Monday, January 30, 2012

January 2012 Meeting Minutes

January Meeting Minutes
Dave Deweese

January 2012's first meeting began with the Pledge, Dave Doherty presided.

There was no formal meeting for December, therefore no minutes to approve.

Comments on the Christmas party were positive, though the chapter "took a bath" due to low attendance.

Our treasurer was at the eye doctor, so no report from Don. Dave reported checking and savings balances. Don will be working on tax forms and will report on 2011 at the February meeting. Our chapter recharter, approximately $1400 (including insurance), has been completed.

Next we recognized visitors. Pat Rebert is a new member with a Onex kit on the way. New member, Mike Hanlen, who's finding it "expensive to retire", is also planning to build a plane. (Yeah, THAT’s cheap! - ed.)

Old business: Chapter Service Awards arrived two days after the party, so we're presenting them today and will mail the rest to absentees.

Talks are progressing regarding building an airplane kit at the Parkway School District. They also have a career fair coming up 3/16 where we'll have a table. Parks Air College, Women With Wings, and several others will also come.

Regarding education, we're planning to award a $500 scholarship. We're at $127 so far.

New business:
The ARC. Our contract with the airport lasts 20 years from 1998, after which our facility reverts
to the county and we've got an option to pay for using the building. We'll start working on this in the next year or so.

Our chapter by-laws, originally from the 60's/70's, need to be updated. A group met Wednesday and will continue to meet. Speak with Dave if you'd like to be involved.

Next meeting is 2/16 (Thursday) 7:00 pm at the ARC.

We're also discussing web conferencing as a way to facilitate this process.

Dave would like to post photos of chapter members on the wall, so as to better match names with faces.

The MACTS trade show and conference took place the weekend before our meeting. We were there with our new trade show booth, special thanks to Laura for the printed photographs.

Dave announced officers and committee chairpersons for 2012.

Ron Burnett has food cards available.

We discussed an upcoming Young Eagles planning meeting: we flew in the neighborhood of 200 kids in 2011.

2012 events will start in April and run through September, 2nd Saturday of each months, signups will be accepted from 9am to 12pm.

No news as of yet regarding the "Mature Eagles" program.

We're working with Dennis Bampton at the flight school and can contact Herman as well.

We discussed upcoming events including May 19: CAF is having a car show and has asked if we'd like to do food, we'll do this after the meeting, starting at noon.

June 16 is our planned date for a Chapter Fly-In and Open House. MO Pilots, CAF, and several other chapters may participate. Bob has spoken with Tracy who's fine with it. We'll also let the FBO's know. (This is the same date as meeting, this will be in lieu thereof.)

July 4 is mid-week this year. We'd like to sell food again and maybe participate in the parade.

We could use the Sonerai we received from Bill Nelson. Bud may have a light-weight trailer available that we could use to tow the plane in a parade.

Sign-ups start in the March/April time frame. Since the Sonerai is for education, not flying, one
of our first projects will be to re-cover the bird and add transparent panels to demonstrate how control surfaces are actuated.

Our meeting in July will be moved up to allow for Oshkosh.

We'll be posting an activities calendar on the door. We'd like to establish ourselves as a force for aviation in the St. Louis area.

Don Doherty's working to arrange tours of the Lambert tower. The limit will be around 24 participants, as the actual tours are limited to 6 people, and the rest have to wait.

This month we had a tour of the TRACON facility, around 30 attended.