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Evergreen Soaring
Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
Saturday, 07 February, 2009
New Members:
- Hans Sendelbach applied in person for membership.
He was accepted as a Regular Member and took his first instructional
flight after the Board Meeting.
President (Fred Hermanspann)
Fred noted that the Soaring Safety Seminar, arranged by Mark Nyberg and
anchored by Bob Wander, was a great success. More than twenty pilots from
several soaring clubs attended the event in Neal Karman's hanger.
The Soaring Expo at the Museum of Flight, Boeing Field, is rapidly approaching:
21-22 March. The plan, currently, is to have one of our L-33's and the
Apis on display. They need to be in position Friday evening before the
event. John Gilbert will manage our end of the event (Heinz G. manages
the Soaring Expo as a whole.)
We will need brochures for the Soaring Expo and for several other events
throughout the year. After some discussion, it seemed like contacting
Paul Sjoberg (who had brochures for the EAA Fly-In) should be the logical
contact for source materials.
President Elect (Gary Paulin)
Gary continues to enjoy life on the East Coast.
Treasurer (Marty Gibbins, )
Marty was traveling, on vacation. He emailed several pages of
financial reports, see attached.
Secretary (Merel O'Rourke)
Passed in the interests of expediting an unmanageably-long agenda.
Operations Director (Paul Sjoberg)
Paul is in S. California looking after his business.
Fred, based on phone calls with Paul, briefly relayed Paul's concern with the
Club's seeming inability to accept long-standing tow pilots into the
club. Paul also continues to be confused (as are we all) by the roster of
tow pilots which includes a number of people who never tow.
Paul relayed that he will have a calendar of events ready for the March Board
meeting.
Chief Flight Instructor (Ron Bellamy)
Ron amplified Fred's remarks concerning the SSF Seminar.
Ron's CFI-G follow-up meeting is currently scheduled for Saturday, 28 February,
9:00 AM at the Clubhouse. His agenda includes a discussion of the Flight
Rules that he and Fred have been working on, the teaching of stalls and spins,
proper pre-flight protocols, and the organization of a special Flight Week of
intensive all-day instruction, possibly during August.
Equipment Director (Tony Puglisi)
New ES registrations for the former WSSA aircraft have been submitted.
The processes for 64BA and 17Z have been moving more slowly than the rest but
Tony seems to have reached an understanding with the authorities.
379BA (the new L-33) may never have been registered properly by its original
owner. There is some question about the serial number.
Bruce Bulloch placed desiccant pots in the Apis trailer. Should help head
off any humidity damage to the paint. Additionally, the Apis is out of
annual. The consensus was that this time around Chris Klix should handle
it. Bruce will arrange.
14J was deemed airworthy but it was noted that the wing trailing-edge aluminum
tape did need attention. (Merel and Fred took care of all that after the
meeting and 14J is back on the flight line, available for use.)
Steve Fribley continues with the salvage of 029.
The SGS 1-34 has its annual and was returned to the flight line by Tony and
Merel.
Discussion of the possible need for a new weight and balance
on the freshly-painted L-23's. Much discussion.
In the end, the consensus was that such a weight and balance should properly
have been included in the paint job. Both ships will be conveyed to Paul
N. for W/B at the earliest opportunity.
Howard G. is reconfiguring the PDA that came with the new L-33, 379BA. Making excellent progress.
The engine replacement on tow-plane 17Z continues.
The L-23 trailer has been patched but needs work. At minimum, it also
needs two trailer tires (use of car tires, while cheaper, probably
contributed to the recent adventure), two rims, and tire covers (UV causes more
damage than use does). Tony will take care of it.
Some discussion around the L-33 trailer. If
there ever was a thread, your humble scribe lost it right out of the box.
Tony P. suggested in a subsequent email that it may have centered around getting the ship out of its box, getting it assembled
and checking it out. Works for me!
The ES trailer fleet, as a fleet, must be redefined with Washington State.
That task was delegated to Marty G.
Given that we are tentatively planning several encampments this year, the
Club's fuel tank and trailer need some attention. Tony will buy a chamois
for water/crud filtering at the nozzle end. He will begin negotiations
with Paul N. to move it back into our shed adjacent to Paul's
shop.
Tony has removed all out-of-date parachutes from the Clubhouse. He had two of
them repacked and they are back in the Clubhouse. He will have two chutes
packed per month until all are within legal limits and they will all be
returned to the Clubhouse for use. Chute #7 is the one that came with the
new L-33. It has been repacked and is available for use. The 767SS
chutes are NOT ours; they are the DG-1000 chutes and should not be used by
other-than-DG-1000 members.
As for tow carts, the gas cart is working well again. Someone (Paul
Adriance and/or Brian Hood?) serviced the batteries on the electric cart and it
is back in service. On further reflection, Tony does not want to sell the
electric cart; no Board action required on that.
NON-VOTING OFFICERS' REPORTS:
Chief Tow Pilot (Howard Glover)
Howard passed. The meeting had already gone long and he wanted to go
look at the new 17Z engine.
Scheduler (Dan Teifke)
Not present.
GlidePath Editor (Mark Nyberg)
Mark announced a new submission deadline: end of February for a March
GlidePath. He added, "Please, don't make me write; you really don't
want to make me write ... ."
Webmaster (Noel Wade)
Not present.
Insurance (Mark Nyberg) Special note: this non-voting Board position is
pending approval by the Board.
Mark has been speaking with Sue Fassett at
Costello Insurance. Sue says, "... anyone designated as 'Member'
must be a member of the SSA ... ." That
clearly includes Life, Inactive, and Social members. Looks
like we need to update our membership structure. (Glenn C. had
more to say about that below.)
All aircraft and equipment will be on a single insurance policy, to take effect
in March 2009.
Premise Insurance would cost us roughly $700/year and protect us from some
fairly common forms of incidents against which we are currently not
protected.
The Board authorized Mark to continue with obtaining insurance, costing about
$14K/yr., to include hull and premise coverage.
Much discussion ensued, again, surrounding the issue of "Tow for
hire" and "Tow not for hire." Mark will seek further
clarification. Merel offered, based on his three
years in the insurance industry (an act of desperation on his part), that
clarification is extremely unlikely--the issues raised are exactly those which
can only be determined in a court of law, on a case-by-case basis. Of
course, if you haven't obtained adequate coverage and taken appropriate
preventative measures by that point, it's too late. Administrative courts
are the worst of the worst ... .
Membership (Glenn Chouinard) Special note:
this non-voting Board position is pending approval by the Board.
Glenn made a cogent and detailed presentation with PC and projector
concerning his on-going work with the SSA regarding our membership
issues. (See Report on SSA, attached.) Much discussion ensued,
including a motion to adopt all of his recommendations as a whole--motion died
for lack of a second, since protocol requires "smaller bites."
As exactly such a small bite, Ron B. moved that for purposes of SSA Membership,
we move Social and Inactive Members off our Membership roster and into a list
of Club Associates. Tony P. seconded and the motion passed by
acclaim.
The Board then asked Glenn to prepare a "No-Fly List" and a practical
procedure for its enforcement.
- The SSA has already mailed membership reminders to all
ES members;
Random Acts of Administrative Desperation (we were about to lose
quorum).
The board approved assisting new club CFI-G's with $500 on getting their
license and paying the necessary fees for license renewal for active club
CFI-G's. Note - the first recipient of the $500 will probably be Paul
Adriance; the "old" ES board approved this for him some time
ago.
Fred reminded the Board that it had voted a tow-rate increase, to take effect
01 August 2008, which through administrative oversight had never been
implemented. It should be implemented now, beginning on 01 March
2009. Since several notices were sent out to the Membership at the time,
no further vote or notice was deemed needed.
Bruce Bulloch presented plans for a Region-8, non-sanctioned contest to take
place the weekend of the Club's Ephrata encampment. This would allow Club
pilots, new to contest flying, to get their feet wet with intensive
instruction and mentoring and without the pressures of a sanctioned
event. (See Region 8 Proposal attached.) The Board needed to
clarify several items in order to allow this event to happen:
- When would the Club hold the Ephrata encampment?
Memorial Day Weekend was set. To commence with a cross-country
seminar (Ron Bellamy) and the for-fun contest (Bruce Bulloch). The
encampment will run at least a week.
The March Board meeting will take place at 9 AM, Saturday 07 March, in the ES
Clubhouse.
The meeting was ended at 1 pm, when Ron Bellamy had to leave and we lost our
quorum.
OLD BUSINESS:
No agenda items addressed.
NEW BUSINESS:
No agenda items addressed.
NEWS:
None.
SETTING OF THE NEXT BOARD MEETING:
See above.
Fred gaveled the meeting closed at 1 PM. As noted above, we lacked a
quorum with which to conduct further business.
Respectfully
submitted,
Merel R O'Rourke, ES Secretary
merelo@merelo.cnc.net
503-320-7059