Minutes

Bell-Air R/C Flyers January Monthly Meeting

January 18 th, 2010 7:00pm @ Ferndale WECU Building

E-Board members in attendance: Paul Baker – President, Mark Metge – Vice President, Renny Stefani – Treasurer, Jay Schoening – Safety Officer, Gene Tapparo – Field Marshall, Rory Cahill – Secretary and 41 faithfulls.

The meeting was called to order at 7:00pm; a sign-in sheet was passed out to the membership.

Guests were introduced – Jerry Meendrinck.

December’s minutes were read, during the reading, Russ Haines was presented the “Lifetime Club Booster Award” for his many years of service and dedication to Bell-Air and AMA. Russ gave a short speech and thanked the club for the award. The reading of the minutes was resumed. The minutes were approved as read.

Communications to the club: Donna Baker sent a thank you note to the club for the many gifts and awards she received at the December meeting.

Renny gave a complete and comprehensive Treasurer’s report for the year 2009. Thanks to good weather and well attended events, the club has a substantial amount in the kitty. Renny also went through the settlement of all outstanding debts to date. Details were on the handouts provided. These details are not available on the website.

Paul gave the President’s Report: We have sanction numbers for both Big Bird and Warbirds in hand. May 15 th & 16 th will be the IMAC contest at our field. On March 6 th at 10:00am, there will be an IMAC “boot camp” at our field put on by Peter Butschek and Jerry Ruscheinski . Volunteers for the IMAC event would really be appreciated. We need “Scribes” and “Runners” to keep the event going. If you are interested in IMAC, this is your opportunity to get insight into how the event is scored.

While Paul’s report was going on, Renny was accepting dues for the 2010 flying year. Reminder, please get your money to Renny or possibly lose your spot on the roster.

The Heritage Air Museum in Bellingham is having their Warbird open house on the same weekend as Big Bird, Paul will see if fly-bys are possible.

Paul asked members if they are interested in an electronic version of the quarterly newsletter, if you are, please contact Paul by phone or e-mail.

Paul showed off the J-3 Cub that was donated to the club; it went on the block for $175 dollars. The plane was complete with transmitter and engine. Thanks to Al Wackerbarth and Mark Metge for completing the construction. The plane was sold by meeting’s end.

Clarence Chaussee received his solo wings from Paul.

Under safety, Paul explained how he lost orientation on his plane and crashed near a group of pilots who were in deep conversation. When at the field, please be aware of what is going n around you, especially above you. A plane can go down anywhere at the field, not just the runway.

Forms for club improvements were handed out, please return to Paul.

New Business: Bill Mitchell, Wally Schwartz and Earl Cammack attended the last open house at the Heritage Air Museum. They were the only club members. It is getting to be the time of the year for more public to show up and they dearly love to play with the plane brought by the club. Open house is the 3 rd Saturday of each month. The club raffle plane will soon be available to take to such events.

This year’s plane will be an RTF foam airplane, This negates the need for the winner to have to spend lots of extra money buying fuel, starter, field box, etc.

Pylon racing this summer will include two Thursdays per month ( 1 st and 3 rd Thursdays) beginning May and continuing through August. Practice starts May 6 th with the first race on the 20 th. Start time will be 6:00pm. The final Pylon race to determine bragging rights will be held prior to the National Air Races in Reno (September 15 th – 19th).

Gene Tapparo passed out forms for fuel orders. If you were not at the meeting, contact Gene if you want to buy fuel.

Earl Cammack has a trailer available to put plane on for the Ski to Sea parade, contact him if you want to donate a plane for the day. Also Earl wanted a show of hands from those interested on a Homeland Security tour to be held on a Saturday afternoon in the near future. The Homeland Blackhawk Heli is in for repairs but when it returns in a few weeks he will get a date.

Dave Boyd said all is going well with the war between the moles and the “Rodentator” at the field. The Rodenator seems to be winning! When at the field, feel free to level mole hills with your foot, rake or any other means you have available.

Meeting adjourned at 8:30pm.

Respectfully submitted – Rory Cahill