EVERGREEN SOARING

Minutes of a Meeting of the

Board of Directors

June 1, 2002

President Keith Turner called the meeting to order at 9:30AM. The meeting was held at the Evergreen Soaring clubhouse at Arlington Airport. Those present were Keith Turner, President; Mike Delaney, Treasurer; Mark Nyberg, Secretary; Howard Glover, Scheduler; Ron Mehelich, Membership Chairman; Bob Barwell, Winfried Feivel, Fred Hermanspann, Brad Hill, John Craig. Although Roy Parzyk could not be present, he submitted his comments in advance.

Old business opened with a discussion of how to deal with members failing to show up for weekend duties. This has become a serious problem affecting student instruction, cash flow and the overall effectiveness of our operation. After discussing various scheduling options, the decision was made to stay with the current approach to preparing the schedule, but the scheduler will contact each FOO early the week before their scheduled day. This will make sure the FOO does not forget that he/she is scheduled and will remind the FOO to contact the tow pilot and instructor for that day. This should help everyone remember when they are scheduled and provide several days to arrange any necessary substitutes. Volunteer scheduling was rejected for now as taking too much extra effort.

Howard Glover mentioned that it is each member’s responsibility (and not the scheduler’s responsibility) to get a substitute if one is needed on short notice. Howard also made a plea for members to leave shorter messages – reasons and phone numbers are generally not necessary. A few long-winded messages can really take a lot of time to hear. Also, members need to stop using the “reply all” option when replying to messages. We have been generating a lot of e-mail that is not of general interest.

We have neglected the job of FOO for too long. Keith Turner will be putting together a small team to develop FOO documentation and train people to act as FOO. This will solve a lot of problems.

We also need more instructors. It was pointed out that we haven’t had any instructors move up through the ranks of our club during the last several years. The board and the current instructors will be looking for ways to solve this problem.

The next item of business was to discuss the Ephrata Encampment. Keith McLean is currently gathering information on member interest. Ephrata is certainly a “go” but interest (i.e. commitment from members to fly, haul gliders, etc.) will determine how many aircraft we bring.

It was decided to leave one Blanik in Ephrata through the weekend of July 6 for use by the Evergreen Contest Team (organized by Fred Hermanspann). Fred has committed to getting that Blanik back to Arlington after the contest is over. Team members will pay any trailer and tiedown expenses incurred at Ephrata as a result of keeping the Blanik there for use in the contest.

We are also committed to bringing some of our equipment to Darrington during the weekend of the EAA Fly-In at Arlington July 10-14. The amount of equipment will be determined based on member interest.

Mike Delaney gave the treasurer’s report and received the cheque for the Russia sale. We are in good financial shape but revenue has been down this year from previous years. Revenue is likely to go up as the weather improves, as we train our FOOs and as we get the no-show problems behind us.

With regard to aircraft maintenance, Chris Klix has replaced the aft edge and the bend rib in the rudder for the 1-36. We are planning to have Chris Klix get the rudder recovered and the replacement bell crank installed in time for the 1-36 to go to Ephrata.

The tail wheel on the towplane has a minor bend that will need to be straightened soon.

It was recently discovered that the elevator trim cables are twisted in the back of Blanik N48029. This makes them a bit stiff but the repair does not need to be made soon. This may be fixed under warranty associated with previous repairs.

The annual for N2414J is completed but the vario doesn’t work using the main battery. However, the vario continues to work using the small 9v battery option. It is not likely that this will be fixed before Ephrata.

Roy is working on a 2-battery system for the Lark with a switch in the backseat for switching batteries in flight. Keith Turner has glued the break in the canopy. It isn’t pretty but it works fine. We plan on getting a mechanical vario installed in the front panel on the Lark sometime soon.

Roy is looking for a gallon of Rustoleum Rust Stop paint in “hunter green” to finish painting the Lark trailer. Please contact Roy or just buy it. Roy has also purchases a toolbox for the Lark trailer.

The Blanik trailer purchase opportunity has gone away so this issue will be put off for a while.

Dennis Eckert is still planning on putting together a weather clinic for Ephrata.

The decision was made to defer discussion of a contribution to the SGC until the next board meeting and to encourage members to make individual contributions.

Moving on to new business, Camden Doyle and John Craig were accepted as our newest members.

Having put off discussing changes to our fleet until we sell the Russia, it was now time to resume that discussion. The goal for this meeting was to begin gathering ideas and not to push for a quick decision. One suggestion was to develop a vision on where we want our club to go before buying or selling any more gliders. This led to a discussion of the future of gliding at Arlington and how well we serve the gliding community. As it turns out there already has been some “hangar talk” about merging Evergreen Soaring with BESC. Discussions of our fleet and our club vision will remain on the agendas for subsequent board meetings.

We need to find out what our membership wants. A suggestion was made to prepare four or five different proposals to provide a basis for further discussions.

There was no further business and the meeting was adjourned at 11:45 AM.

Respectfully,

Mark Nyberg

Secretary