January 2013 Meeting Minutes

The first chapter meeting of 2013 began with the Pledge, Dave Doherty presiding.

We approved minutes from our last meeting (November 2012).

Visitors included Charles Beysselance, who took part in ROTC through high school and ended up in law enforcement. He's recently decided to get a pilot's licence. Rick Steiner is renewing his license. He was a member long ago and is nearing retirement, ready to get back into aviation. Mike Arnold has a GP4 stored nearby in a hangar and would welcome any assistance in completing it.

We've updated the by-laws with input from HQ and sent it out to the membership for review. We will begin discussion this month and continue next month, possibly voting to approve.

Dave McGougan continues to compile our database of chapter veterans.

December 15 was our chapter Christmas party. Rod Hightower was our guest speaker and described his experience at the Reno flight school. Note that, in 2013, Bill Doherty will not be handling arrangements for our holiday event, and we'll need a new organizer.

Work continues on converting our Sonerai to a teaching tool. Jon Thayer and Don Doherty have refurbished the prop for presentation and new tires are in place for towing. Contact Don if you'd like to join this effort.

Jon Thayer has volunteered to head up a committee to refurbish the Fly Baby. Contact Jon if you'd like to assist, there will be opportunities to do woodworking and covering.

We discussed buying or leasing the Mike Saettele flight simulator currently in our office.

New Business:

Don Doherty's collecting dues for 2013.

We discussed a $450 lifetime membership, payable in three $150 payments.

Dave discussed enhancing our ID's with a photograph. He'd also like to add the photos to a board that will help us associate names with faces.

Last year was great for fundraising. This year there's a chance of hosting another B-17 tour stop, good news since we made $5,500 for last year's event. Our food coupon program continues unchanged with Ron Burnett in charge. This has netted out chapter hundreds of dollars each year.

Dave announced our chapter officers and committee members.

Our new YE Coordinator, Rick May, spoke briefly. Bill Jagust, due to unpredictability in his work schedule, has stepped aside. Rick's looking forward to this year's activities, went over the schedule, and passed around a sign-up sheet. We need volunteers across the board, from pilots to ground crew to cooks (we plan on cooking at every event).

This year we'll be doing some projects. The ARC needs attention, including paint, trim, and adding EAA32 on the front of the building. Don's continues to work on the air compressor. Tracy Smith is open to the possibility of a compass rose for the airport. We're looking at this as a possible project that would provide good publicity for our chapter.

Rob Burnett brought up the possibility an aviation camp for kids, a more thorough version of Young Eagles, or a local version of KidVenture.

The weekend of the 26th and 27th is the MACTS show in Maryland Heights. We've got a table reserved and volunteers are welcome.

We had some discussion on our revised by-laws, including a motion to state that we will publish a monthly newsletter.

Jim Bower noted that part of the Secretary's duties include maintaining the member database. He asked if we needed to specify that the secretary can delegate certain duties to other members. We considered the idea that the newsletter editor (and some other posts) are not technically chapter officers. Officer roles are spelled out by the state as required for our organization.

Joe mentioned that Herman is selling flights in the C-47 for $150 for two people, including 5 minutes of time in the left seat for one person.

Next meeting, February 16, we'll have final discussions on, and possibly vote for, the revised chapter by-laws.

March 16 we'll have an airplane show and tell, featuring Bill Peyton and his RV-10 project.

April 20 Joe Gurney will give a presentation on the Blue Angels.

May 18 will be a fly-out/drive-out meeting for a guided tour of the museum at Creve Coeur.

June 15 we'll conduct Eagle Flights: flying anyone interested in aviation and chapter members.

July 20 is our informal, pre-Oshkosh meeting.

August 17 will be our next KSET fly-in.

Our holiday banquet and awards ceremony is scheduled for December 14.

Due to a refrigerator malfunction we voted to get rid of the two old refrigerators and purchase a new unit.

Following a quick break Don Doherty gave a PowerPoint presentation regarding the state of the treasury.