Jim,
What you said here goes along with something I heard on the radio 
recently.  It was a brief news item that someone's survey indicates 
that thirty percent of persons contacted had not nor intended to meet 
their neighbors.  That just amazed me.  With all of the social media, 
guess actually meeting people is out of fashion.  When i grew up, 
although God knows that was eons ago, the neighborhood was every kids 
turf.  During the summer, from dawn to evening, all of us hung out 
together and if you ran off the rails, any neighbors mom or dad could 
call you on it.  Do that today and you'd have the cops and seven 
lawyers all over you!!
i don't understand all the changes but I don't think i necessarily 
approve of them.  Like that will make a difference.
pat, K9JAUAt 02:34 PM 7/13/2015, you wrote:
>Hi Colin, first, your ideas and thoughts as usual, are very well
>stated.  Maybe your sticky notes aren't sticky enough so they
>never got turned in.  Seriously though, when I was reading your
>thoughts, it occurred to me that, like ham radio, the animal
>groups have also been declining over time.  By Animal groups, I
>mean the Lions, Elks, Moose, and so-on are or seem to all be
>struggling to keep their numbers up.  Don't know about the rotary
>and siroptimists, but I think that many people, especially young
>ones, has been getting into the social media stuff and don't feel
>the same need for direct interaction like meetings etc.  Maybe
>this portends some major underlying social change because of
>technology, maybe even polarization, especially in the US.  I
>belong to two ham clubs here.  One, has a breakfast every fourth
>Saturday of the month which usually gets about 20 to 25 hams and
>their significant others, maybe some wannabees.  The other club
>has a Friday evening meeting that usually has a tech lecture most
>months  or auction a couple times a year.  I have not gone to
>that usuY for lack of a reade but I think it's fairly well
>attended.  I don't have a sense of the numbers in each club, but
>another local club seems to be cranking out new hams some of whom
>I have heard and talked too on VHF.  Wish I had the secret
>solution for you, and us in general.  I don't think free pizza
>and beer would even encourage folks for too long.
>Speaking of HF, I got my ALS600 fired up and am not using any
>antenna tuner in line since I found out the Ldg AT600 Pro II auto
>tuner is just plain Not Blind friendly, even LDG wrote me about
>that.  Now I gotta return the thing to HRO hoping they will give
>me back most of the $338  I spent on it.  Hope we can talk on HF,
>bands permitting, one of these days.  I could barely hear Lloyd
>yesterday and called numerous times using the amp never to be
>heard.  Kind of disappointing but 20 meters was pretty bad.  Well
>enough for now, 73, Jim WA6EKS