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Evergreen Soaring
Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
The meeting was called to order at 9:35 AM by President, Fred Hermanspann.
Other voting members present included: Marty Gibbins; Merel O'Rourke; Tony Puglisi; Ron Bellamy; and Paul Sjoberg.
Non-voting Board members included: Howard Glover; Glenn Chouinard; and Dan Teifke.
General membership included: Chris Murray; Pierre Parent; Keith McLean; Brad Hill; Miles Bradley; John Gilbert; Michael Delaney; Paul Adriance; and Ted Goble.
Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
New Members:
Joe Person attended for his son, CAP-soloed glider student. Applied on Ben's behalf. Ben is 15 and will turn 16 next January. Accepted by acclamation. Glenn handled the paperwork.Other Membership Issues:
The resignation of Ryan Gingles was noted.Paul Adriance still has his CFI-G written to do and of course the check ride. Paul is estimating that he has about three months to go. There was a motion to cancel his Active Membership retroactively to Jan. 2008 and to waive his $896.67 debt to the Club. After much discussion, the motion failed for lack of a second. Paul called Fred at about exactly that moment and was informed of the Board's decision. He arrived at the meeting shortly thereafter.
Some confusion surrounding the membership of Steve Northcraft. He asked about joining ES but is currently a member. Should be seeing his $0.00 due statements as a tow pilot. Merel will contact him.
Executive Officer Reports:
President (Fred Hermanspann)Soaring Season is Open! We have had our first flights of more than one hour.
John Gilbert needs his crew finalized for the 21, 22 March Soaring Expo at the Museum of Flight, Boeing Field. Contact John, sign up, be there!
President – Elect (Gary Paulin)
Still enjoying the East Coast and has mentioned in email soaring at Seminole in Florida. Misses the mountains here.
Treasurer (Marty Gibbons)
See attachments.
The P/L statement shows an expense for the DG-1000's insurance. Fred wanted to know whether or not the contract with the DG-1000 group hadn't already expired? If so why did we pay its insurance (other than the fact that the insurer almost certainly sent a bill)? Marty will pursue.
A number of issues were raised following the above. How many actual full-equivalent due-paying members do we have? 90? 75? About 65? Is the hangar proration being properly accounted for? Etc. Toward which, Marty suggested a Ways-&-Means meeting to follow the Board meeting.
Merel asked if the 990 had ever been filed. Marty says yes!
Secretary (Merel O'Rourke) Passed, in the interests of time.
Operations Director (Paul Sjoberg) See attachment,
The whole thrust of operations is to maximize cash flow into the club.
As of 21 March, the on-line schedule will be full of FOO's.
Following that, Paul will begin calling and scheduling tow pilots for Saturdays and Sundays--two for Sat., one for Sun. The roster will, incidentally, be adjusted to show only one tow pilot on Sundays. Until the number of flights requires that we add the second one back in.
Instructor calls and scheduling will follow that.
Paul is aiming for an Open House, to be advertised in the community, for the 2nd weekend of May.
Paul has been talking with the SGC which has a foundation for funding student education and the expansion of the numbers of young glider pilots. He'll continue to move forward with that in parallel with the Airport Open House.
Paine Field has it's Appreciation Day also on 16 May. (Yes, the Paine Field and Arlington open houses are the same weekend.) Paul is exploring having a glider and tow plane present, perhaps even fly in and out, for that.
The Ephrata Encampment and Region-8 Fun Contest are set to commence on Sat. 23 May. The tow plane(s) would need to be in place Friday evening. Turns out that Willamette Soaring would also like to be in Ephrata at that same time. However, they currently lack a tow pilot. Some negotiations will follow. Ron B. and Paul will handle them.
The Arlington (EAA) Fly-In is in July. We're exploring our options there. We will certainly have a display and perhaps more. Paul will keep everyone posted.
We have, for several years, had an encampment in Darrington during the Arlington Fly-In. While there are still negotiations to be worked out with the FAA and the EAA, we will keep that in mind. Hmmm, we seemed to be knocking on the door of being a four-tow-plane club!
Paul is pulling together the details needed to have a fast-track school of instruction for soaring pilots during August. The thrust would Include:
- getting transition pilots signed off for and actually taking their glider check rides;
- getting students close to solo, soloed;
- getting post-solo students signed off for check rides and arranging for that check ride
- general instruction to others as needed (in about that order).
The ground school is, however, an indication of larger training issues which Ron B. is working to address. The FAST program is one tool we're using to begin to work these issues open.
Paul asked for an update on the sign-off of Ted Goble, Paul Nyenhuis, and Steve Fribley as tow pilots. All three, Ron B. says, "are right on the brink ... ." We're hoping for the end of March at the latest.
And finally, the SGC Clubhouse at Ephrata "opens" on 04 April and some of out members will be there to help with the cleaning and opening.
Other Voting Officer Reports:
Chief CFI-G (Ron Bellamy)Good instructors meeting on the 28th of February! Ron has submitted an article about the meeting and other issues to Mark N. for publication in the GlidePath.
There will be more instruction on landings. More rope breaks. More checking to see if anyone is on base or final as a tow is about to commence. There will be a little more discussion around radio work and then we will begin getting "all on the same page" with that.
Bob Wander's How to Fly ... . continues to be the curriculum and the syllabus for the club. But Ron noted that Neal Karman, when he is giving a check ride, checks the candidate's logbook to see that each required item is logged and signed off by an instructor. The logbook rules! And of course, much of the written and practical still comes from the FAA soaring manual.
As noted above, ground school is still an open issue. More to come about that.
Equipment Director (Tony Puglisi)
L-23 265BA weight and balance (after painting) is complete.
No significant change from the previous W&B.
Sooo, no W&B on 264BA, thank you!
The control bridge on 265BA passed inspection (L-23's are now subject to the same AD as the L-13's).
L-23 264BA is now due for its control-bridge check. For the moment, Paul N. does not recommend buying spare bridges. Much discussion ensued concerning the possible cause of control-bridge cracking. We will probably try elevator locks (rather than tying back the sticks) at some point soon.
Our first L-33, 355BA, is due for its annual.
The Apis has had its annual and is ready to fly. Brad Hill recommended that the Club modify the inside of the Apis trailer to avoid damage and to facilitate much easier assembly and disassembly. Tony will alert Bruce Bullock and see if they can confer on what can be done.
Everyone agrees that we need more uniformity of instrumentation from ship to ship. This has become a real issue this year as our members have aggressively cross-checked in the Club's gliders.
The Club parachutes in the Clubhouse are all up to date. Tony pulls chutes out of the Clubhouse when they expire or some other issue arises. If it's there, use it (following the standard parachute pre-flight, of course).
Any motion on the L-23 trailer fender? Looks like there isn't, quite yet.
Keith Purvis (works in the same building as DOL) is pursuing the updating of our trailer fleet. So far, so good!
The scrapping of L-13 029 is coming along nicely.
The status of the Grob 103 deal is unknown. Fred will try to contact Tony W. who may be in Switzerland at the moment. It was noted that Stan C K. had started a Club manual for the ship. Ron B. will pursue that. (Subsequent to the meeting, Paul S. asked Tony P. to begin pursuing acquisition of the Grob 103. It is subject to on-going negotiations.)
Chris Murray jumped in to say that he will take care of servicing the Club's fire extinguishers again this year.
Non-Voting Officer Reports:
Chief Tow Pilot (Howard Glover) Today is Howard's birthday! Rousing chorus of Happy Birthday ensued!Pierre P. reported that 17Z would be airworthy by 14 March. 74D has had its annual and only needs the log books updated. 30Y's transponder needs service--the Board authorized Pierre to see to that.
Insurance (Mark Nyberg) (Pending Board Approval)
Not attending.
Membership Glenn Chouinard) (Pending Board Approval)
Glenn presented a proposal for managing the No-Fly List (attached).
Some discussion ensued but not really all that much--the plan is pretty elegant.
The plan was adopted with minor modifications, all of which are reflected in the attainment.
Scheduler (Dan Teifke)
All of the scheduling issues were dealt with during Paul S.'s time. Nothing to add here!
Glide Path Editor (Mark Nyberg)
Not attending.
Webmaster (Noel Wade)
Not attending.
Old Business:
Approval of the meeting minutes from the February Board meetings.A brief discussion of rates and fees. Brian Hood's cash-flow analysis shows that we are slowly losing money. Part of that is due to something like inflation--engines for the Pawnees once cost $30K and now cost $40K. The next one will probably cost $50K. The current tow fee was batted around a bit, as was the possible use of a fuel surcharge, to vary every few months if the price of fuel change more than 25 cents per gallon. Ultimately, the consensus was to stick with the $1.25/100 feet tow fee.
Much discussion ensued around the current per-day fee of $7.00 for non-members to tow behind our tow planes. Do we need an owner-member category again? Should our membership categories reflect all and each of the individual interests of the different flying groups? Or are we one big happy family? Much of this will be revisited.
There was a motion to eliminate the current $7.00/day non-member fee. A second motion followed in due course to implement a $20 per-tow fee for non-members towing behind our tugs. Both received seconds and both passed.
The board approved installation of a new transponder in 30Y.
New Business:
None addressed--we'd run six hours by this point.
News & Announcements:
Since the meeting Ted Goble has been signed off to tow for ES. Excellent!Also since the meeting: "A major item for the next board meeting will be an agreement with the SGC for our Ephrata operations and 18m Nationals participation. John Gilbert, Paul Sjoberg, Brad Hill and I met yesterday and came up with a proposalto be presented to the SGC. I will send this out later to the board and to Bruce Bullock." (Fred H.)
Setting of April 2009 Board meeting: Left open--Fred will find out if Gary Paulin will be back by the 1st Sat. in April. Fred will be out of the country at that time. We've certainly held meetings with a minimum quorum in the past. So, the next Board meeting is yet to be determined by email.
Fred gaveled the meeting to a close at about 3:30 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Merel R O'Rourke, ES Secretary
merelo@merelo.cnc.net
503-320-7059