 |
  |
|
Evergreen
Soaring
Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
Saturday, 06 December, 2008
The meeting was called to order at 9:20 AM in Neal Karman's hanger by President
Fred Hermanspann. Other Executive Board members present included Marty Gibbins
and Merel O'Rourke. Voting Board member Ron Bellamy was also present.
Non-voting board members Howard Glover and Dan Teifke were also present.
Several other members were also present, among them: Neal Karman; Mike Talley;
Noel Wade; Pierre Parent; Tony Puglisi; Bruce Bulloch; Mark Nyberg; and Steve
Gray.
New Members:
- No one petitioned for new membership.
OFFICERS' REPORTS:
President (Fred Hermanspann)
As an opening, Fred moved that the Board accept Tony Puglisi as Gary Paulin's replacement in the voting Board position of
Equipment Director. The second and the "aye's" were
simultaneous. Tony is in by acclamation.
Minutes must go on the Web page. At this point, we have one year's worth
of minutes, perhaps two or more, which have never been published and exist only
as written records in the hands of the current Secretary and perhaps a
scattering of other members. Not adequate for a corporation. Noel
stated that he is working on it.
Fred asked that decisions, even preliminary, should go to the membership
immediately. Merel agreed to do that.
We desperately need aircraft captains! Tow plane 30Y has been out of
annual since August and is grounded! This should not happen. Pierre
offered that all three tow planes actually do have captains; Brooks Johnson is
the captain of 30Y and seems to have rather gone missing without seeing to it
that his position is covered. Something missing in
terms of procedure here.
Chris Murray has volunteered to do something in the direction of our
relationship with the management of KAWO. Exactly what he volunteered to
do needs some clarification. Nick Constantine may be attending the
Airport Board meetings as well. We will seek clarification.
Fred raised the issue of the Web page and Noel jumped in to say that he is
nearly finished with the site redesign. The new site will be based on the
Wiki principle, allowing input from a variety of members, the input to be
defined and controlled by Wiki rules. (The word Wiki is Polynesian and
denotes something in the sense of "people working together.")
New, and very-needed features will include a Job Box (people can post jobs,
sign up for them, and mark them as finished), an aircraft Squawk System (a way
to raise issues that might ground an aircraft), and an up-to-date Aircraft
Status Board (currently a white board in the Clubhouse). Noel estimates
completion late in Dec. or early Jan. 2009.
President Elect (Gary Paulin)
Not present.
Treasurer (Marty Gibbins, )
Marty guided the meeting through the standard four pages of financial reports:
Income & Expenses; Balance Sheet; A/R Aging Summary; and Check
Details. In short, we are doing well. Even with the actual-vs-estimated cost of the engine for tow plane 17Z and the
cost of painting the two L-23's, we are still well in the black. It was
noted that the $14,500 check for the settlement of the claim on 029 is as yet
not deposited so we are that much better off. Also, the value of our tow
planes is stated as $65,000--the Super Cub alone is worth that, with
each of the Pawnees adding another $30,000 for a total of $125,000.
Some discussion of a No-Fly List, to be posted in tow planes, ensued.
Merel moved that such a list be created based on the December report and posted
in each plane. Merel also suggested a short list of names. The
motion died for lack of a second. In stead,
several members will contact the number of very-behind-in-payments members and
begin to sort out the issue.
The IRS Form 990, the Federal form for tax-exempt organizations, is
filed.
Marty's pages are attached.
Also, for the longer term, we do need to know and plan toward the expiration of
our hanger leases. Our airport committee members will get a handle on
that and report back to the Board.
Secretary (Merel O'Rourke)
In the interests of time, Merel passed.
Operations Director (Paul Sjoberg)
Paul is away on business but emailed Merel three pages of thoughts for the
meeting.
Merel read the first two of the three pages (the natives were becoming restless
by the end of page 2).
Page 1: the Apis and the Astir are not being flown significantly. They
must be flown more. His thoughts on getting people signed off on the two
ships take up that page.
Page 2: Paul's thoughts on the schedule for 2009.
First and foremost, the more people fly the more money the club makes. So
operations must be managed to increase the opportunities for people to
fly. We also need to increase the public awareness of Evergreen Soaring.
Same issue. And, we must expand the number of
FOO's.
Page 3: Paul plans to borrow the structure of the Young Eagle program from the
EAA and turn it into The Young Falcons for soaring. Young Eagles has been
working very well for the EAA for years. Take the time to read Page 3
carefully and thoughtfully.
Chief Flight Instructor (Ron Bellamy)
Bob Wander will present a Soaring Safety Seminar on Sat. 31 Jan., 2009.
Neal Karman is again making the upstairs of his hanger available for this
event. Neal's hanger is on the West side of Arlington Airport. The
seminar will start at 8:30 AM and end at 3:00 PM, with an hour break for
lunch. Bob mentioned that many of you have already heard his standard
presentations, and so would like to hear your ideas on specific topics.
RSVP (space is limited, so hurry) to mark@fishernyberg.com
.
Ron would like to alert the CFI-G's that he wants an instructors meeting to
follow Bob's, probably in mid-February.
Ron also asked about the progress toward setting up a West-Side Cross-Country
Soaring Seminar. More to follow about that, probably at
the January Board meeting.
There was follow-up discussion about our radio calls prior to landing at
KAWO. Ideally, the call should probably include the following: the glider
tail number; right or left pattern; "landing on the glider grass
runway;" to the North or South. And, of course, ships with PTT
radio/boom mics should call each turn in their
pattern.
Merel will again approach the Airport management about the Club chalking the
ends of the glider strips--the thought is to chalk GLIDERS in letters the same
size as the runway numbers. That should raise the awareness of the flying
population to our existence and help avoid the awkward presence of power craft
on "our" grass.
Equipment Director (Tony Puglisi)
The L-23 is not finished being painted--perhaps this next week or
weekend. The job was delayed by a bad batch of paint.
Ron Ries has given the L-33 "stuff" to Ron Piercy. Ron P. will bring the items when he returns
L-23 265BA to KAWO for delivery. "Stuff" includes an extra
trailer key, the parachute, and the iPaq.
Tony asked for a tour of the filing system in the Clubhouse. He, Marty,
Merel, and Noel will all meet there after the Board meeting.
The gas tow cart has been starting hard and running roughly again. Is
Dave Owen manager for it? Consensus was that he still is. Tony will
contact Dave.
Tony holds the WSSA flight library (taking up space at his house). He
will move that to the ES Clubhouse.
Scheduler (Dan Teifke)
Dan is working on scheduling details for the coming year. The Board
directed Dan to fill in FOO/FM names for both days of the weekends; pretty
clearly, volunteering isn't getting the position filled. Dan will look
over the operation logs and begin drafting FOO's. Watch the schedule for your
name!
He also had the flight-data logger that he bought, set
up, tested, and put into a nice box, all for the use of the
Club. (The Board authorized Dan to purchase this unit and then be
reimbursed.) He did a quick show and tell and then began the process of
getting his reimbursement. He will write an article describing the unit
for the GlidePath.
GlidePath Editor (Mark Nyberg)
Mark's first duty was go get himself voted in as GlidePath Editor!
Actually, Rules of Order were observed and Mark was voted in by
acclamation.
Mark is aiming for a Christmas publication. He wishes to address a number
of misconceptions among the membership that he has become aware of in his
preparation for taking this job. He will be requesting articles beginning
immediately.
Mark also mentioned that we are a large enough concern now that we could
consider self-insuring for hull insurance. Marty and others will
definitely explore this.
Mark also noted that there have been reports of people connecting to ClearWire at the airport. The Club computer has a (as
yet un-installed) wireless card ... . ClearWire is about $30.00/month. Very
reasonable.
Marty interjected that he is placing copies of all of his financial reports on
the Club PC--having an Internet connection would make his (everyones')
job much easier.
Chief Tow Pilot (Howard Glover)
Pierre P. standing in for Howard (who left to tow) repeated that 30Y needs a
manager in Brooks Johnson's absence (vacancy?). Keith McLean was
mentioned by several as having expressed an interest earlier. Pierre will
contact Keith.
Discussion followed about whether or not ES should be having 100-hour or
Annual inspections being performed on their tow planes. We are, after
all, a commercial operation with pay-flights ("demo") and tows of
Lynn Weller's commercial operation. Neal Karman cut through the somewhat
circular discussion by saying that the inspections are identical but that
because we are a commercial operation, we should be having Annual inspections
performed every 100 hours. And an IA needs to be doing those, of
course.
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Glider Committee (Gary Paulin, Chair)
Tony P. agreed to chair this committee.
Airport Committee (Chris Murray, Chair)
Not present. No report.
Constitution and By-Laws Committee (Merel O'Rourke, Chair)
Fred and Ron B. are working on additional flight rules; mostly issues for
CFI-G's and tow pilots. They will also revisit the requirements for
flying Club ships cross country, etc.
New Membership (Glenn Chouinard, Chair)
Glenn was not present. However, Fred repeated that we need some sort of
student management--an ombudsman, mentor system,
or something.
Discusion followed with Noel volunteering as
mentoring focal. Fred will follow up on this.
OLD BUSINESS:
The Board approved the Minutes of the November Board meeting and of the
Annual Meeting by acclamation.
Fred updated the Board on the 18-meter Contest in Ephrata 28 June through 09
July 2009. Both of our Pawnees are committed with some caveats. The
SGC has offered to make its Super Cub available to us at KAWO to help keep our
ships flying during that time! Having the two Super Cubs could also help
with ferrying pilots ... .
Bruce B. is part of the planning for the Region 8 Contest. He wondered if
there was interest in a Sports Class competition.
NEW BUSINESS:
Fred reviewed the expenses incurred for the Annual Meeting &
Banquet. It cost the Club about $1,000. We'll plan better next
year--this was definitely a bit of a rushed job.
The Annual Pancake Breakfast and Fly-the-Year-Out event will be Dec.
31st. Contact John Gilbert to volunteer help and for further
details.
Other Calendar of Events items.
- Fred repeated the Bob Wander presentation on 31
Jan. That will be about 6 hours.
- We will have space at the Soaring Expo, 21 & 22
March at the Museum of Flight, Boeing Field;
- EAA Annual Fly-In is 08-12 July. The EAA local
chapter really wants both a static display and demo rides this year.
NEWS:
Phoenix Helicopters has gone out of business. Mike Talley
confirmed that Out of the Blue picked up much of their furniture.
Neal Chism asked Merel to let everyone to know that ASMP has issued a call for
submissions:
2009 Spirit of Flight Photography
Juried Exhibition
February 27 – June 14, 2009
The Museum of Flight
Deadline for submissions: 19 Dec 2008
Details and entry forms at http://www.museumofflight.org/spirit-of-flight
SETTING OF THE NEXT BOARD MEETING:
The
January Board meeting will take place at 9 AM, Saturday 10 January 2009 in Neal
Karman's hanger.
Fred gaveled the meeting closed at Noon.
GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING (IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE BOARD MEETING)
Mark Nyberg had a movie of a paraglider contest in
France. Contestants "dressed up" as all sorts of things, from
cars to giant gold fish, and flew them! Amazing to see.
Fred followed that with a presentation of several flights on the West side made
by a number of our members. Graphics included.
Respectfully
submitted,
Merel R O'Rourke, ES Secretary
merelo@merelo.cnc.net
503-320-7059