The 2024 meeting was held at Saloman Farms starting at 12:00 PM on February 11, 2024.
Note: This is an edited version of the original. sincerely I. Thomas
We had six attendees this Sunday and Marty Ray, Teri Holston and Chris Hoff being unable to attend due to temporary medical conditions. All present joined for 2024 with the exception of one member who retired from the club. Several Loft members are also Flying Circuits members as dual memberships are a return to things as they used to be, since LOFT is a dedicated glider field and has always been an outlet for “Closet Glider Guiders” from the Circuits.
A snapshot of the Treasurer’s report was reviewed and more will be provided moving forward. We basically incurred around $250 in expenses and have in the neighborhood of $3,000 in the bank. I will see about posting a copy of the report for review by the membership.
The membership fee is now 5$ from the 2023 meeting by unanimous vote, although this is still a bargain for any club membership. We will try and set up a “fun fly” event and do the normal concessions/event raffle to fund raise for 2024. Ideas for that may be reviewed at a proposed Zoom Meeting”, which we will speak of in the next part.
Communication was noted as a serious issue, especially the COVID-induced isolation. The Google mail list was cited as a hindrance due to it being hard to see what the original conversation was about. Also noted was that a single annual meeting was not really enough to keep everyone on base with regards to what’s going on.
Since our membership is broad-based geographically, Irv Thomas recommended conducting Quarterly Zoom meetings to keep everyone informed and organized on club activities as the year goes on. This was unanimously approved. Irv will be scheduling the meetings for an 8:30 AM Saturday time slot with a Spring, Summer, and Fall meeting, followed by a Late-November/Early December round up.
We will still be having the annual Meeting/Swap Meet in January (hopefully) as per normal (which this year wasn’t, obviously.)
Darwin will be looking into communication options for the club that will function better than Google Groups (which is probably not a forever thing, anyway.) There is currently a Bulletin Board app installed on this web site, and anyone is free to sign up to use it. However, that may not be anywhere near the best solution. Darwin will report an update at the first Quarterly Zoom Meeting.
This years flying meet dates are: May 18th, June 15, July 13, August 17 and September 14th.
We have designated Thursday as our monthly get-together-and-fly day from 11:30am to 3:30 when weather permits. The official name is “Thermal Thursdays” and I will set up a permanent page on this website with information on that.
Another topic of discussion was doing all we can to partner with the Flying Circuits to provide improved glider flying activities and encourage dual membership. Irv and Scott both agreed that there might be an opportunity to get in two club meets at the Circuits field this year since the first one was well received last year. They have agreed to float the idea to the Circuits membership and board and see if there is support for that, as well as reminding glider guiders in the Circuits that LOFT is a glider only field, both powered (electric) and unpowered (winch and high start.)
A new contest format was introduced where Launch Types will take priority over wingspans by Irv Thomas and proved successful at the 2023 October joint contest with the circuits. New contest score cards will reflect this change at future contest in 2024.
Equipment was discussed. Part of the expenditure last year was for a new winch battery that ended up not getting used because of missed attendance at one meeting and then COVID. Maintaining equipment will likely be the biggest incurred cost for the club going forward. Jack is going to continue bringing his retriever out for official meet days, much to the relief of our aging membership. I have to admit, that thing works absolutely great, and Jack says it allows a 45 second turn-around in launches!
Scott Black had a nice show and tell of some of his products from the resurrected Sky Bench Lots of challenges right now for people who could sell kits hand over fist if they could just get quality balsa!
Scott Sanderson brought in a Beautiful 3m Composite sailplane for show and tell.
Ken brought in a metric butt-load of kits, most of which went home with new owners (including me.)
