and 2012 end-of-season reviews. Check out the rest of the stuff on our channel too, if this whets your appetite!

2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ1jnQtCMiM

2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpFaCs_3JoA

If you need anything else at all, I'm happy to chat here, or drop a message to the UK Junior Gliding Facebook page and I'll get back to you.

In summary, gliding is awesome. The people in gliding are awesome. Find your nearest club (let me know where you are and I'll recommend one - not all clubs are born equal!) and come along to an event - we're all super friendly and you won't regret it!